About Adam Thierer
Adam Thierer is a Senior Fellow with the Progress & Freedom Foundation and the Director of PFF's Center for Digital Media Freedom. He formerly served as Director of Telecommunications Studies at the Cato Institute for four years and as a Fellow in Economic Policy at the Heritage Foundation for nine years. He is the author or editor of six books on technology and media policy. Thierer earned his bachelor's degree in political science and journalism at Indiana University and received his master's degree in international business management and trade theory at the University of Maryland. In his spare time he: burns through his savings buying sports cars on E-Bay, enjoys drinking fine English cask-conditioned ales (but not while driving the aforementioned sports cars), plays far too many video games for a man of his age, and teaches his kids how to draw pencil mustaches and devil horns on pictures of politicians.Posts by Adam Thierer
- Is the Public Interest Standard Really a Standard?
- Safe Search Tools & Portals for Kids - The List Keeps Growing
- Porn on Planes: 3 Possible Solutions
- Almost makes me want to buy an iPhone…
- Ubiquity for Firefox = Best App of the Year
- And the “Luddite of the Year” Award Goes to…
- An Unnatural Modern Fascination with Murder and Celebrities?
- Too Much Platform Competition?
- More on M2Z / AWS spectrum fight
- The Wrong Way to Make Local Broadcasting Relevant Again
- Media Deconsolidation (Part 23): Cox Selling Most of its Newspapers
- FCC v. Fox Television: All the Supreme Court briefs are in
- Get Ready for Internet Advertising Regulation “for the Children”
- Why Google Is a Media Company
- Enough anti-iPhone rants… just get another phone!
- What the Media Reformistas Really Want
- I would send my kids to this summer camp…
- Another muni wi-fi failure (Portland), and taxpayers will pick up the tab
- CDT-PFF Supreme Court Brief in FCC v. Fox Case
- True Cost of Video Game Censorship (continued)
- Broadband access platforms & speeds over 3 decades
- Cerf on managing networks & the need for industry discussion
- Excellent discussion on broadband metering
- Should it be illegal to text or talk while walking down the road?
- Product Placement in Historical Context
- Tim Wu’s “Mother-May-I” World of Net Neutrality Regulation
- NPR spot on Third Circuit decision in Janet Jackson case
- Joint FCC Filing on Internet Filtering Plan for AWS-3 Spectrum
- Australian ISP-Level Content Filtering Report Released
- Our First Net Neutrality Law: Congrats to our Big Gov’t Opponents
- COPA Falls Again; Is Historic 3rd Trip to Supremes Coming?
- “Scientific” Media Ratings & Labels: What Exactly Does That Mean?
- Local Web Ads and the Future of Newspapers
- 2008 edition of “Essential Facts about Video Games” is out
- 3rd Circuit ruling against FCC in Janet Jackson case
- Primer on Mobile TV Market
- Felten on The Decline of Localist Broadcasting Policies
- Why I love MythBusters…
- Newspaper Deathwatch?
- Best Albums Since Your Birth
- Dear Gov. Patterson… Regarding that Video Game Bill You Are About to Sign
- Media Metrics: The Report
- Declan on Google-Microsoft Antitrust Shenanigans
- Is Piracy Killing PC Gaming?
- The Next Great Technopanic: Wireless Geo-Location / Social Mapping
- A La Carte Regulation and the Failure of Good Intentions
- iPhone 2.0 cracked in hours… what was that Zittrain thesis again?
- Technopanics and the Great Social Networking Scare
- Liberals Abandoning the First Amendment, Part 3: The Fox Case
- Social Media Slide Show
- Our Continued Wishful Thinking about “Media Localism”
- Pacifica Anniversary Week, Part 6 (Further reading)
- Pacifica Anniversary Week, Part 5 (CDT-PFF joint editorial)
- Pacifica Anniversary Week, Part 4 (Pervasiveness is Moot)
- Understanding The True Cost of Video Game Censorship Efforts
- Another muni wi-fi failure (Oakland Wireless)
- Pacifica Anniversary Week, Part 3 (Pacifica’s Pretzel Logic)
- The ‘Contradictory Ideals’ of Internet for Everyone campaign
- Pacifica Anniversary Week, Part 2 (Brief History of Indecency Enforcement)
- Pacifica Anniversary Week, Part 1 (General Overview)
- Regulators to Save Us from Loud TV Ads and Product Placements
- XM-Sirius, regulatory blackmail, and diversity
- Dumb and Dumberer?
