Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Toll-free number allocation remains one of the last vestiges of telecom’s monopoly era. Unlike Internet domain names, there is no organized way of requesting, registering, reserving, purchasing 800, 888, 877, 866, or the newly available 855 numbers, the five prefixes that currently designate toll-free service. If you’re lucky or creative enough, you can visit any [...]
This week I will be attending two terrific conferences on Sec. 230 and Internet intermediary liability issues. On Thursday, the Stanford Technology Law Review hosts an all-day event on “Secondary and Intermediary Liability on the Internet” at the Stanford Law School. It includes 3 major panels on intermediary liability as it pertains to copyright, trademark, [...]
[Cross-posted at Truth on the Market] [UPDATE: Josh links to a WSJ article telling us that EU antitrust enforcers raided several (unnamed) e-book publishers as part of an apparent antitrust investigation into the agency model and whether it is "improperly restrictive." Whatever that means. Key grafs: At issue for antitrust regulators is whether agency models are improperly [...]
Nate Anderson of Ars Technica has posted an interview with Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) about Defining Internet “Freedom”. Neither Sen. Franken nor Mr. Anderson ever get around to defining that term in their exchange, but the clear implication from the piece is that “freedom” means freedom for the government to plan more and for policymakers [...]
Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, discusses identification systems. He talks about REAL ID, a national uniform ID law passed in 2005 that states have contested, and NSTIC, a more recent government proposal to create an online identification “ecosystem.” Harper discusses some of the hidden costs of establishing national identification systems and why doing so is not a proper role of government. He also comments on the reasoning behind national ID proposals and talks about practical, beneficial limits to transparency.
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.
