Scott Cleland

President, Precursor^® LLC

Chairman, NetCompetition^®

I.               Summary:

Scott Cleland is a precursor: a research analyst with a track record of industry firsts and a history of spotlighting harmful industry behavior and misrepresentation. Cleland is President of Precursor^® LLC, a Fortune 500 research consultancy focused on the future of Internet competition, privacy, security, property rights, innovation and algorithmic markets. Scott Cleland is author of the book: Search & Destroy: Why You Can't Trust Google Inc.  www.SearchAndDestroyBook.com Cleland authors the widely-read www.PrecursorBlog.com; publishes www.GoogleMonitor.com; and serves as Chairman of www.NetCompetition.org, a pro-competition e-forum supported by broadband interests. Eight Congressional subcommittees have sought Cleland’s expert testimony and Institutional Investor twice ranked him the #1 independent telecom analyst. Scott Cleland has been profiled in Fortune, National Journal, Barrons, WSJ’s Smart Money, and Investors Business Daily.

II.            Precursor Track Record:  

A.    Industry firsts -- anticipating major developments before others:  

1. First analyst to foresee and predict that Congress would pass legislation replacing telecom monopoly law and regulation with competition policy, and that that change would trigger substantial consolidation of the Baby Bells and also the radio industry.

2. First investment analyst to warn investors that Internet data traffic was in fact growing sixteen times slower than the market assumed, protecting investors by debunking the bogus dotcom hyper-growth story months before the dotcom market bubble burst.

3. First analyst to figure out that WorldCom’s business model didn’t add up and also first to predict WorldCom’s bankruptcy, the market event that propelled passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley financial and research regulations.

4. First analyst to foresee and document Google’s monopolistic strategies and anti-competitive playbook for Congress and antitrust authorities, and also first to foresee Google as the primary antitrust concern of the 21^st century. (See www.Googleopoly.net.).

5. First analyst to identify (and document in congressional testimony) why Google is the single biggest threat to Americans’ privacy, and to organize the myriad of ways Google collects private information to gain Total Information Awareness Power. This precursor insight was affirmed by the FTC's landmark privacy enforcement action against Google's deceptive privacy practices.   

6. First analyst to predict privacy concerns will burst the latest Internet Bubble 2.0 because valuations incorrectly assume unfettered use of private information collected online when users overwhelmingly want/need privacy protection and Congress/regulators agree.     

B.      Watchdog History -- of spotlighting harmful industry behavior & misrepresentation:

1. Spotlighted the undisclosed conflicts of interest of Wall Street’s investment banking research, by conceiving and co-founding the Investorside Research Association, the first U.S. association of independent investment research providers and the first U.S. financial association to require members to adopt a code of ethics.

2. Explained to Congress first how conflicts-of-interest blinded the system to the warning signs of Enron’s record bankruptcy, which was precipitated by broadband trading fraud.

3. Organized the broadband industry via www.Netcompetition.org to expose and debunk the misrepresentation of broadband competition and the alleged problem of net neutrality.

4. Analyzed why several proposed mergers were anti-competitive: Echostar-DirecTV, Google-DoubleClick, Google-Admob, and Google-ITA. 

5. Created www.Googleopoly.net to document, explain and anticipate Google’s monopoly and anti-competitive behavior and created www.GoogleMonitor.com, a website dedicated to making Google more transparent and accountable. Wrote first comprehensive book ever to test the trustworthiness of Google's public representations on: privacy, property, security, conflicts, accountability, ethics, and being unbiased. Search & Destroy: Why You Can't Trust Google Inc. www.SearchAndDestroyBook.com.

6. Spotlighted and explained first the systemic destabilizing effect of indexing financial instruments on the overall financial system and capital formation.

III.          Private Sector Experience:

Precursor^® LLC is a research consultancy for Fortune 500 companies, focused on the future of Internet competition, privacy, security, property rights, innovation and algorithmic markets. www.Precursor.com  Precursor^® LLC specializes in anticipating, bringing clarity-of-thought, and applying framework analysis to complex emerging Internet problems before others sort them out. Scott Cleland is also a leading expert on Google, having closely followed Google as an analyst for most of its existence and having testified before Congress on Google on three occasions. As publisher of www.GoogleMonitor.com, www.Googleopoly.net, and www.SearchAndDestroyBook.com, Precursor^® LLC has a market-leading research specialty in monitoring Google’s increasingly disproportionate impact on Internet competition, antitrust, security, privacy, property rights, innovation, and public policy. Cleland authors www.PrecursorBlog.com, which Wired Magazine described as “widely-read.” Scott Cleland also serves as Chairman of NetCompetition.org^®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Precursor LLC and a pro-competition e-forum which provides analysis and insights for broadband telecom, cable and wireless companies. 