- Our Exceptional First Amendment
- Meyerson on Zell: The Idiocy of Equating Media Reinvention to Terrorism
- What’s Worse Than Rigged Auctions & Internet Censorship? How About Both in One Package!
- Cuban on bandwidth hogs and tiered broadband
- A “Technology Sabbath” to Alleviate Info Overload?
- Welcoming Berin Szoka to the TLF
- Is There an Openness-Bandwidth Trade-off?
- Hitting the Reset Button after an Info-Free Vacation
- Cellphones, Freedom and the Cuban Embargo
- Everiss on Kids, Government, and Grand Theft Auto
- Video Game Platform Competition
- Why Are Some Muni WiFi Experiments Failing?
- Wireless Substitution: Some New CDC Numbers
- “The Most Powerful Computer Ever”
- The Rise & Inevitable Fall of Tech Giants
- Where is the FCC’s Annual Video Competition Report?
- Forbes on “Making Social [Networking] Sites Safer”
- my debate with Zittrain on NPR-Boston
- Will they age-verify the Pope?
- sensible thinking on TV sports contracts
- latest FTC “secret shopper” survey shows improving ratings enforcement
- Comcast to move to bandwidth cap / metering solution?
- need help… How many blogs are there out there?
- embedded Scribd presentations… just awesome
- Virginia points the way on Internet safety
- Obama on Grand Theft Auto and personal responsibility
- When gamers go mainstream
- What’s pointless about fun?
- Floppy disk humor
- Are the threats to online free speech real?
- Media Deconsolidation (Part 22): TW spin-off of cable unit
- Yale / CFP’s “9.5 Theses for Technology Policy in the Next Administration”
- Do video games create cop killers?
- Why both the Left & Right love media regulation
- Manjoo on “Grand Theft Auto 4″ hysteria
- review: Dr. Kourosh Dini’s “Video Game Play & Addiction”
- Students, Cyber-Bullying, & Online Free Speech
- Bruce Everiss on video game piracy
- Britannica Blog’s excellent “Newspapers & the Net” forum
- Video games, pro wrestling, and the politics of hypocrisy
- Justine Bateman, Net Neutrality & Celebrity Witnesses
- Crovitz’s Information Age
- a great pronking hearing
- Beware of hot chicks offering chocolate bars
- Can the French really ban pro-thin websites?
- review: Kutner & Olson’s “Grand Theft Childhood”
- another problem for the Zittrain thesis — old people!
- The Perils of Mandatory Parental Controls and Restrictive Defaults
- Shall we censor newspapers “for the children”?
- What would we do without the FCC?
- great piece on online behavioral marketing and privacy
- the Wikipedia Wars continue
- Micropayments reconsidered
- Sunstein’s “libertarian paternalism” is really just paternalism
- Twilight for TV Critics?
- presentation at PSU’s conference on future of video games
- “Spectrum Talk” blog
- Apple, openness, and the Zittrain thesis
- coverage from Tech Policy Summit
- Byron Commission (UK) report - initial thoughts
- “Critical blow” for broadcasters in the ad market?
- Ike Elliott’s “fiber vs. coax” series
- Google’s excellent new online safety campaign
- Palfrey on trends in global cybercensorship
- “Parental Controls and Online Child Protection” - Version 3.0 release
- Tech Policy Summit this week
- “Truth” online
- Lost Laptop Follies, Part 7: NIH Loses Health Records
- review of Zittrain’s “Future of the Internet”
- Do you have the “S.I.G.N.S.” of Net / video game addiction?
- The conversation the Net enables
- Media Metrics: The Pictures!
- Tibet, Technology & the Future of Freedom
- Media Metrics: The Series So Far
- Mermigas on the challenges facing traditional media
- Video Games, Ratings & Transparency: A Response to Jerry Bonner
- Thoughts on 2008 “State of the News Media” report
- IDC’s “Diverse & Exploding Digital Universe” report
- Think you’ve seen everything the Web 2.0 world has to offer?
