“The quickest way to find out who your enemies are is to try doing something new.” Thus begins Innovation and Its Enemies, an ambitious new book by Calestous Juma that will go down as one of the decade’s most important works on innovation policy.

Juma, who is affiliated with the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, has written a book that is rich in history and insights about the social and economic forces and factors that have, again and again, lead various groups and individuals to oppose technological change. Juma’s extensive research documents how “technological controversies often arise from tensions between the need to innovate and the pressure to maintain continuity, social order, and stability” (p. 5) and how this tension is “one of today’s biggest policy challenges.” (p. 8)

What Juma does better than any other technology policy scholar to date is that he identifies how these tensions develop out of deep-seated psychological biases that eventually come to affect attitudes about innovations among individuals, groups, corporations, and governments. “Public perceptions about the benefits and risks of new technologies cannot be fully understood without paying attention to intuitive aspects of human psychology,” he correctly observes. (p. 24)

Opposition to Change: It’s All in Your Head

Juma documents, for example, how “status quo bias,” loss aversion, and other psychological tendencies tend to encourage resistance to technological change. [Note: I discussed these and other “root-cause” explanations of opposition to technological change in Chapter 2 of my book, Permissionless Innovation: The Continuing Case for Comprehensive Technological Freedom, as well as in my 2012 law review article on “Technopanics, Threat Inflation, and the Danger of an Information Technology Precautionary Principle.”]  Juma notes, for example, that “society is most likely to oppose a new technology if it perceives that the risks are likely to occur in the short run and the benefits will only accrue in the long run.” (p. 5) Moreover, “much of the concern is driven by perception of loss, not necessarily by concrete evidence of loss.” (p. 11)

Juma’s approach to innovation policy studies is strongly influenced by the path-breaking work of Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, who long ago documented how entrepreneurial activity and the “perennial gales of creative destruction” were the prime forces that spurred innovation and propelled society forward. But Schumpeter was also one of the first scholars to realize that psychological fears about such turbulent change was what ultimately lead to much of the short-term opposition to new technologies that, in due time, we eventually come to see as life-enriching or even life-essential innovations.  Juma uses Schumpeter’s insight as the launching point for his exploration and he successfully verifies it using meticulously-detailed case studies.

Case Study-Driven Analysis

My favorite case study in the book discusses how the dairy industry fought the creation and spread of margarine (excuse the pun!). I had no idea how ugly that situation got, but Juma provides all the gory details in what I consider one of the very best crony capitalist case studies ever penned.

In particular, in a subsection of that chapter entitled “The Laws against Margarine,” he provides a litany of examples of how effective the dairy industry was in convincing lawmakers to enact ridiculous anti-consumer regulations to stop margarine, even though the product offered the public a much-needed, and much more affordable, substitute for traditional butter. At one point, the daily industry successfully lobbied five states to adopt rules mandating that any imitation butter product had to be dyed pink! Other states enacted labelling laws that required butter substitutes to come in ominous-looking black packaging. Again, all this was done at the request of the incumbent dairy industry and the National Dairy Council, which would resort to almost any sort of deceptive tactic to keep a cheaper competing product out of the hands of consumers.

And so it goes in chapter after chapter of Juma’s book. The amount of detail in each of these unique case studies is absolutely stunning, but they nonetheless remain highly readable accounts of sectoral protectionism, special interest rent-seeking, and regulatory capture. In this way, Juma is plowing some familiar ground already covered by other economic historians and political scientists, such as Joel Mokyr and Mancur Olson, both of whom are mentioned in the book, as well as a long line of public choice scholars who are, somewhat surprisingly, not discussed in the text. Nonetheless, Juma’s approach is still fresh, unique, and highly informative. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many distinct and highly detailed case studies assembled in one place by a single scholar.  What Juma has done here is truly impressive.

Related Innovation Policy Paradigms

Beyond Schumpeter’s clear influence, Juma’s approach to studying innovation policy also shares a great deal in common with two other unmentioned innovation policy scholars, Virginia Postrel and Robert D. Atkinson.

