Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Andrew Orlowski of The Register (U.K.) recently posted a very interesting essay making the case for treating online copyright and privacy as essentially the same problem in need of the same solution: increased property rights. In his essay (“‘Don’t break the internet’: How an idiot’s slogan stole your privacy“), he argues that, “The absence of [...]
Over at Forbes I have posted some thoughts on the new privacy framework (Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World) that the Obama Administration released today. In my essay, “The Problem with Obama’s “Let’s Be More Like Europe” Privacy Plan,” I hammer home the same point I’ve made here before many times: Regulation is not [...]
Here’s a sharp editorial from The Economist about Internet governance entitled, “In Praise of Chaos: Governments’ Attempts to Control the Internet Should be Resisted.” In the wake of the recent Internet Governance Forum meeting, many folks are once again debating the question of who rules the Net? Along with Wayne Crews, I edited a huge [...]
It seems peculiar to me that some of the same individuals and groups who so vociferously opposed a “broadcast flag” technological mandate in past years are now in a mad rush to have federal policymakers mandate a “Do Not Track” regulatory regime for privacy purposes. The broadcast flag debate, you will recall, centered around the [...]
Over at MediaFreedom.org, a new site devoted to fighting the fanaticism of radical anti-media freedom groups like Free Press and other “media reformistas,” I’ve started rolling out a 5-part series of essays about “The Battle for Media Freedom.” In Part 1 of the series, I defined what real media freedom is all about, and in [...]
As I pointed out here before (see, “And so the Comcast-NBC Merger Hysteria Begins: Help Me Document It!“), every time a media merger is proposed we hear all sorts of silly Chicken Little predictions of impending doom as well as preposterous conspiracy theories about supposed nefarious schemes to take over the media universe and control [...]
What Unites Advocates of Speech Controls & Privacy Regulation? [pdf] by Adam Thierer & Berin Szoka The Progress & Freedom Foundation, Progress on Point No. 16.19 Anyone who has spent time following debates about speech and privacy regulation comes to recognize the striking parallels between these two policy arenas. In this paper we will highlight [...]
Berin recently encouraged me to re-read Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, which I hadn’t looked at since I first read it back in 1995 or 96. I’m glad I did since Sowell’s work has always been profoundly influential on my thinking (especially his masterpiece, A [...]
[This represents a bit of a departure from the traditional format of my ongoing "Media Deconsolidiation Series," but you will see how it ties in...] So, some guy from the (Un)Free Press — the activist group that wants to regulate every facet of the media and broadband universe — has created a scary looking chart [...]
May 28, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
