Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
I should probably say a bit more about the substance of Ben’s property rights post, which wasn’t primarily a critique of people with tacky property rights websites. Ben focuses on the conceptually sound idea that property rights are really bundles of rights to dispose of particular things in particular ways. He emphasizes the diversity of [...]
I’ve gotten an unusually strong reaction to a TechKnowledge piece that went out today describing how the Nordstrom retail chain is capitalizing on a Patent and Trademark Office error to throw a small business under the bus. Beckons is an organic yoga and lifestyle clothing business that Nordstrom is trying to force off of a [...]
Ben Klemens, whose work I’ve praised in this space in the past, has a new essay up that I found a little bit aggravating. It’s on the perennial question of whether it makes sense to describe patents and copyrights as property. I’ve been a critic of the term “intellectual property” for a few years. Ben’s [...]
In discussions about data-intensive government programs like watchlists, people often talk about the importance of “redress” – giving the public some way to correct information or dispute adverse decisions arising from these programs. “Redress” is a misnomer that diminishes the importance of the subject at hand. Constitutional Due Process is what’s at stake. So says [...]
Google’s latest major launch is “Latitude,” a geo-location service that lets users find friends on a digital map and then network with them. These services are often referred to as “LBS,” which stands for “location-based services.” I wrote about LBS here before in my essay on “The Next Great Technopanic: Wireless Geo-Location / Social Mapping.” [...]
Eric Goldman is the man. His “Technology & Marketing Law Blog” is must-reading for cyberlaw geeks; packed with indispensable updates and insights about breaking development in the world of Internet law. Anyway, he’s just published his “2008 Cyberlaw Year-in-Review,” which provides a comprehensive overview of the major developments and cases from the past year. This [...]
Over at TVNewsday, Harry A. Jessell writes: I don’t like the way the new FCC is shaping up. There’s something missing. My concern has nothing to do with Julius Genachowski, whom the president has reportedly tapped for chairman…. What I’m having trouble with are the names popping up for the Republican seat…. All [the rumored [...]
The news of octuplets born recently near Los Angeles shocked many people, especially since the mother, Nadya Suleman, already had six children and is reported to be jobless and living with her parents. Such rare stories certainly sell newspapers, but they can also lead to knee-jerk calls for overly restrictive regulation, which threaten freedom and [...]
I hate the term “cloud computing” because it denies the duties and responsibilities of network operators and software and database managers. It’s like a George Carlin bit: “I didn’t breach the data. The cloud did it! It was out in the cloud! How did the government get my private data? It got it from the [...]
January 29, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
