Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Come one, come all. ACT will be hosting a lunch event next Tuesday (June 23) at noon on privacy, free software, and government procurement. We’ll discuss “free” software (ie. no license fees, free as in beer). It’s a nuanced take on some of what Chris Anderson will surely be talking about in his upcoming book [...]
By Berin Szoka & Adam Thierer We’ve just released a new PFF white paper (PDF) entitled, “Cyberbullying Legislation: Why Education is Preferable to Regulation.” In this 24-page study we note that, compared to previous fears about online predation, which have been greatly overblown, concerns about cyberbullying are more well-founded. Evidence suggests the cyberbullying is on [...]
In response to my essay last night about this new Free Press campaign to layer price controls on the Internet by banning metered prices via Rep. Massa’s new bill (the “Broadband Internet Fairness Act“), George Ou and Richard Bennett reminded me of some of the contradictory statements that the (Un)Free Press crew have made on [...]
Welcome to the jungle We take it day by day If you want it you’re gonna bleed But it’s the price you pay Amazon.com announced yesterday that it won’t be paying the price of affiliate advertising in North Carolina if the state uses it to assert nexus for sales tax collection. It will stop using [...]
I’ve spent the past couple of months interning for a large Silicon Valley technology company doing export compliance work. The company I’m working for does an enormous amount of its business overseas. And it exports, well, technology products, many of which are controlled. Laws ostensibly designed to prevent terrorism and proliferation in fact control way [...]
by Berin Szoka & Adam Thierer This morning, the House Energy & Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on “Behavioral Advertising: Industry Practices And Consumers’ Expectations.” If nothing else, it promises to be quite entertaining: With full-time Google bashers Jeff Chester and Scott Cleland on the agenda, the likelihood that top Google officials will be burned in [...]
You really have to hand it to the folks over at the (Un)Free Press with their endlessly shameful attempts to use doublespeak to remake the entire media, communications, and Internet landscape in their preferred Big Government image. Their latest bit of charlatanism is the so-called “Stop the Internet Rip-Off of 2009” campaign. It’s another one [...]
Rebecca MacKinnon has an important piece in the Wall Street Journal today about China’s “Green Dam Youth Escort” filtering mandate and the danger of this model catching on with other governments. “More and more governments — including democracies like Britain, Australia and Germany — are trying to control public behavior online, especially by exerting pressure [...]
. . . is for the group being convened by the Sunlight Foundation to do it. Pitch in if you can. Pass the word. I think Sunlight stands a pretty good chance, simply because the contract award will now be subject to public scrutiny. Value-for-dollar to the taxpayer will be easily discernible, and that will [...]
It’s fascinating to continue watching developments in Iran via Twitter and other social media. The fact that Twitter delayed a scheduled outage to late-night Tehran time was laudable, but contrary to a growing belief it wasn’t done at the behest of the State Department. It was done at the behest of Twitter users. Twitter makes [...]
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.