Postrel’s 1998 book, The Future and Its Enemies, contrasted the conflicting worldviews of “dynamism” and “stasis” and showed how the tensions between these two visions would affect the course of human affairs. She made the case for embracing dynamism — “a world of constant creation, discovery, and competition” — over the “regulated, engineered world” of the stasis mentality. Similarly, in his 2004 book, The Past and Future of America’s Economy, Atkinson documented how “American history is rife with resistance to change,” and in recounting some of the heated battles over previous technological revolutions he showed how two camps were always evident: “preservationists” and “modernizers.”

When Juma repeatedly recounts the fight between “innovation and incumbency” in his case studies, he is essentially describing the same paradigmatic divide that Postrel and Atkinson highlight in their works when they discuss “dynamist” vs. “stasis” tensions and the “modernizers” vs. “preservationists” battles that we have seen throughout history. [Note: In my 2014 essay on, “Thinking about Innovation Policy Debates: 4 Related Paradigms,” I discussed Postrel and Atkinson’s books and other approaches to understanding tech policy divisions and then related them to the paradigms I contrast in my work: the so-called “precautionary principle” vs. “permissionless Innovation” mindsets.]

Finally, Juma’s book could also be compared to another freshly released book, The Politics of Innovation, by Mark Zachary Taylor. Taylor’s book is also essential reading on this lamentable history of industrial protectionism and the resulting political opposition to change we have seen over time. [Note: Brent Skorup and provided many other high-tech cronyist case studies like these in our 2013 law review article, “A History of Cronyism and Capture in the Information Technology Sector.”]

To counter the prevalence of special interest influence and poor policymaking more generally, Juma stresses the need for evidence-based analysis and a corresponding rejection of fear-mongering and deceptive tactics by public officials and activist groups. He’s particularly concerned with “the use of demonization and false analogies to amplify the perception of risks associated with a new product.”

Accordingly, he would like to see improved educational and risk communication efforts aimed at better informing the public about risk trade-offs and the many potential future benefits of emerging technologies. “Learning how to communicate to the general public is an important aspect of reducing distrust [in new technologies],” Juma argues. (p. 312)

On the Pacing Problem

But Juma never really adequately squares that recommendation with another point he makes throughout the text about how “the pace of technological innovation is discernibly fast,” (p. 5) and how it is accelerating in an exponential fashion. “The implications of exponential growth will continue to elude political leaders if they persist in operating with linear worldviews.” (p. 14) But if it is indeed the case that things are moving that fast, then are we not potentially doomed to live in never-ending cycles of technopanics and misinformation campaigns about new technologies no matter how much education we try to do?

Regardless, Juma’s argument about the speed of modern technological change is quite valid and shared by many other scholars. He is essentially making the same case that Larry Downes did in his excellent 2009 book, The Laws of Disruption: Harnessing the New Forces That Govern Life and Business in the Digital Age. Downes argued that lawmaking in the information age is inexorably governed by the “law of disruption” or the fact that “technology changes exponentially, but social, economic, and legal systems change incrementally.”  This law, Downes said, is “a simple but unavoidable principle of modern life,” and it will have profound implications for the way businesses, government, and culture evolve going forward.  “As the gap between the old world and the new gets wider,” he argued, “conflicts between social, economic, political, and legal systems” will intensify and “nothing can stop the chaos that will follow.”

Again, Juma makes that same point repeatedly throughout the chapters of his book. This is also a restatement of the so-called “pacing problem,” as it is called in the field of the philosophy of technology. I discussed the pacing problem at length in my recent review of Wendell Wallach’s important new book, A Dangerous Master: How to Keep Technology from Slipping beyond Our Control. Wallach nicely defined the pacing problem as “the gap between the introduction of a new technology and the establishment of laws, regulations, and oversight mechanisms for shaping its safe development.” “There has always been a pacing problem,” he noted but, like Juma, Wallach believes that modern technological innovation is occurring at an unprecedented pace, making it harder than ever to “govern” using traditional legal and regulatory mechanisms.

