Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
This is the final installment of my 10-part series of essays that have coincided with “Internet Safety Month.” Many of these essays have focused on the variety of parental controls tools on the market that can help parents better control, or at least monitor, their children’s Internet usage or online communications. (See parts 1, 2, [...]
Ed Felten and Tim Wu both have interesting posts on the release of the iPhone. In a sense, they make precisely the same technical observation—that more open wireless networks would be good for innovation—but Felten is an optimist about it, while Wu is a pessimist. First, here’s Wu: the iPhone is locked, as is de [...]
Via Luis, I don’t know if there’s a specific policy angle, but this talk by Eben Moglen at Google is interesting: The really interesting thing about this talk, from my perspective, is that it illustrates the extent to which the free software community is driven by informal norms and the power of reputation. Moglen’s basic [...]
The Federal Trade Commission is “unaware of any significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm from conduct by broadband providers,” according to a Staff Report on Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy, which advises: Policy makers should be wary of enacting regulation solely to prevent prospective harm to consumer welfare, particularly given the indeterminate effects on such [...]
It’s no secret that the Fairness Doctrine isn’t popular in the talk radio world. The effort to revive the rule is largely aimed at curbing that media, and most major talk shows hosts have (rightfully) turned the idea into a policy pinata. Less well known, however, is the fact that the Fairness Doctrine is also [...]
Congress considers allowing Internet gambling ban, Frontline proposes open access spectrum rules, and trade secrets trump e-voting source code disclosure. The show’s panelists this week are Jerry Brito, Tim Lee, Hance Haney, Radley Balko, and Ryan Paul.
Only a couple of days ago, it seems like the debate over the Fairness Doctrine was fading. Opponents were reduced to citing overheard elevator conversations for Pete’s sake. Then the dam burst. So far this week three Democratic senators have come out in support of reimposing the restriction. (One — John Kerry — was probably [...]
Yesterday, the immigration reform bill stumbled over the bill’s REAL ID provisions, which attempt to revive the moribund U.S. national ID system. Apparently, REAL ID does not enjoy the support of a majority of Senators. Though Senate procedure is quite murky to me, apparently the Baucus-Tester amendment, to strip REAL ID-related requirements from the immigration [...]
Tom Lee has a great post on this New York Times article, which looks at the pressing problem of culinary piracy. Tom points out that the law is very clear—you can’t prevent other people from copying your recipes—and that’s a good thing: All of this ignores the public domain innovations that Ms. Charles benefits from, [...]
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.
