Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Today, China renewed Google’s license to do business in the country, reports The Washington Post. The announcement means that Google will maintain its presence in the country for the foreseeable future. Google will likely meet criticism, but this is good news nonetheless for Chinese Internet users. The rapidly unfolding Google-China saga has made headline after [...]
The grandly-named Public Domain Archive, evidently a production of Osaka-based Digirock, Inc., offers a few MP3s of classical music and historical speeches. Thanks to a suggestion from Tyler Cowen, I’m enjoying a 1942 recording of Beethoven’s 9th even as I type. Am I breaking the law in so doing? The copyright notice posted on the [...]
Now is a critical time for online commerce as policymakers assess their approaches to privacy. And as NetChoice says in our comments filed today, now is the perfect time for the Department of Commerce to be more involved in privacy issues. What? We’re calling for more government involvement in a politically charged issue? Yes, and [...]
In the most recent episode of the Surprisingly Free Conversations podcast, I interview Evgeny Morozov, Yahoo! Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University and contributing editor for Foreign Policy. We discuss the limits of social networks in promoting democracy. The discussion also turns to Morozov’s experience as a promoter of [...]
Last week there was another leak of the secretly negotiated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). This time it was a copy of the of the entire latest draft. It seems to dispel some of the initial worries bloggers had written about, including customs searches of your iPod at the border, but also stokes other concerns. For [...]
The Treasury Department today announced that it would grant the State Department’s December request (see the Iran letter here) for a waiver from U.S. embargoes that would allow Iranians, Sudanese and Cubanese to download “free mass market software … necessary for the exchange of personal communications and/or sharing of information over the internet such as instant [...]
“With a few notable exceptions, the tech industry seems unwilling to regulate itself. I will introduce legislation that will require Internet companies to take reasonable steps to protect human rights, or face civil and criminal liability.” – Senator Dick Durbin, as reported by the Washington Post. We hear you, Sen. Durbin. The practices of many [...]
May 22, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
