A new bipartisan “sense of the Senate” resolution was introduced today calling for “a national strategy for the Internet of Things to promote economic growth and consumer empowerment.” [PDF is here.] The resolution was cosponsored by U.S. Senators Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Cory A. Booker (D-N.J.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who are all members of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees these issues. Just last month, on February 11th, the full Commerce Committee held a hearing titled “The Connected World: Examining the Internet of Things,” which examined the policy issues surrounding this exciting new space.
[
Update:
The U.S. Senate unanimously approved the resolution on the evening of March 24th, 2015.]
The new Senate resolution begins by stressing the many current or potential benefits associate with the Internet of Things (IoT), which, it notes, “currently connects tens of billions of devices worldwide and has the potential to generate trillions of dollars in economic opportunity.” It continues on to note how average consumers will benefit because “increased connectivity can empower consumers in nearly every aspect of [our] daily lives, including in the fields of agriculture, education, energy, healthcare, public safety, security, and transportation, to name just a few.” And then the resolution also discussed the commercial benefits, noting, “businesses across our economy can simplify logistics, cut costs in supply chains, and pass savings on to consumers because of the Internet of Things and innovations derived from it.” More generally, the Senators argue “the United States should strive to be a world leader in smart cities and smart infrastructure to ensure its citizens and businesses, in both rural and urban parts of the country, have access to the safest and most resilient communities in the world.”
In light of those amazing potential benefits, the resolution continues on to argue that while “the United States is the world leader in developing the Internet of Things technology,” an even more focused and dedicated policy vision is needed to promote continued success. “[W]ith a national strategy guiding both public and private entities,” it argues, “the United States will continue to produce breakthrough technologies and lead the world in innovation.” Continue reading →
This morning at 9:45, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is holding a full committee hearing entitled, “The Connected World: Examining the Internet of Things.” According to the Committee press release, the hearing “will focus on how devices — from home heating systems controlled by users online, to wearable devices that track health and activity with the help of Internet-based analytics — will be made smarter and more dynamic through Internet technologies. Government agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, however, are already considering possible changes to the law that could have the unintended consequence of slowing innovation.”
It is my pleasure to have been invited to testify at this hearing. I’ve long had an interest in the policy issues surrounding the Internet of Things. All my relevant research products can be found online here, including my latest law review article, “The Internet of Things and Wearable Technology Addressing Privacy and Security Concerns without Derailing Innovation.“
My testimony, which can be found on the Mercatus Center website here, begins by highlighting the three general conclusions of my work:
- First, the Internet of Things offers compelling benefits to consumers, companies, and our country’s national competitiveness that will only be achieved by adopting a flexible policy regime for this fast-moving space.
- Second, while there are formidable privacy and security challenges associated with the Internet of Things, top-down or one-size-fits-all regulation will limit innovative opportunities.
- Third, with those first two points in mind, we should seek alternative and less costly approaches to protecting privacy and security that rely on education, empowerment, and targeted enforcement of existing legal mechanisms. Long-term privacy and security protection requires a multifaceted approach incorporating many flexible solutions.
Continue reading →
Just FYI… This Thursday, February 4th at 9:30 am, the House Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet will hold a hearing titled, “An Examination of the Proposed Combination of Comcast and NBC Universal.” It will be held in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building and the Committee members were kind enough to ask me to come up and say a few words. Here’s the witness list:
- Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and CEO, Comcast Corporation
- Jeff Zucker, President and CEO, NBC Universal
- Colleen Abdoulah, President and CEO, WOW! Internet, Cable, and Phone
- Mark Cooper, Ph.D., Director of Research, Consumer Federation of America
- Michael J. Fiorile, President and COO, The Dispatch Printing Company, Chair of the NBC Affiliates Board
- Adam D. Thierer, President, Progress and Freedom Foundation
For those interested, the hearing will be webcast at www.energycommerce.house.gov. There’s also another hearing Thursday on the same issue over in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. It’s titled, “The Comcast/NBC Universal Merger: What Does the Future Hold for Competition and Consumers?” and it will take place in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 226 at 2:30 p.m.
Incidentally, I wrote a paper back about the proposed deal back in December entitled, “A Brief History of Media Merger Hysteria: From AOL-Time Warner to Comcast-NBC” as well as this editorial for Forbes.
The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing yesterday where a number of Senators as well as Julius Genachowski, the new Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, did a lot of fretting about the state of the modern children’s television programming marketplace. According to the Wall Street Journal, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV):
suggested that a “little red button” be required on TVs so that a child could push the button to find out how a show is rated. Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas agreed that a red button might help since parents often have difficulties figuring out which shows are appropriate for their children to watch.
Well, I have some good news for the Senators: There are already quite a few little buttons on every remote control made today, and at least one of those buttons can pull up an on-screen guide to get more program info! (Another of them can turn the TV off!) Moreover, the ratings for just about every program already appear at the beginning of each show, and sometimes in between. And you can find out plenty more online about every TV show under the sun if you care to look. So, I’m not sure what that fuss is all about, and we certainly don’t need to mandate “little red buttons” on every TV set when program information can be found in so many other ways.
What is more troubling about all the hand-wringing taking place at the hearing, as well as the talk of reopening the Children’s Television Act of 1990 to potentially impose more content mandates on video programmers and distributors, is that: (1) there doesn’t seem to be much appreciation for just how much wonderful children’s programming is out there today compared to the past, and (2) there doesn’t seem to be much recognition of the serious First Amendment issues at stake when government gets involved in the messy business of regulating video programming.
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by Berin Szoka & Adam Thierer
This morning, the House Energy & Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on “Behavioral Advertising: Industry Practices And Consumers’ Expectations.” If nothing else, it promises to be quite entertaining: With full-time Google bashers Jeff Chester and Scott Cleland on the agenda, the likelihood that top Google officials will be burned in effigy appears high!
Chester, self-appointed spokesman for what one might call the People for the Ethical Treatment of Data (PETD) movement, is sure to rant and rave about the impending techno-apocalypse that will, like all his other Chicken-Little scenarios, befall us all if online advertisers were permitted to better tailor ads to consumers’ liking. After all, can you imagine the nightmare of less annoying ads that might actually convey more useful information to consumers? Isn’t serving up “untargeted” dumb banner ads for Viagra to young women and Victoria’s Secret ads to Catholic school kids the pinnacle of modern online advertising? Gods forbid we actually make advertising more relevant and interest-based! (Those Catholic school boys may appreciate the lingerie ads, but few will likely buy bras.)
Anyway, according to National Journal’s Tech Daily Dose, the hearing lineup also includes:
- Charles Curran, Executive Director, Network Advertising Initiative
- Christopher Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer, Facebook
- Edward Felten, Director, Center for IT Policy, Princeton University
- Anne Toth, Chief Privacy Officer & Vice President, Policy, Yahoo!
- Nicole Wong, Deputy General Counsel, Google
That’s an interesting group and we’re sure that they will say interesting things about the issue. Nonetheless, because four of them have a corporate affiliation that fact will inevitably be used by some critics to dismiss what they have to say about the sensibility of more targeted or interest-based forms of online advertising. So, we’d like to offer a few thoughts and pose a few questions to make sure that Committee members understand why, regardless of what it means for any particular online operator,
targeting online advertising is very pro-consumer and essential to the future of online content, culture, and competition. As Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg has noted, “Advertising is the mother’s milk of all the mass media.” Much of the “free speech” we all cherish isn’t really free, but ad-supported!
Continue reading →
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.