Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Here’s the notice I’ve been getting the last few days when, logged into Facebook from a computer, I try to post a comment or update my status. Clever observers will note that the recommendation to log in from a computer is misplaced, as I get it when I’m logged in from a computer. Facebook gives [...]
I’ve grown increasingly tired of the fight over not just retransmission consent, but almost all TV regulation in general. Seriously, why is our government still spending time fretting over a market that is more competitive, diverse and fragmented than most other economic sectors? It’s almost impossible to keep track of all the innovation happening on [...]
Today I am testifying at an FCC hearing on “Serving the Public Interest in the Digital Era.” [Speaker lineup here.] The purpose of the workshop is to explore: A brief history and overview of policies involving “public interest” requirements for commercial media and telecommunications companies; The state of local commercial broadcast TV and radio news [...]
No one disputes that a key goal of the FCC is to help foster diversity in, and minority access to, channels of communication. In practice, this all too often has been interpreted to mean ownership limits, set-asides, preferences and other mandates imposed by the Commission. Usually lost in the heated debates is the fact that [...]
I’ve just released a new PFF white paper looking at the hysteria that has often accompanied major media mergers and then taking a look at the marketplace reality years after the fact. Here‘s the PDF, but I have also pasted the entire thing down below. _____________________________ A Brief History of Media Merger Hysteria: From AOL-Time [...]
Adam Thierer & I have just released a detailed examination (PDF) of brewing efforts to expand the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 to cover adolescents and potentially all social networking sites—an approach we call “COPPA 2.0.” As Adam explained on Larry Magid’s CNET podcast, COPPA mandates certain online privacy protections for children under 13, most [...]
I haven’t been blogging much lately because, along with my PFF colleagues Berin Szoka and Adam Marcus, I’m working on a lengthy paper about the importance of Section 230 to Internet freedom. Section 230 is the sometimes-forgotten portion of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that shielded Internet Service Providers (ISP) from liability for information [...]
Faithful readers will recall that, several months ago, I penned a 7-part “Media Metrics” series that took a hard look at the health of the media marketplace. Today, the Progress & Freedom Foundation is releasing a greatly expanded version of these essays that I have put together with my PFF colleague Grant Eskelsen. In this [...]
February 14, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
