If the terms of a transaction aren’t comprehensively regulated, watch for unintended consequences when the government just regulates some of the terms.
November 2009
By Eric Beach and Adam Marcus In the previous entry in the Privacy Solutions Series, we described how privacy-sensitive users can use proxy servers to anonymize their web browsing experience, noting that one anonymizer stood out above all others: Tor, a sophisticated anonymizer system developed by the Tor Project, a 501(c)(3) U.S. non-profit venture supported [...]
By Eric Beach & Adam Marcus Among Internet users, there are a variety of concerns about privacy, security and the ability to access content. Some of these concerns are quite serious, while others may be more debatable. Regardless, the goal of this ongoing series is to detail the tools available to users to implement their [...]
One might have thought European Commission antitrust regulators had their hands full with harassing Microsoft about the “Browser Ballot” (our comments) and fining Intel, but apparently they’re already looking for new targets so they can “stay busy”: Sun disclosed on Monday that the EC had objected to the “combination of Sun’s open source MySQL database [...]
The European Commission is now designing software. And that software is Microsoft Windows… Comments of Adam Marcus & Berin Szoka to the European Commission on the Matter of Microsoft’s Browser Ballot Proposal, COMP/C-3/39.530 — Microsoft (Tying)* Submitted Nov. 9, 2009 [PDF of filing] We applaud the Commission for not repeating its earlier approach to concerns about tie-ins [...]
Along with my colleague Barbara Esbin, the Director of PFF’s Center for Communications and Competition Policy, I have just released a new paper on discussing the possibility of reallocating a portion of broadcast television spectrum for alternative purposes, namely, mobile broadband. As I discussed here before, Blair Levin, the Executive Director of the FCC’s Omnibus [...]
buck buck buck Flock Fox Dr. Fox buck Lucky lucky buck buck buck buck Flock! Lucky you! thought you! thought this stupid program! talking a! mother Fokker! should ship ship ships shipped! In case you were wondering, that’s me trying to swear using Nuance Communications’s Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the leading voice recognition software. It’s bad enough [...]
Here’s something that may appeal to transparency enthusiasts, as well as to environmental skeptics… WASHINGTON, November 9, 2009 – BroadbandCensus.com has been investigating broadband stimulus projects and focusing on the preferred projects from the states. We still lack letters to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration – or notices that states are demanding confidentiality for [...]
IDG News reports that the European Parliament has negotiated a telecom bill that “now contains a new Internet freedom provision that states that access to the Internet is a human right of every E.U. citizen, and that if authorities take away that right people must have the opportunity to defend themselves.” If indeed the bill [...]
Remember, remember the Fifth of November, The Gunpowder Treason and Plot Privacy Dashboard, so hot, I know of no reason Why the Gunpowder Treason Privacy Dashboard Should ever be forgot. Sorry, I couldn’t resist, this being Guy Fawkes day (a major traditional holiday for Britons and, more recently, geeky American libertarians such as myself, who [...]
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.