- USA Today’s story about the Martin FCC
- Lessig on “blowing up the FCC”
- Some books worth reading
- Young kids and rational messaging about online safety
- Media Metrics #7: An Uncertain Future for Newspapers
- Market failure in the sports programming market?
- Jon Fine’s “Requiem for Old-Time Radio”
- “Concurrency modeling” for bandwidth / network management
- Net gambling & online speech / commerce enforcement challenges in general
- Onion News Network on the FCC’s indecency “standard”
- welcoming Bret Swanson & Ryan Radia to the TLF gang
- Media Metrics #6: The Video Revolution
- Putting online dangers in perspective
- Stanford / Google “Legal Futures Summit”
- Australian government online safety report
- Disgraceful defense: “Video Games Made Me Do It”
- new Internet Safety Technical Task Force
- Mobile phone censorship regime coming?
- Which “blockhead” will produce this game once copyright disappears?
- Are All Video Games Violent?
- Net Neutrality: Prelude to Structural Separation?
- Online Sales Tax Cartel?
- 2 good WSJ op-eds on net neutrality dangers
- Scalia on video game regulation
- Leading pornographer lecturing Google & Yahoo about cleaning up online porn
- Coolest. Car. Ever.
- Richard Bennett & George Ou filings on network management
- UK’s “Unique Learner Number”
- PFF Filing on Network Management Practices
- Winback Wars: The Politics of Customer Retention
- Criminal sanctions for poor parental judgment?
- Who decides what’s appropriate for our families?
- New Mexico’s video game nanny tax
- Media Deconsolidation (Part 21): TW spin-off of AOL
- Felten on MS-Google antitrust games
- new PFF-CDT index of free speech / content bills
- TorrentFreak on “Solutions to the BitTorrent Problem”
- Political discourse — then vs. now
- Media Metrics #5: The Competition for Our Ears
- Good for Obama: He favors parental empowerment over censorship
- A La Carte Mandates & Price Controls
- Muni wi-fi: I hate to say I told you so, but..
- Media Metrics #4: Changing Fortunes
- Hazlett on the Microsoft Case at 10
- Google’s political advertising guidelines
- Tech & State of the Union address
- Remembering how lucky we are
- USA Today, age verification, and the death of online anonymity
- for Tim’s reading list about the early telephone system…
- Student free speech or online harassment ?
- “The End of Censorship” — The book I never finished
- Media Metrics #3: Ad Wars
- MagHound: Another interesting new media business model
- Upcoming events: “Tech Policy Summit” (March 26-28)
- Media Metrics #2: Household Access to Media Services & Technologies
- The Danger of “The Danger of Free”
- Broadband metering experiment in the works in Texas?
- Media Metrics #1: Introduction & Analytical Framework
- Only in France…
- Today’s MySpace-AG Agreement
- Industry tech policy blogs proliferating
- While the FCC wages a war on cable…
- FOSI’s “State of Online Safety Report 2008″
- Against “Autonomous Driving”
- Realistic Resolutions for the New Year
- Jaron Lanier’s “Long Live Closed-Source Software!”
- Richard Roeper on regulating in-flight movies
- Broadband UTOPIA?
- Media Deconsolidation (Part 20): News Corp spins off 8 TV stations
- Latest Census Numbers on Kids, Parents & Media
- Does “the public” really communicate with the FCC?
- A Rushed Review for XM-Sirius?
- Internet Freedom–Real vs Imagined
- Should we aim for a higher or lower score for the TLF?
- Tech Ignorance: Not Funny
- Cable TV “Gatekeeper” Myths Debunked
- National Review on FCC’s Cable War
- FCC Budget: Out of Control
- Setting the Record Straight on Current FCC Policies
- Mike Huckabee’s Bizarre Cultural Politics
- NYT’s Joe Nocera on perils of a la carte regulation
- Why hasn’t violent media turned us into a nation of killers?
- Commissioner McDowell’s sensible thinking on media policy
- FCC’s regulatory wrecking ball decimating cable stocks?
- What EarthLink’s muni wi-fi announcement tells us
- Media Deregulation is Dead
- FCC’s 70% Cable Proposal is 100% Unwarranted
- Tim Wu, welcome to the libertarian movement !
- How did the 500-channel TV universe become a reality?
