Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
It appears that the long legal saga of the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA) has finally come to a close. This morning, according to AP, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the government’s latest request to revive the law, which was stuck down as an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment by lower courts [...]
I’ve just finished reading Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion, by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, and Harry Lewis, and it’s another title worth adding to your tech policy reading list. The authors survey a broad swath of tech policy territory — privacy, search, encryption, free speech, copyright, spectrum policy [...]
This week, I have been up at Harvard University participating in another meeting of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force (ISTTF), of which I am a member. The ISTTF was organized earlier this year pursuant to an agreement between 49 state attorneys general (AGs) and social networking giant MySpace.com. A group of experts from academia, [...]
This week I was pleased to join a diverse collection of think tanks and public interest groups in submitting joint comments to the FCC opposing the proposed content filtering mandate that would be part of a future AWS-3 auction. That’s the proposed auction that would create a “free” nationwide wireless broadband service. As part of [...]
Another chapter in the seemingly never-ending saga of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) of 1998 was written this week when the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling striking down COPA, which would require Web operators to restrict access to large amounts of online speech and expression. [The Third Circuit's full [...]
The USA Today editorial board published a nasty piece today belittling MySpace.com’s recent efforts to implement more safeguards for its users. Despite the fact that MySpace made over 70 promises to the Attorneys General as part of the agreement–the entire agreement is summarized here–that’s still not good enough for the USA Today’s editorial board, which [...]
This morning in New York City, social networking website operator MySpace.com announced a major joint effort with 49 state Attorneys General aimed at better protecting children online. (Coverage at CNet, NYT and Forbes). At a joint press conference, MySpace and the AGs unveiled a “Joint Statement on Key Principles of Social Networking Safety” involving expanded [...]
As Braden mentioned, we were both down in Raleigh, North Carolina this week testifying at a big hearing on mandatory age verification for social networking sites. It was quite a heated battle. The legislation, SB 132, was supported at the hearing by North Carolina attorney general Roy Cooper, several of his staff attorneys, a couple [...]
In late March, I hosted a congressional seminar entitled “Age Verification for Social Networking Sites: Is It Possible? And Desirable?” I brought together 5 experts in the field to debate the issue, including: John Cardillo, President & CEO, Sentinel Jay Chaudhuri, Special Counsel to North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper Raye Croghan, Vice President, IDology, [...]
Jennifer Medina of the New York Times penned an article yesterday on the debate over social networking fears leading to calls for age verification mandates. She noted that measures are moving in several states that would require social networking sites to age-verify users before they are allowed to visit the sites or create profiles there. [...]
May 23, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
