Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Salon is reporting the FCC Chaiman Kevin Martin has been meeting privately with numerous religious and “pro-family” groups to coordinate to “address racy content on cable and satellite television.” One of those who sat in on these meetings, Rick Schatz, president of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, told Salon that [...]
Google lately seems to be taking on the world. A year ago it launched Google desktop, putting it in competition with mighty Microsoft. Version 2 was introduced last week. But in the same week, the firm also launched Google Talk – the first venture into communications for Google. Technically, by most accounts, the service isn’t [...]
Televangelist Pat Robertson recently made news with some fairly stupid comments about “taking out” Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Many critics rightly condemned Mr. Robertson’s suggestion that the United States should consider assassinating leaders of state with which we do not agree. In this case, it’s particularly outrageous since (a) Chavez has said nothing to threaten [...]
The recent decision by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to delay deciding whether to approve the .xxx top-level domain signals what could be yet another debate about “indecency” over communication networks. This time, it’s about the structure and content of the Internet, not the broadcast airwaves. And because it’s the Internet [...]
Do you want to know what the future of television might look like? Then you need to be reading this amazing new column by Diane Mermigas on Hollywood Reporter.com. Few analysts have their finger on the pulse of the modern media industry like she does. Mermigas begins her column by noting that “with television’s traditional [...]
TechCentralStation.com ran a piece of mine today on the Ensign telecom reform bill. The gist: the proposal is a good step in the right direction. And, importantly, it gets the long-stalled telecom reform show moving. Of course, actually getting reform passed will a lot harder than some thought at the beginning of this year. Here [...]
There’s been a lull in the indecency wars so far in Chairman Kevin Martin’s short tenure at the FCC–no fines have been assessed this year, compared to $7.9 million in fines in 2004. That may soon change. Mediaweek reports that the FCC has hired Penny Nance, an anti-pornography advocate and founder of the Kids First [...]
The FCC has finally put an end to the dubious 1990s experiment with “unbundling” DSL services. Or, to put it a little bluntly, the FCC has decided it will no longer expropriate the infrastructure of the Baby Bells to be used at government-mandated prices by their competitors. Various liberal commentators, such as Matt Yglesias have [...]
Econ professor Marius Schwartz just wrote a short, yet incredibly useful analysis of competition in the Internet backbone space. You can find the AEI-Brookings publication here, but if you want the summary version it’s this: there is tons of competition and the SBC/AT&T merger won’t change that. And here’s one bit you won’t want to [...]
February 13, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