- George Ou on Comcast traffic management and NN
- Bruce Owen on “Antecedents to Net Neutrality”
- Media Deconsolidation (Part 19): IAC/Interactive Corp. divides by 5
- Declan on “Do Not Track List” idea
- Another concern with the “Do Not Track List” concept
- Copps on News Corp-WSJ deal
- Wallsten on metering bandwidth as alternative to Net neutrality
- Did a lack of standardization kill high-def audio?
- Troubling poll regarding attitudes toward Net regulation
- Pearlstein on Google & Antitrust
- Unplugging Plug-and-Play Regulation
- FT on age verification for social networking
- Happy Freedom of Speech Week
- Response to Christian Coalition-NARAL call for net neutrality regs
- Thoughts on Andrew Keen, Part 2: The Dangers of the Stasis Mentality
- Media Deconsolidation (Part 18): Scripps Splits
- Thoughts on Andrew Keen, Part 1: Why an Age of Abundance Really is Better than an Age of Scarcity
- Parental Control Perfection
- Karlgaard on “The Cheap Revolution”
- Should Government Censor In-Flight Movies?
- NY Times Gets it Wrong on IM Blocking & the First Amendment
- Hazlett on the iPhone, walled gardens, and innovation
- New Online Safety Bills
- WSJ on why free Wi-Fi is failing
- The Power of New Media
- More on Metering Broadband
- transcript of Prof. Tribe’s speech on the First Amendment & technological change
- Who Killed TV’s “Family Hour”?
- Once Again, Why Not Meter Broadband Pipes?
- Wi-Fi Piggybacking / Squatting Reconsidered
- New Mobile Parental Controls
- Deregulation that should have happened 10 years ago
- PBS to self-censor WWII documentary to appease FCC
- Problems in Muni Wi-Fi Paradise, Part 5
- Trenching vs. Open Access Regulation
- The WSJ on Beer Pong
- Like.. OMG… “U.S. Americans” are stupid
- Mobile Markets: US v. Europe
- Aspen Summit videos are up
- State Lotteries & Selective Morality about Gambling
- Laurence Tribe on the First Amendment & Technological Change
- NY Times on Video Game Cases
- Lenard & Rubin on Google-DoubleClick
- On “Digital Divides”
- Problems in Muni Wi-Fi Paradise, cont.
- Oh Sh*t: Barbie’s Pooping Dog is a Killer!
- A La Carte: Voluntary vs. Mandatory
- Susan Landau on how FISA is a “gateway for hackers”
- First Amendment & Video Games [Updated] Score: Gamers 11, Censors 0
- Problems in (muni wi-fi) paradise
- editorial on Murdoch-WSJ deal
- PFF analysis of S. 602, “The Child Safe Viewing Act”
- Patrick & Hazlett on Fairness Doctrine
- Portrait of a Criminal Idiot
- Age Verification Showdown in North Carolina
- Version 2.2 of PFF book on “Parental Controls & Online Child Protection”
- Mobile Market Snapshot: U.S. v. Europe
- Senate Plan to Roll Back Clock on Broadcast Regulation
- Wallsten on XM-Sirius Merger
- “Child Safety” — 100 Years Ago vs. Today
- law review article: “Why Regulate Broadcasting?”
- Summary of 10-Part Series on “National Internet Safety Month”
- Internet Safety Month, Part 10: Good Parenting Means Everything!
- Sen. Rockefeller Gives Up on Parenting at Senate Violence Hearing
- New Polls Suggest Radical Theory: Parents are Parenting!
- Internet Safety Month, Part 9: Online Safety and Law Enforcement Efforts
- testimony at House hearing on “The Images Kids See on the Screen”
- new book on Parental Controls & Online Child Protection
- Event Transcript: “The Complexities of Regulating TV Violence”
- Internet Safety Month, Part 8: Social Networking Safety
- Internet Safety Month, Part 7: The Importance of Online Safety Education
- Net gambling: None of the government’s business
- Internet Safety Month, Part 6: A Voluntary Code of Conduct for Online Safety
- Internet Safety Month, Part 5: Search Engine Filters and Portals for Kids
- 2nd Circuit rules in FCC indecency case
- Internet Safety Month, Part 4: Website Labeling and Metadata Tagging
- Internet Safety Month, Part 3: Operating Systems and Web Browser Controls
- Internet Safety Month, Part 2: Internet Filters & Monitoring Tools
- Internet Safety Month, Part 1: Online Safety Metasites
- A La Carte & the Senate Effort to Regulate TV Violence
- Regulate In-Flight Movies & TV Content?
