Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Lots of good things in The Washington Post today following up on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s historic address last week about the importance of global Internet freedom. First, The Post has published a powerful supporting statement from Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt, entitled, “Tear Down These Virtual Walls.” Bildt notes that: [...]
Most of you have probably already seen this but Pingdom recently aggregated and posted some amazing stats about “Internet 2009 In Numbers.” Worth checking them all out, but here are some highlights: 1.73 billion Internet users worldwide as of Sept 2009; 18% increase in Internet users since previous year. 81.8 million .COM domain names at [...]
The deadline for the Google Policy Fellowship is Monday, January 25. The Progress & Freedom Foundation, where Adam Thierer, Adam Marcus and I work, is participating again this year, as are the Competitive Enterprise Institute (home to the TLF’s Ryan Radia, Wayne Crews & Alex Harris) and Cato Institute (Jim Harper & Julian Sanchez). The [...]
With China’s Internet filtering back in the spotlight, this is as good a time as any to rewatch Clay Shirky’s excellent TED talk on the political implications of the ongoing media revolution—with a fascinating case study of a recent episode in the People’s Republic. Two points that probably deserve emphasis. The first is that the [...]
Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC essentially stands for the proposition that free speech is free speech regardless of the speaker. The 5-4 majority for the Court ruled that “We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the Government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers. [...]
Is privacy a broadband issue? We think not. Privacy is based on what consumers care about, not the speed of the pipe. NetChoice filed comments today with the FCC, which were in response to the agency’s request for comments on online privacy issues. The FCC asked for comments on the use of personal information, identity [...]
Following up from Adam’s post on Hillary Clinton’s speech on global Internet freedom, here’s an interesting blog post from Nora von Ingersleben at ACT. Nora was the lucky (and only) person at the event to ask a question to our Secretary of State. Her question centered upon the practical–while it is well-and-good that companies should [...]
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel addressed the Brookings Institution earlier this week calling for government to get involved to enhance the safety, security and privacy of the “Cloud.” (Here’s a transcript of his remarks) Smith alluded to the fact that cloud computing is undergoing a powerful transformation and correctly pointed out [...]
There’s been a lot of hand-wringing lately about Google’s recent acquisitions of Teracent (ad-personalization) and AdMob (mobile ads), as well as Apple’s response, buying AdMob’s rival Quattro Wireless. Jeff Chester, true To form, quickly fired off an angry letter to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, ranting about how the Google/AdMob deal would harm consumer privacy with [...]
It’s my pleasure to welcome Carl Gipson as our latest contributor to the Technology Liberation Front. Carl is the Director for the Center for Small Business, Technology and Telecommunications at Washington Policy Center where he regularly writes about current technology policy issues. He’s also the author of The Fallacy of Network Neutrality, RFID: Balancing Technology and [...]
January 27, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