New Approaches to Technological Governance Needed

Both Wallach in A Dangerous Master and Juma in Innovation and Its Enemies struggle with how to solve this problem. Wallach advocates “soft law” mechanisms or even informal “Governance Coordinating Committees,” which would oversee the development of new technology policies and advise existing governmental institutions. Juma is somewhat ambiguous regarding potential solutions, but he does stress the general need for a flexible approach to policy, as he notes on pg. 252:

It is important to make clear distinctions between hazards and risks. It is necessary to find a legal framework for addressing hazards. But such a framework should not take the form of rigid laws whose adoption needs to be guided by evidence of harm. More flexible standards that allow continuous assessment of emerging safety issues related to a new product are another way to address hazards. This approach would allow for evidence-based regulation.

Beyond that Juma wants to see “entrepreneurialism exercised in the public arena” (p. 282) and calls for “decisive leaders to champion the application of new technologies.” (p. 283) He argues such leadership is needed to ensure that life-enriching technologies are not derailed by opponents of change.

On the other hand, Juma sees a broader role for policymakers in helping to counter some of the potential side effects associated with many emerging technologies. He highlights three primary areas of concern. First, he suggests political leaders might need to find ways “to help balance the benefits and risks of automation” due to the rapid rise of robotics and artificial intelligence. Second, he notes that synthetic biology and gene-editing will give rise to many thorny issues that require policymakers to balance “potentially extraordinary benefits and the risk of catastrophic consequences.” (p. 284)  Finally, he points out that medicine and healthcare are set to be radically transformed by emerging technologies, but they are also threatened by archaic policies and practices in many countries.

In each case, Juma hopes that “decisive,” “adaptive” and “flexible” leaders will steer a sensible policy course with an eye toward limiting “the spread of political unrest and resentment toward technological innovation.” (p. 284)  That’s a noble goal, but Juma remains a bit vague on the steps needed to accomplish that balancing act without tipping public policy in favor a full-blown precautionary principle-based regime for new technologies. Juma clearly wants to avoid that result, but it remains unclear how or where he would draw clear lines in the sand to prevent it from occurring while at the same time achieving “decisive leadership” aimed at balancing potential risks and benefits.

Similarly, his repeated calls in the closing chapter for “inclusive innovation” efforts and strategies sounds sensible in theory, but Juma speaks in abstract generalities about what the term means and doesn’t provide a clear vision for how that would translate into concrete actions that would not end up giving vested interests a veto over new forms of technological innovation that they disfavor.

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

Generally speaking, however, Juma wants this balance struck in favor of greater openness to change and an ongoing freedom to experiment with new technological capabilities. As he notes in his concluding chapter:

The biggest risk that society faces by adopting approaches that suppress innovation is that they amplify the activities of those who want to preserve the status quo by silencing those arguing for a more open future. […] Keeping the future open and experimenting in an inclusive and transparent way is more rewarding that imposing the dictum of old patterns. (pgs. 289, 316)

In that regard, the thing I liked most about Innovation and Its Enemies is the way throughout the text that Juma stressed the symbiotic relationship between risk-taking and progress. One of the ways he does so is by kicking off every chapter with a fun quote on that theme from some notable figure. He includes gems like these:

• “Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome.” – Samuel Johnson
• “Only those will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – T.S. Eliot
• “If you risk nothing, then you risk everything.” – Geena Davis
• “Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast.” – Tom Peters

Of course, I was bound to enjoy his repeated discussion of this theme because that was the central thesis of my latest book, in which I made the argument that, “if we spend all our time living in constant fear of worst-case scenarios—and premising public policy upon such fears—then many best-case scenarios will never come about.” Or more simply, as the old saying goes: “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

On Pastoral Myths

I also liked the way that Juma used his case studies to remind us how “the topics may have changed, but the tactics have not.” (p. 143) For example, much of the fear-mongering and deceptive tactics we have seen through the years are based on “pastoral ideals,” i.e., appeals to nature, farm life, old traditions, of just the proverbial “good old days,” whenever those supposedly were! “Demonizing innovation is often associated with campaigns to romanticize past products and practices,” Juma notes. “Opponents of innovation hark back to traditions as if traditions themselves were not inventions at some point in the past.” (p. 309)  So very true!

