Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Reason.org has just posted my commentary on the five reasons why Federal Trade Commission’s proposals to regulate the collection and use of consumer information on the Web will do more harm than good. As I note, the digital economy runs on information. Any regulations that impede the collection and processing of any information will affect [...]
[Cross-posted at Reason.org] This week Google announced that it is grouping 60 of its Web services, such as Gmail, the Google+ social network, YouTube and Google Calendar, under a single privacy policy that would allow the company to share user data between any of those services. These changes will be effective March 1. Although we [...]
Earlier this year I read Scott Cleland’s new book, Search & Destroy: Why You Can’t Trust Google, Inc., after he was kind enough to send me an advance copy. I didn’t have time to review it at the time and just jotted down a few notes for use later. Because the year is winding down, [...]
Over at TIME.com, I write about last week’s flap over Apple kicking out famed security researcher Charlie Miller out of its iOS developer program: So let’s be clear: Apple did not ban Miller for exposing a security flaw, as many have suggested. He was kicked out for violating his agreement with Apple to respect the [...]
Over a week ago the Washington Post published an interview with Google’s Eric Schmidt to which I’ve been meaning to draw your attention. He’s reflecting on the relationship between Silicon Valle and D.C. days after his Senate testimony, and it’s incredibly candid, perhaps because as the Post noted, “He had just come from the dentist. [...]
Do-Not-Track is not inconceivable itself. It’s like the word “inconceivable” in the movie The Princess Bride. I do not think it means what people think it means—how it is meant to work and how it is likely to offer poor results. Take Mike Swift’s reporting for MercuryNews.com on a study showing that online advertising companies [...]
[By Geoffrey Manne & Joshua Wright. Cross-posted at Truth on the Market] No surprise here. The WSJ announced it was coming yesterday, and today Google publicly acknowledged that it has received subpoenas related to the Commission’s investigation. Amit Singhal of Google acknowledged the FTC subpoenas at the Google Public Policy Blog: At Google, we’ve always focused on [...]
I have an op-ed up at Main Justice on FTC Chairman Leibowitz’ recent comment in response the a question about the FTC’s investigation of Google that the FTC is looking for a “pure Section Five case.” With Main Justice’s permission, the op-ed is re-printed here: There’s been a lot of chatter around Washington about federal antitrust [...]
Social widgets, such as the now-ubiquitous Facebook “Like” button and Twitter “Tweet” button, offer users a convenient way to share online content with their friends and followers. These widgets have recently come under scrutiny for their privacy implications. Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook, Twitter, and Google are informed each time a user [...]
I spaced out and completely forget to post a link here to my latest Forbes column which came out over the weekend. It’s a look at back at last week’s hullabaloo over “Apple, The iPhone, and a Locational Privacy Techno-Panic.” In it, I argue: Some of the concerns raised about the retention of locational data [...]
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.