- Lost Laptop Follies, Part 6: DOE Missing 1,400 Laptops
- Making a Stink about Smoking in Movies
- “I don’t really understand what a Web site is.”
- new PFF report & event on regulating TV violence
- Transcript & Video from “Facts about Online Victimization” event
- Transcript of PFF Age Verification (3/23) event
- Second Life to Adopt Age Verification
- A Brief Note on Ad Hominem Attacks on the TLF
- New York Times article on Age Verification for Social Networking Sites
- Video Game Ratings are Widely Utilized
- Lost Laptop Follies, Part 5
- Media Deconsolidation (Part 17): Clear Channel Station Sell-off
- New reports on Skype-Wu wireless Net Neutrality proposal
- Video Game Politics
- Public Radio Debate on Regulating TV Violence
- More Essays on Efforts to Regulate TV Violence
- George Will on Fairness Doctrine Revival
- FCC Violence Report Concludes that Parenting Doesn’t Work
- FCC Media Violence Report Looms
- FCC Opens the Net Neutrality Pandora’s Box a Bit More
- Don Imus and the FCC: Should Hate Speech be Regulated?
- new City Journal essay on “The Media Cornucopia”
- Barney Frank Pushing for Net Gambling Repeal
- FTC’s Latest “Marketing Violence to Children” Report
- More on XM-Sirius
- Internet Sales Tax Wars Continue
- Jeff Schmidt on Age Verification and Online Child Safety
- Confessions of a First Generation Gamer-Parent
- A La Carte Regulation and “Family-Friendly” Programming
- A Few Thoughts on ICANN’s Rejection of “.xxx” TLD
- Forbes.com interview on social networking panic
- The Other America
- Distorting Numbers in the Debate over Parental Controls
- The COPA Decision, Part 3: Implications for Age Verification and Social Networking
- COPA Struck Down, Part 2
- COPA Struck Down Again by Court
- Cisco’s Bob Pepper on Net Neutrality
- Campaign Finance Laws & YouTube (cont.)
- Debunking Myths about Social Networking
- New PFF Study on Age Verification for Social Networking Sites
- Why Not Meter?
- Would Your Favorite Website be Banned by DOPA?
- Remarks at Freedom to Connect conference
- Campaign Finance Laws in the YouTube Age
- Age-Verify Users Before They Visit USA Today.com?
- Chapman on Illogical Gov’t Nannyism
- What Cell Phone Blocking?
- Net Neutrality in the States
- Ahrens on Media Consolidation Myths
- Movie Review: “This Film Is Not Yet Rated”
- Wu, Skype, Walled Gardens and “Openness”
- Dying for Television
- An Education-Based Approach to Online Child Safety
- Additional Concerns with the Skype-Wu Proposal
- “Blogging should not be a crime.”
- Geoffrey Stone on a National Shield Law
- Skype Asks FCC to Impose Carterfone Regs on Wireless
- Help, the Internet Made Me Do It !
- Brito Deconstructs Spectrum Commons Theory
- XM + Sirius = Good Deal (for the Companies and Consumers)
- The Onion on iTunes and Lost Laptops
- Regulating Violence on TV: Some Recommended Reading
- Why I Miss Frank Zappa
- Radio Wars, Round 2
- Thinking Blogger Awards
- Lost Laptop Follies, Part 4
- What Happened to ‘Look Both Ways Before You Cross the Street’?
- “Project Online Safety” and Other New Internet Safety Initiatives
- Why Does FCC Spending Keep Growing?
- Lawyers, Lawsuits and Net Neutrality Regulation
- Peter Huber on Why Lawyers Will Love Net Neutrality
- Democrats Abandoning the First Amendment, Part 2: Regulating “Excessive Violence” on TV
- Democrats Abandoning the First Amendment, Part 1: The Fairness Doctrine
- Slate’s Jack Shafer on “The Case for Killing the FCC”
- Banning In-Car Technologies Won’t Work
- Bret Swanson on Net Neutrality & the “Coming Exaflood”
- PFF’s “Tech Agenda for the 110th Congress”
- MySpace to Provide Parental Monitoring Tools
- Amazing Gains in Digital Storage Technology
- CES Wrap-Up: Cool Upcoming Gadgets
- Dispatch from CES - FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s remarks
- Dispatch from CES - Day 3 (Net Neutrality Panel)
- Dispatch from CES–Day 3 (Is Packaged Media Dead?)