That was especially the case in battles over new farming methods and technologies, when opponents of change were frequently “championing a moral cause to preserve a way of life,” as Juma discusses in several chapters. (p. 129) New products or methods of production were repeatedly but wrongly characterized as dangerous simply because they were not supposedly “natural” or “traditional” enough in character.

Of course, if all farming and other work was to remain frozen in some past “natural” state, we’d all still be hunters and gathers struggling to find the next meal to put in our bellies. Or, if we were all still on the farms of the “good old days,” then we’d still be stuck using an ox and plow in the name of preserving the “traditional” ways of doing things.

Humanity has made amazing strides—including being able to feed more people more easily and cheaply than ever before—precisely because we broke with those old, “natural” traditions. Alas, many vested interests and even quite a few academics today still employ these same pastoral appeals and myths to oppose new forms of technological change. Juma’s case studies powerfully illustrate why that dynamic continues to be a driving force in innovation policy debates and how it has delayed the diffusion of many important new goods and services throughout history. When the opponents of change rest their case on pastoral myths and nostalgic arguments about the good old days we should remind them that the good old days weren’t really that great after all.

Conclusion

In closing, Innovation and Its Enemies earns my highest recommendation. Even though 2016 is only half done as I write this, Professor Juma’s book is probably already a shoo-in as my choice for best innovation policy book of the year. And I am certain that it will also go down as one of the decade’s most important innovation policy books. Buy the book now and read every word of it. It is well worth your time.

Additional material related to Juma’s book:

• Calestous Juma’s website at the Harvard Kennedy School
• Official book page for Innovation and Its Enemies
• Concise summary of the book from AAAS: “Why important innovations stall; understanding obstacles to change is key to future”
• Steven Overly, “Humans once opposed coffee and refrigeration. Here’s why we often hate new stuff,” Washington Post, July 21, 2016.
• Matt Ridley’s review of the book for The Times of London.

Other Related Books

In addition to the books that I already mentioned throughout this review, readers who find Juma’s book and the issues he discusses in it of interest should also consider reading these other books on innovation policy, technological governance, and regulatory capture.  Although many of them are more squarely focused on the information technology sector or other emerging technology fields, they all relate to the general subject matter and approach found throughout Juma’s book. [NOTE: Links, where provided, are to my reviews of these books.]

• The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, by Kevin Kelly (2016)
• Innovative Governance Models for Emerging Technologies, Gary E. Marchant, Kenneth W. Abbott & Braden Allenby (eds.), (2013)
• Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom ,by Rebecca MacKinnon (2012)
• Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance, by Milton Mueller (2010)
• The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, by Tim Wu (2010)
• The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, by Matt Ridley (2010)
• Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion, by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, and Harry Lewis (2008)
• Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies — and What It Means to Be Human, by Joel Garreau (2005)
• The Creation of Media, by Paul Starr (2005)
• Ruling the Waves: Cycles of Discovery, Chaos, and Wealth from the Compass to the Internet, by Debora Spar (2004)
• Questioning Technology, by Andrew Feenberg (1999)
• Thinking through Technology: The Path between Engineering and Philosophy, by Carl Mitcham (1994)
• Technologies of Freedom: On Free Speech in an Electronic Age, by Ithiel de Sola Pool (1983)

ICANN is meeting in Durban, South Africa this week, and this morning, its Governmental Advisory Committee, which goes by the delightfully onomatopoetic acronym GAC, announced its official objection to the .amazon top-level domain name, which was set to go to Amazon, the online purveyor of books and everything else. Domain Incite reports:

The objection came at the behest of Brazil and other Latin American countries that claim rights to Amazon as a geographic term, and follows failed attempts by Amazon to reach agreement.

Brazil was able to achieve consensus in the GAC because the United States, which refused to agree to the objection three months ago in Beijing, had decided to keep mum this time around.

The objection will be forwarded to the ICANN board in the GAC’s Durban communique later in the week, after which the board will have a presumption that the .amazon application should be rejected.

The board could overrule the GAC, but it seems unlikely.

