Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Adam Thierer and I have been trying to drive home a simple message in the ongoing debate about targeted online advertising and privacy: ”There is no Free Lunch!” We don’t have a lot of friends in this debate, since nearly everyone else seems to assume that online content and services will just continue to fall [...]
I received a mailing (see poorly taken iPhone photo) from Comcast a few days ago and I thought it was worth talking about from a libertarian perspective. I’m all for companies taking advantage of the digital changeover to make a little extra scratch, so long as they’re honest in doing so. This mailer never explicitly [...]
You hear it all the time. People complain that they can’t get away from Facebook, Twitter, or even email—that the technology we own ends up owning us, or some similar cliche line about the digital dystopia that is consuming our humanity one bit at a time. I can’t stand these people. Thankfully there are people [...]
A new coalition, NoChokePoints, has been formed to lobby Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to further regulate the prices that incumbent telephone companies (Regional Bell Operating Companies or Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers) can charge for special access services purchased by businesses and institutions. Special access circuits are dedicated, private lines. For example, Sprint purchases [...]
Small cellphone operators want Congress or the Federal Communications Commission to prohibit larger carriers from becoming exclusive providers of popular handsets, like the Apple iPhone (AT&T), Blackberry Storm (Verizon Wireless), Palm Pre (Sprint) and Samsung Behold (T-Mobile). John E. Rooney, President and CEO of United States Cellular Corp., testified at a recent Senate Commerce Committee [...]
Over at SiliconAngle, my friend Andrew Feinberg has posted an interesting column defending federal oversight of “sponsored blogging,” or blogging that might be in some way be tied to a financial interest. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is now looking into that matter and threatening to bring the blogosphere under the thumb of federal regulators. [...]
Last summer, my PFF colleague Barbara Esbin and I explained that, while many consumers dislike not being able to get popular smartphones like the iPhone on the wireless network of their choice, such exclusive deals actually benefit consumers. Barbara summarizes her testimony (PDF) as follows: the dynamic created by the exclusive arrangement between Apple and [...]
PFF Adjunct Fellow Mike Palage, who served on the ICANN board from 2003 to 2006, filed these comments (PDF) on the NTIA’s recent Notice of Inquiry regarding ICANN’s future. Mike’s four key points were as follows: ICANN’s Periodic Review of its internal operations and supporting organizations has failed, and has become nothing more than a “perpetual motion [...]
I previously lauded the Sunlight Foundation for its intention to bid on the contract for updating Recovery.gov. There’s been extensive excessive discussion of it on the Open House Project Google group. The general theme among the one or two critics has been “leave the incompetence to the experts.” They’ve been a bit curmedgeonly, frankly. But [...]
In episode #44 of “Tech Policy Weekly,” Berin Szoka and Adam Thierer engage in a debate with Internet security expert Chris Soghoian, who is a student fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. He is also a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University’s School of Informatics. Chris is an up-and-coming star [...]
May 21, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
