Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
On NPR’s Marketplace this morning, I talk about net neutrality litigation with host John Moe. Nearly a year after the FCC passed controversial new “Open Internet” rules by a 3-2 vote, the White House finally gave approval for the rules to be published last week, unleashing lawsuits from both supporters and detractors. The supporters don’t [...]
For Forbes this morning, I reflect on the publication late last week of the FCC’s “Open Internet” or net neutrality rules and their impact on spectrum auctions past and future. Hint: not good. An important study last year by Prof. Faulhaber and Prof. Farber, former chief economist and chief technologist, respectively, for the FCC, found [...]
For CNET this morning, I offer five crucial corrections to the Protect IP Act, which was passed out of committee in the Senate back in May. Yesterday, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus, told a Silicon Valley audience that the House was working on its own version and would introduce it in [...]
In my work critiquing the Lessig-Zittrain-Wu school of thinking–which fears the decline and fall of online “openness” and digital “generativity”–I have argued that, while there is no such thing as perfect “openness,” things are actually getting more open and generative all the time. All that really counts from my perspective is that we are witnessing [...]
This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law had a hearing entitled: “Protecting Mobile Privacy: Your Smartphones, Tablets, Cell Phones and Your Privacy.” It was a remarkably scattered affair, and I blogged three key—and very distinct—elements of it on the Cato@Liberty blog: The Department of Justice used this “mobile privacy” [...]
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 [...]
I’ve written a long article this morning for CNET (See “Privacy panic debate: Whose data is it?”) on the discovery of the iPhone location tracking file and the utterly predictable panic response that followed. Its life-cycle follows precisely the crisis model Adam Thierer has so frequently and eloquently traced, most recently here on TLF. In [...]
There’s a nice piece of reporting from Ian Shapira in today’s Washington Post entitled, “Once the Hobby of Tech Geeks, iPhone Jailbreaking Now a Lucrative Industry.” In the article, Shapira documents the rise of independent, unauthorized Apple apps (especially tethering apps) and points out that what was once a small black market has now turned [...]
The New York Times reports that, “Facebook is hoping to do something better and faster than any other technology start-up-turned-Internet superpower. Befriend Washington. Facebook has layered its executive, legal, policy and communications ranks with high-powered politicos from both parties, beefing up its firepower for future battles in Washington and beyond.” The article goes on to [...]
Venture capitalist Bill Gurley asked a good question in a Tweet late last night when he was “wondering if Apple’s 30% rake isn’t a foolish act of hubris. Why drive Amazon, Facebook, and others to different platforms?” As most of you know, Gurley is referring to Apple’s announcement in February that it would require a [...]
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.