This is a loss for anything resembling rule of law on the Internet. There are rules for applying for new generic TLDs, and the rules specifically say which geographic terms are protected. Basically, anything on this list, known as ISO 3166-1 is verboten. But “Amazon” is not on that list, nor is “Patagonia;” .patagonia was recently withdrawn. Amazon and Patagonia followed the rules and won their respective gTLDs fair and square.

The US’s decision to appease other countries by remaining silent is a mistake. The idea of diplomacy is to get countries to like you so that you can get what you want on policy, not to give up what is right on policy so that other countries will like you. I agree with Milton Mueller, whose bottom line is:

What is at stake here is far more important than the interests of Amazon, Inc. and Patagonia, Inc. What’s really at stake is whether the Internet is free of pointless constraints and petty political objections; whether governments can abuse the ICANN process to create rights and powers for themselves without any international legislative process subject to democratic and judicial checks and balances; whether the alternative governance model that ICANN was supposed to represent is real; whether domain name policy is made through an open, bottom-up consensus or top-down by states; whether the use of words or names on the Internet is subject to arbitrary objections from politicians globalizing their local prejudices.

While preparing my latest Forbes column, “Does the Internet Need a Global Regulator?” I collected some excellent resources. I figured I would just post all the links here since others might find them useful as we work our way up to the big U.N. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai this December. Please let me know of other things that I should add to this resource database. I’ve divided the database into “General Resources” and “Opinion Pieces”:

General Resources:

• World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) official website
• White House statement on WCIT: “Ensuring an Open Internet,” by Lawrence Strickling, Philip Verveer, and Daniel Weitzner, May 2, 2012.
• Internet Society “What is the WCIT?” F.A.Q.
• Internet Society’s Scoop.It page curating news on WCIT
• Center for Democracy & Technology briefing paper by : “ITU Move to Expand Powers Threatens the Internet,” March 12, 2012.
• David A. Gross & Ethan Lucarelli, “The 2012 World Conference On International Telecommunications: Another Brewing Storm Over Potential UN Regulation Of The Internet,” November 2011.
• Michael Joseph Gross, “World War 3.0,” Vanity Fair, May 2012.
• [BOOK] Milton Mueller – Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance (2010).
• Internet Governance Project blog.
• [RADIO] National Public Radio: “Who — If Anyone — Should Control The Internet?” January 12, 2012.

Opinion Pieces:

• Robert McDowell, “The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom” Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2012.
• ITU Secretary General Dr. Hamadoun Touré, “Securing the Future Benefits of Technology,” The Guardian (U.K.), March 6, 2012. [+ a recent speech on the issue.]
• Andrea Renda, “The U.N., Internet Regulator?” Wall Street Journal Europe, April 25, 2012.
• Gordon Crovitz, “The U.N. Wants to Run the Internet,” Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2012
• Adam Thierer, “Does the Internet Need a Global Regulator?” Forbes, May 6, 2012
• Gregory Francis, “UN Moves on Internet Governance: Latest Dispatch,” CircleID, April 26, 2012.
• Aspen Institute, Toward a Single Global Digital Economy: The First Report of the Aspen Institute IDEA Project, (April 24, 2012).
• Edward J. Black, “UN’s ITU Could Become Next Internet Freedom Threat,” Huffington Post, March 9, 2012.
• Jerry Brito, “The Case Against Letting the U.N. Govern the Internet,” Time TechLand, February 13, 2012.
• Tom Tauke, Verizon, Speech at New Democrat Network Internet Governance Event, April 19, 2012
• former Rep. Rick Boucher “U.N. Efforts Put Internet Freedom at Risk,” Politico, May 3, 2012.

Milton Mueller responded to my post Wednesday on the DOJ’s decision to halt the AT&T/T-Mobile merger by asserting that there was no evidence the merger would lead to “anything innovative and progressive” and claiming “[t]he spectrum argument fell apart months ago, as factual inquiries revealed that AT&T had more spectrum than Verizon and the mistakenly posted lawyer’s letter revealed that it would be much less expensive to expand its capacity than to acquire T-Mobile.”  With respect to Milton, I think he’s been suckered by the “big is bad” crowd at Public Knowledge and Free Press.  But he’s hardly alone and these claims — claims that may well have under-girded the DOJ’s decision to step in to some extent — merit thorough refutation.