Previously, Scott Cleland served institutional investors as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Precursor Group^® Inc. Cleland founded and co-built the Precursor Group^® Broker Dealer from scratch to the #1 Institutional Investor-recognized independent research firm in communications in four years. The firm served most of the top investment institutions in the U.S., including 39 of the top 50. At that time and in that role, Cleland was well-known as one of the most-widely quoted and interviewed analysts in the United States. Overall Cleland has thirteen years experience in the institutional investment business including working for Legg Mason and the Schwab Washington Research Group.

IV.          Public Service:

Scott Cleland serves as a member of the United States Department of State Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy. In 2002, Cleland conceived and was the Founding Chairman of the Investorside Research Association, the first and only association of independent research firms. Also in 2002, Institutional Investor Magazine called Cleland “the de facto spokesperson for the independent research community.” During this time, he testified before Congress on both the conflicts-of-interest and accounting tricks that contributed to widespread telecom bankruptcies and Internet fraud during the dotcom market bubble. In addition, Cleland was the lead source and primary analyst for Hedrick Smith’s Emmy Award winning PBS Frontline Special, “The Wall Street Fix.” Cleland has testified before Congress sixteen times before eight different subcommittees on variety of forward-looking issues.   

Scott Cleland’s career as a public servant concluded in 1992 as the Deputy United States Coordinator for Communication and Information Policy at the U.S. Department of State, serving President H.W. Bush. Previously, Cleland served as a Senior Policy Advisor to the then Secretary of State James A. Baker III; he received the Superior Honor Award for his role as the lead congressional briefer to Secretary Baker on all foreign policy matters during the first Gulf War and the dissolution of the former Soviet Union. Prior to that, he served as Director of Legislative Affairs for the U.S. Department of Treasury and as a Budget Examiner for OMB in the U.S. Executive Office of the President.

V.             Education:

Scott Cleland has a Masters of Public Affairs from LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a BA in Political Science from Kalamazoo College. In 2000, Cleland earned Kalamazoo College’s Distinguished Achievement Award.

VI.          Precursor LLC Web Properties: 

1. Precursor.com
2. PrecursorBlog.com
3. NetCompetition.org
4. GoogleMonitor.com
5. Googleopoly.net
6. SearchAndDestroyBook.com

VII.       Scott Cleland Op-Eds

1.  "Courts, not FTC, Should Decide on Google Practices," The Hill, December, 10, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/dyapfl8
2. "Why U.S. Communications Law is Obsolete," The Daily Caller,  June 25, 2012, http://thedc.com/MRBlU2
3. "Obsolete communications law stifles innovation, hurts consumers," The Daily Caller, May 5, 2012, http://thedc.com/Iuo9Hw 
4. "EU Filling FTC Void in Google Privacy Enforcement," The Daily Caller, March 7, 2012;  http;//thedc.com/at0dzp
5. "Do No Evil? Google's Deceptive Practices Harm Consumers," Forbes CIO Network, July 15, 2011, http://onforb.es/pdJLM2  
6. "Google's Pirate Side," The Daily Caller, June 6, 2011, http://thedc.com/kn1Ncj 
7. "Big Brother Inc.," The Huffington Post, May 23, 2011, http://huff.to/kN9iE0 
8. "Google Disregards the Law" Forbes CIO Network, May 12, 2011, http://onforb.es/MVDIp9
9. "E-totalitarianism at Google" The Washington Times, May 9, 2011, http://bit.ly/lwKfuX
10. "Wake Up to Google’s Threat to Journalism” The Seattle Times, February 6, 2009;  http://bit.ly/1MnPle
11. “Googleopoly Darkens the Future of Innovation” The Atlanta Journal Constitution, November 27, 2008; http://bit.ly/Myv9VB 
12. “The Ultimate Internet Gatekeeper” The Washington Times, September 30, 2007; http://bit.ly/Lecz24
13. “America’s Unique Internet Success” The Washington Times, March 1, 2007;  http://bit.ly/M1u0H8
14. “Follow the Money to Wall Street’s Big Secret” The Financial Times, November, 8, 2002 

