Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Folks, I wanted to bring your attention to this conference on Feb. 24 from the Information Economy Project at George Mason University. The pitch: The assembly line of our knowledge-based economy begins with technology discovery and ends with the moving target of a consumer market. Connectivity is funded and rewarded through exchanges of time, money, [...]
On the podcast this week, Catherine Tucker, Douglas Drane Career Development Professor in IT and Management, and Assistant Professor of Marketing at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, discusses her paper with Avi Goldfarb in the Journal of Competition Law and Economics entitled, Substitution Between Offline and Online Advertising Markets. According to Tucker, the FTC treats online advertising as a distinct market from offline advertising for antitrust purposes. She describes the study she and Goldfarb conducted, where they sought to determine whether online advertising could serve as a substitute for offline advertising. Tucker also discusses Google’s role in online advertising, how its auction mechanism affects pricing, and the difference between search advertising and display advertising. The conversation ends with a discussion on policy implications on how dominant players in online advertising should be viewed.
Over at TIME.com I take a look at the different approaches to cybersecurity now being considered by Congress: But what can congress do to improve cybersecurity? One line of thinking reportedly embodied by the Senate legislation, though details of that bill are not yet available, would tell network owners how to protect their systems. The [...]
Over at TIME.com I write that if you didn’t like SOPA because it threatened free speech, then you probably won’t like the new “Right to be Forgotten” proposed in the EU. Prof. Jane Yakowitz contributes some great insights to the piece. What I dislike most about the rule is that it subordinates expression to privacy: [...]
On the podcast this week, Reuben Grinberg, a recent Yale Law School graduate now in private practice in New York City, discusses his paper, published in the Hastings Science & Technology Law Journal entitled, Bitcoin: An Innovative Alternative Digital Currency. Grinberg first gives a brief overview of Bitcoin, the decentralized, digital currency. According to Grinberg, Bitcoin can maintain sustainability, even though it is not backed by an institution or commodity, but it must overcome several hurdles. Grinberg then discusses the potential security problems and legal issues Bitcoin faces. He also describes some of the unique qualities of Bitcoin, including the ability to conduct transactions anonymously. Grinberg ends the discussion with his thoughts on what Bitcoin could potentially become.
Cybersecurity is one of the issues that the President may touch upon tonight in his State of the Union speech, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he is ready to move on comprehensive cybersecurity legislation soon. This all raises the question: what is the problem we’re trying to fix? In an important new [...]
Over at TIME.com, I consult public choice theory to glean the meaning of last week’s SOPA protest success: The SOPA blackout protest last week was an unprecedented event. Its massive success — with dozens of members of Congress switching their stance in one day under the withering intensity of thousands of phone calls — surprised [...]
The Megaupload folks are not the most sympathetic defendants, to say the least. They likely knew very well they were profiting from piracy, and they probably induced it as well. Anonymous’s attacks in retaliation for the arrests and domain seizures, therefore, threaten to destroy the good will the Internet community generated the previous day with [...]
On the podcast this week, Michael Weinberg, staff attorney with Public Knowledge, discusses his white paper entitled, It Will Be Awesome If They Don’t Screw This Up: 3D Printing, Intellectual Property, and the Fight Over the Next Great Disruptive Technology. The discussion begins with Weinberg describing 3D printing: the process of printing three dimensional objects layer-by-layer from a digital file on a computer. According to Weinberg the design method used for printing includes programs like AutoCad and 3D scanners that can scan existing objects, making it possible to print a 3D replica. He goes on to explain why he thinks 3D printing, coupled with the Internet, is a disruptive technology. Finally, Weinberg discusses the thesis of his paper, where he anticipates industries affected by potential disruption will not compete with or adapt to this technology, but rather, will seek legal protection through IP law to preemptively regulate 3D printing.
Over at TIME.com, I write that while some claim that Google Search Plus Your World violates antitrust laws, it likely doesn’t. But I note that Google does have a big problem on its hands: market reaction. So if antitrust is not Google’s main concern, what is? It’s that user reaction to SPYW and other recent [...]
February 13, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