To begin with, LTE is “progress” and “innovation” over 3G and other quasi-4G technologies.  AT&T is attempting to make an enormous (and risky) investment in deploying LTE technology reliably and to almost everyone in the US–something T-Mobile certainly couldn’t do on its own and something AT&T would have been able to do only partially and over a longer time horizon and, presumably, at greater expense.  Such investments are exactly the things that spur innovation across the ecosystem in the first place.  No doubt AT&T’s success here would help drive the next big thing–just as quashing it will make the next big thing merely the next medium-sized thing.

The “Spectrum Argument”

The spectrum argument that Milton claims “fell apart months ago” is the real story here, the real driver of this merger, and the reason why the DOJ’s action yesterday is, indeed, a blow to progress.  That argument, unfortunately, still stands firm.  Even more, the irony is that to a significant extent the spectrum shortfall is a product of the government’s own making–through mismanagement of spectrum by the FCC, political dithering by Congress, and local government intransigence on tower siting and co-location–and the notion of the government now intervening here to “fix” one of the most significant private efforts to make progress despite these government impediments is really troubling.

Anyway, here’s what we know about spectrum:  There isn’t enough of it in large enough blocks and in bands suitable for broadband deployment using available technology to fully satisfy  current–let alone future–demand.

Two incredibly detailed government sources for this conclusion are the FCC’s 15th Annual Wireless Competition Report and the National Broadband Plan.  Here’s FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski summarizing the current state of affairs (pdf):

The point deserves emphasis:  the clock is ticking on our mobile future. The FCC is an expert agency staffed with first-rate employees who have been working on spectrum allocation for decades – and let me tell you what the career engineers are telling me. Demand for spectrum is rapidly outstripping supply. The networks we have today won’t be able to handle consumer and business needs.

* * *

To avoid this crisis, the National Broadband Plan recommended reallocating 500 megahertz of spectrum for broadband, nearly double the amount that is currently available.

* * *

First, there are some who say that the spectrum crunch is greatly exaggerated – indeed, that there is no crunch coming. They also suggest that there are large blocks of spectrum just lying around – and that some licensees, such as cable and wireless companies, are just sitting on top of, or “hoarding,” unused spectrum that could readily solve that problem. That’s just not true.

* * *

The looming spectrum shortage is real – and it is the alleged hoarding that is illusory.

It is not hoarding if a company paid millions or billions of dollars for spectrum at auction and is complying with the FCC’s build-out rules. There is no evidence of non-compliance. . . . [T]he spectrum crunch will not be solved by the build-out of already allocated spectrum.

All of the evidence suggests that spectrum suitable for mobile broadband is scarce and growing scarcer.  Full stop.

It is troubling that critics–particularly those with little if any business experience–are so certain that even with no obvious source of additional spectrum suitable for LTE coming from the government any time soon, and even with exponential growth in broadband (including mobile) data use, AT&T’s current spectrum holdings are sufficient to satisfy its business plans (and its investors and stockholders).  You’d think AT&T would be delighted to hear this news–what we really need is a shareholder resolution to put Gigi Sohn on the board!

But seriously, put yourself in AT&T’s shoes for a moment.  Its long-term plans require the company to deploy significantly more spectrum than it currently holds in a reasonable time horizon (even granting Milton’s dubious premise that the company is squatting on scads of unused spectrum–remember that even if AT&T had all the spectrum sitting in its proverbial bank vault it would still be just about a third of the total amount of spectrum we’re predicted to need in just a few years).  Considering the various impediments of net neutrality regulation, congressional politics, presidential politics (think this had anything to do with claims about job losses from the merger, by chance?), reluctant broadcasters, the FCC, state PUCs, environmental groups and probably 10-12 others . . . the chances of being able to obtain the necessary spectrum and cell tower sitings in any other reasonable fashion were perhaps appropriately deemed . . . slim.