 VIII.      Selected Scott Cleland Media Profiles/Interviews       

IX.     Scott Cleland Congressional Testimony  

1. House Judiciary Competition Subcommittee, September 16, 2010, Hearing on “Competition in the Evolving Digital Marketplace,” “The Evolving Competition Digital Dichotomy & Why Googleopoly is the Main Antitrust Event”; Scott Cleland, President Precursor LLC; http://bit.ly/P75pfs 

2. Joint House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee, June 18, 2009, Joint Hearing on Behavioral Advertising, “Why A Consumer-Driven, Technology/Competition-Neutral, Privacy Framework Is Superior to a Default ‘Finders Keepers Losers Weepers’ Privacy Framework,”  Scott Cleland, President Precursor LLC; http://bit.ly/3e9aBh

3. House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Internet Hearing, July 17, 2008, “The Blind Eye to Privacy Law Arbitrage by Google -- Broadly Threatens Respect for Privacy,” Scott Cleland, Precursor LLC, http://bit.ly/LWec3x 

4. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee On Antitrust, September 27, 2007, “Google-DoubleClick Merger and the Online Advertising Industry,” “The Google-DoubleClick Anti-competitive Case; Scott Cleland, President Precursor LLC; http://bit.ly/OsmMJm 

5. Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, October 19, 2005, “Video and Telecom Competition is Increasingly Vibrant and Here to Stay, Recommendations on Telecom Reform Legislation,” Scott Cleland, CEO of Precursor Group; Inc.; http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=1642&wit_id=4710 

6. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, April 19, 2005, "Telecom Mergers in a Techcom World: How Antitrust Must Adapt to the Techcom Future," Scott Cleland, CEO of Precursor Group Inc.; http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=1465&wit_id=4175 

7. Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, February 11, 2004, Oversight Hearing, “Cable Competition – Increasing Price; Increasing Value?,”  Scott Cleland, CEO Precursor Group Inc.; http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=1041&wit_id=2952 

8. Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, June 18, 2003, Oversight Hearing, “NewsCorp/Hughes Proposed Merger,” Scott Cleland, CEO Precursor Group Inc., http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=813&wit_id=2313 

9. House Financial Services Committee Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises, June 18, 2003, “Mutual Funds Integrity and Fee Transparency Act of 2003,” Scott Cleland, CEO Precursor Group, http://www.investorside.org/pdf/testimony_Written_Testimony_on_Soft_Dollars_6-16-03.pdf 

10. House Financial Services Oversight Subcommittee, March 21, 2002, “Global Crossing’s Bankruptcy: A Window Into a Broken System of Protecting Investors,” Scott Cleland, CEO Precursor Group Inc.;  http://www.investorside.org/pdf/testimony_ClelandCombinedTestimony_3-21-02.pdf 

11. Senate Commerce Committee, Panel on Consumer Affairs, December 18, 2001, Hearing on Enron Bankruptcy, “Conflicts of Interest Are Eroding the Market’s Integrity and Internal Controls,” Scott Cleland, CEO Precursor Group Inc.  http://www.investorside.org/pdf/testimony_SenateEnronTestimony_12-18-01.pdf 

12. House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, June 14, 2001, “Who’s Looking Out for Investors?” Scott Cleland, CEO Precursor Group Inc.; http://www.investorside.org/pdf/testimony_ClelandTestimony_6-14-01.pdf 

13. House Judiciary Committee, June 5, 2001, Oversight Hearing, “House Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act of 2001,” Scott Cleland, Precursor Group Inc.; http://judiciary.house.gov/legacy/72979.pdf 

14. House Judiciary Committee, July 18, 2000, Legislative Hearing on H.R. 1686, the "Internet Freedom Act" and H.R. 1685, the "Internet Growth and Development Act of 1999", Scott Cleland, CEO Precursor Group Inc.; http://judiciary.house.gov/legacy/na071700.htm 

15. House Judiciary Committee, June 30, 1999, House Internet Freedom Act and Internet Growth, Development Act of 1999, Scott Cleland, http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju63550.000/hju63550_0.HTM#93 

16. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights and Competition May 19, 1998, Telephone Industry Consolidation, Scott Cleland, Managing Director, Legg Mason Precursor Group; http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/B?r105:@FIELD(FLD003+d)+@FIELD(DDATE+19980519)      

Contact:

Info@Precursor.com

202-828-7800