- Dispatch from CES - Day 2 (Future of TV & Video Distribution)
- Dispatch from CES: Day 1–Gaming Issues
- What Was the Biggest Tech Policy Story of 2006?
- More on Virtual Reality & Property Rights
- A Bad Day in Court for the FCC
- A Sad Commentary
- “Dangerous” Toys–Then and Now
- Declaration of Independence for Virtual Worlds?
- Are Americans Too Paranoid about Their Privacy?
- Another Non-Solution to the Online Predator Problem
- Have We Reached a Turning Point on Video Game Regulation?
- Welcoming Drew Clark to the TLF
- (Virtual) Taxation without Representation?
- CDT & PFF File Joint Amicus Briefs in Federal Indecency Cases
- Appearance on C-SPAN’s “The Communicators”
- First Amendment & Video Games Score: Gamers 10, Censors 0
- Illogical Fears about Online Gaming & Net Neutrality
- Media Deconsolidation (Part 16): Clear Channel Crackup
- My DRM Agnosticism & Indifference toward Media Format Compatibility
- One Laptop Per Child Reconsidered
- Copyright and DMCA to Enter the World of Virtual Reality?
- Nonsense about Predatory Pricing of Video Game Consoles
- Sony’s “Location Free TV”: Any Copyright Issues?
- Democratic “Innovation Agenda” Smells Like Pork, Tastes Like Regulation
- X-Box Movie / TV Download Business Model Announced
- XBOX 360 as a High-Def Movie Hub?
- Lost Laptop Follies, Part 3
- Another Reason to Be Wary of Age Verification & Data Retention Mandates
- NYT on Media Ownership
- Can Government Improve Video Game Ratings?
- Media Deconsolidation (Part 15): AOL-TW Divorce Near?
- Business Week on Net Gambling Going Underground
- Lock ‘Em Up and Throw Away the Key
- Problems in (Muni Wi-Fi) Paradise
- Another Call for Data Retention Mandates
- Iran Battles the Digital Future & Global Culture
- The Ultimate Online Predator Solution
- Virtual Reality Reporters
- National Freedom of Speech Week
- Virtual Reality or Virtual Stupidity?
- A Response to Sen. Lieberman’s Online Child Protection Manifesto
- IM: The Next Regulatory Target?
- The Final Fantasy Leak: Situational Ethics with Video Game Piracy?
- Potential California Regulation of Search Engines?
- Internet Gambling Nuttiness
- Lost Laptop Legislation Introduced
- RAND on Economic Impact of EU’s “TV Without Frontiers” Directive
- How Does Government Lose So Many Laptops?
- Media Deconsolidation, Part 14: Time Warner Without Time?
- My Filing in Latest FCC Indecency Proceeding
- Cartoons for Tech Geeks
- Who Can Film Video Clips at a Pro Football Stadium?
- Summary of Latest ICRA Summit on Internet Free Expression & Child Protection
- Know Your (Blogging) Rights: NetDemocracyGuide.org
- PlayStation 3, Console Wars & the Costs of Complexity
- More on Social Networking Regulatory Threats
- New PFF Study on Global Media Regulation
- Al Gore on Media & Democracy
- Is Verizon’s Chocolate Sweet?
- UK Censors Tom & Jerry Cartoons
- Entertaining Net Neutrality Debate
- FCC Comm. Adelstein on Indecency
- Note to TLF Readers: This Blog Has Nothing to Do With the Intelligent Design Debate
- Welcoming Hancy Haney to the TLF
- The “Adventure Window,” Radio Formats and Media Ownership Rules
- I’d Still Watch MTV if…
- Another Case of “Rights Inflation”: Sports on Cable TV
- Another First Amendment Victory for Video Games
- A Voluntary Online Code of Conduct to Avoid Internet Censorship
- The Economics of Trade Shows & the Downsizing of “E3″
- Video Games & Innovation
- Another Push for Cable Censorship
- A Psychologi