Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Many folks will no doubt be writing a lot about the competitive issues surrounding the announced AT&T/T-Mobile merger, so instead I thought I’d weigh in on what I know best: spectrum. To the extent you’re worried about the concentration of the wireless market, you should really be concerned about the government policies that make entry [...]
In the rush of ink that flowed yesterday over AT&T’s announced merger with T-Mobile USA, I posted a long piece on CNET calling for calm, reasoned analysis of the deal by regulators, chiefly the Department of Justice and the FCC. Since the details of the deal have yet to be fleshed out, it’s hard to [...]
I guess the search for market failure in the privacy area is interesting to me. I wrote about it the other week too. It’s nice that those who prefer regulation feel obligated to justify that preference. It’s acknowledgment of the fact, increasingly well-accepted worldwide, that functioning free markets do a better job of discovering and [...]
Today, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on “The State of Online Consumer Privacy.” The push for online privacy regulation has real momentum, as proposed privacy legislation from numerous lawmakers, a Department of Commerce report proposing a compulsory Do Not Track mechanism to regulate business marketing practices, and the Obama Administration’s proposed “Privacy [...]
My thanks to Linton Weeks of NPR who reached out to me for comment for a story he was doing on the impact of the Internet and digital technology on culture and our attention spans. His essay, “We Are Just Not Digging The Whole Anymore,” is an interesting exploration of the issue, although it is [...]
National Journal reports that the Department of Commerce (NTIA) will, at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing today, call for a “consumer privacy bill of rights”—a euphemism for sweeping privacy regulation: “Having carefully reviewed all stakeholder comments to the Green Paper, the department has concluded that the U.S. consumer data privacy framework will benefit from legislation to establish [...]
One of the arguments I’ve been making about proposed cybersecurity regulation and legislation is that despite a lot of hype about a massive online threat, there is little evidence to corroborate the dire warnings. Almost every article I’ve read revealing a breach or cyberattack only quotes anonymous government sources, then defense contractors and politicians point [...]
Over at Neighborhood Effects, the Mercatus Center’s state and local policy blog, my colleague Dan Rothschild compares wireless taxes to sin taxes. His analysis is too good not to reprint here in large part: The purpose of taxes is to raise money for necessary governmental functions. To that end, economists frequently prescribe that rates be [...]
On numerous occasions here and elsewhere I have cited the enormous influence that Virginia Postrel’s 1998 book, The Future and Its Enemies, has had on me. Her “dynamist” versus “stasis” paradigm helps us frame and better understand almost all debates about technological progress. I cannot recommend that book highly enough. In her latest Wall Street [...]
Twitter could be in for a world of potential pain. Regulatory pain, that is. The company’s announcement on Friday that it would soon be cracking down on the uses of its API by third parties is raising eyebrows in cyberspace and, if recent regulatory history is any indicator, this high-tech innovator could soon face some [...]
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.
