Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Yo people, help me build this list of the best Internet and digital technology (“Info-Tech”) policy reporters on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AdamThierer/infotech-policy-reporters/members I’m trying to make sure I’m following the best reporters out there who cover public policy developments related to the Internet, cyberlaw, digital media, and so on. I’ve got just under 50 reporters on there [...]
I was just digging through some old files and came across a quote that I found entertaining. Back in 2003, when he was still president and chief operating officer of Viacom, Mel Karmazin said with reference to Microsoft, AOL-Time Warner, and Comcast: “I can’t imagine being a competitor with any of these guys.” At the [...]
Rep. Bart Stupak, (D-MI) recently introduced the ‘‘Online Age Verification and Child Safety Act’’ (H.R. 4059), which would require mandatory online age verification for “any pornographic website accessible by any computer located within the United States to display any pornographic material, including free content that may be available prior to the purchase of a subscription [...]
As I noted in a recent paper with my PFF colleague Barbara Esbin (“An Offer They Can’t Refuse: Spectrum Reallocation That Can Benefit Consumers, Broadcasters & the Mobile Broadband Sector“) an official at the Federal Communications Commission (Blair Levin) recently suggested that it might be possible to craft a grand bargain whereby television broadcasters get [...]
If you really want to understand this year’s retail sales picture, wait for statistics about the online shopping that happens the Monday after Thanksgiving.
Great story in Wired about how Apple disrupted Microsoft’s mobile OS lead, again illustrating how quickly today’s leaders can, and probably will, become tomorrow’s laggards in the topsy-turvy tech biz. And on the benefits of Apple’s heretical “closedness”: The iPhone operates on a closed system, which can only run on Apple hardware, meaning third- party [...]
I wrote here a couple of months ago about the shady practice among a few Internet retailers of handing off customers who accept a “special offer” to a company that charges people a monthly fee for some kind of credit monitoring service. And I argued hopefully that maybe technologists and the Internet community could generate [...]
Adam has done yeoman’s work for years pointing out, and arguing against, the phenomenon of techno-panic as it relates to children. That’s not the only area in which techno-panic can tighten its grip on the neck of common sense and the constitution, of course. But here’s a delight I ran across this morning: the Los [...]
Great NPR story today on how online social networking is helping to bring medical patients together to talk about their conditions and compare treatments. The story quotes Susannah Fox of the Pew Internet and American Life Project: “They are posting their first-person accounts of treatments and side effects from medications,” says Fox. “They are recording [...]
This will be a busy week for those who follow privacy policy in Washington: Monday (11/16) 11 am: the coalition of 10 so-called “privacy advocacy” groups that recently demanded sweeping regulation of online data collection and use will be holding a briefing for congressional staffers on their demands in 2322 Rayburn House Office Building. Wednesday [...]
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.
