Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
While police and prosecutors have encouraged the growth of a surveillance state, they don’t seem so enthusiastic about the growth of a surveillance citizenry. Maryland and other states have recently seen privacy laws invoked to squelch the unauthorized recording of public officers performing public duties in public areas. Until courts put an end to those [...]
In my recent testimony before the House Commerce Committee on a proposal to require event data recorders in all new cars sold in the United States, I pointed out that the mandate would go far beyond what is needed to ensure safety. Indeed, the cost of EDRs raises the prices of new cars, marginally reducing [...]
There’s no sense in funding broadband subsidies with a mechanism that discourages people from subscribing to broadband.
David Leonhardt of The New York Times penned an interesting essay a few days ago entitled, “Do Video Games Equal Less Crime?” reflecting upon the same FBI crime data I wrote about earlier this week, which showed rapid drops in violent crime last year (on top of years of steady declines). Crimes of all sorts [...]
Many of my free market friends have been making the case that government action is unnecessary to address the privacy trouble in which Facebook has recently found itself. I agree with them completely. The reason is that I believe that the given choice, individuals acting in the market will act to discipline unscrupulous or stupid [...]
In a nod to the popular Dos Equis commercials, Steve DelBianco blogs about the new Facebook privacy controls and says “Stay thirsty, Facebook. We need you guys to keep innovating.” Right now you might not care much about Facebook’s ad revenue. But you might start caring if falling ad revenue forced Facebook to cut spending [...]
Today, Facebook announced significant improvements to its privacy management tools. As explained in the new Privacy Guide, this upgrade allows users to exercise greater and easier choice over sharing of their information on the site and through the site to third party applications and external websites. By giving users powerful new tools to further protect [...]
There’s an inherent paradox in the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) media ownership regulations and the new Notice of Inquiry that the agency has just launched looking into those rules. Like everything else the FCC has been doing lately, this NOI poses hundreds of questions about the topic at hand. In this case, the agency is [...]
Facebook has had a tough month. The site’s latest round of privacy changes, implemented last month, spurred stiff backlash — not just from so-called privacy advocates, but also from several U.S. Senators. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shot back with an op-ed in The Washington Post, as Braden discussed here yesterday. I’ve had much to say [...]
In this week’s episode of the Surprisingly Free Podcast, I talk to TLF’s very own Adam Thierer, president of The Progress & Freedom Foundation and the Director of its Center for Digital Media Freedom. We discuss the future of media and Adam explains recent proposals to subsidize journalists and media companies. He outlines problems with [...]
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.
