Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
At the last possible moment before the Christmas holiday, the FCC published its Report and Order on “Preserving the Open Internet,” capping off years of largely content-free “debate” on the subject of whether or not the agency needed to step in to save the Internet. In the end, only FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski fully supported [...]
In case you missed it, Saturday Night Live recently mocked the news media’s habit of inciting techno-panics (and any other panic they can). Enjoy. After the fear-inspiring ad…
I was very sad to learn this morning of the death of Alfred Kahn, the brilliant economist known as “the father of airline deregulation.” He was 93. He was a brilliant, gracious and gregarious man who never failed to have a smile on his face and make those around him smile even more. He will [...]
I highly recommend this analysis of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) new “Do Not Track” proposal by Ben Kunz over at Bloomberg Businessweek. In his essay, Kunz, the director of strategic planning at Mediassociates, a media planning and Internet strategy firm, hits many of the major themes we have developed here at the TLF when [...]
[Here's an oped of mine that recently ran on Reuters. Readers will recognize many of these themes and arguments since I have developed them here on the TLF many times before.] Privacy Regulation and the “Free” Internet by Adam Thierer, Mercatus Center at George Mason University Would you like to pay $20 a month for [...]
I was struck by the absurd title of a New York Post story from yesterday: Is Your Restaurant Spying on You? Some restaurants are—shocker—making note of your preferences and your qualities as a customer, for good or bad. That’s “spying”? Of course, headlines are meant to catch attention. The story illustrates a phenomenon that will [...]
I’m always entertained by the talk among the Twitterati — especially those who seem to permanently reside in the #NetNeutrality and #FCC hashtags — about how the Internet’s “openness” is at risk, and that steps must be taken to preserve it. Regulatory regimes are often birthed by myths, and this one is no different. Contrary [...]
The FCC’s order still isn’t out (just a news release in .DOC form), but the Commissioner’s accompanying statements are. Anyone interested in net neutrality regulation or the coming political, legal and constitutional fights over it must read the scathing dissents by Commissioners Rob McDowell and Meredith Baker. Commissioner McDowell’s jeremiad about “one of the darkest days in [...]
Citing nefarious, and completely imaginative, examples of “Big Mobile” and “Big Cable” shutting down access to the Internet, the FCC voted today to move towards greater regulatory oversight of Broadband Internet through Net Neutrality principles. (indeed, even the HuffPo is saying in the most hyperbolic way that this is “The Most Important Free Speech Issue [...]
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski can now strike “Get Net Neutrality Done” from his 2010 to-do list. The rules enacted today represent something of a compromise with the industry and are better than the sweeping regulation the FCC proposed last year—if you consider a club to the knee better than a sharp stick in the eye. [...]
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.