With the T-Mobile deal, on the other hand, “AT&T will gain cell sites equivalent to what would have taken on average five years to build without the transaction, and double that in some markets. AT&T’s network density will increase by approximately 30 percent in some of its most populated areas.” (Source).  I just don’t see how this jibes with the claim that the spectrum argument has fallen apart.

But there is a larger, “meta” point to make here, and it’s one that policy scolds and government regulators too often forget.  Even if none of that were true, as long as we don’t know for sure what is optimal and do know the DOJ is both a political organization made up of human beings operating not only under said ignorance but with incentives that don’t necessarily translate into “maximize social welfare” and also devoid of any actual “skin in the game,” I think the basic, simple, time-tested, logical and self-evident error cost principle counsels pretty firmly against intervention.  Humility, not hubris should rule the roost.

And that’s especially true since you know what will happen if the DOJ (or the FCC) succeeds in preventing AT&T from buying T-Mobile?  T-Mobile will still disappear and we’ll still be left with (according to the DOJ’s analysis) the terrifying prospect of only 3 national wireless telecom providers.  Only, in that case, everyone’s going to think a lot harder about investing in future developments that might warrant integration or cooperation or . . . well, the DOJ will challenge anything, so add to the list patent pools, too much success, not enough sharing, etc., etc.  And you wonder why I think this might constitute an assault on innovation?

Now, as for Milton’s specific claims, reminiscent of Public Knowledge’s and Free Press’ talking points, let me quote AT&T’s Public Interest Statement discussing its own particular spectrum holdings:

Because of the high demand for broadband service, AT&T already has had to deploy four carriers (for a total of 40 MHz of spectrum) for UMTS [3G] in some areas—and it will need to deploy more in the near future, even if doing so squeezes its GSM spectrum allocation and compromises GSM service quality . . . .  AT&T expects that, given the relative infancy of the LTE ecosystem and the time needed to migrate subscribers, it will need to continue to allocate spectrum to UMTS services for a substantial number of years—indeed, even longer than AT&T needs to continue allocating spectrum for GSM services.

* * *

AT&T has begun deployment of LTE services using its AWS and 700 MHz spectrum and currently plans to cover more than 250 million people by the end of 2013

* * *

AT&T projects it will need to use its 850 MHz and 1900 MHz spectrum holdings to support GSM and UMTS services for a number of years and, in the meantime, will not be able to re-deploy them for more spectrally efficient LTE services.

* * *

AT&T’s existing WCS spectrum holdings cannot be used for this purpose either, because the technical rules for the WCS band, such as limits on the power spectral density limits, make it infeasible to use that band for broadband service.

In other words, I don’t think AT&T has been (nor could it be, given the FCC’s detailed knowledge on the subject) hiding its spectrum holdings.  Instead, the company has been making quite clear that the spectrum it has is simply insufficient to meet anticipated demand.  And, well, duh!  Anyone who uses AT&T knows its network is overloaded.  Some of that’s because of tower-siting issues, some because it simply didn’t anticipate the extent of demand it would face.  I heard somewhere that no matter how hard they try to account for their perpetual under-accounting, every estimate by every mobile provider of anticipated spectrum needs in the past two decades or so has fallen short.  I’m quite sure that AT&T didn’t anticipate in 2007 that spectrum usage would increase by 8000% (yes, that’s thousand) by 2010.

Moreover, there will always (in any sensible system) be excess capacity at times–as it happens, at (conveniently) the times when spectrum usage is often counted–in order to deal with peak loads.  It is no more sensible to deploy capacity sufficient to handle the maximum load 100% of the time than it is to deploy capacity to handle only the minimum load 100% of the time.  Does that mean the often-unused spectrum is “excess”?  Clearly not.

Moreover (again), not all spectrum is in contiguous blocks sufficient to deploy LTE.  AT&T (at least) claims that is the case with much of its existing spectrum.  Spectrum isn’t simply fungible, and un-nuanced claims that “AT&T has X megahertz of spectrum and it is plenty” are just meaningless.  Again, just because Free Press says otherwise does not make it so.  You can simply discount AT&T’s claims if you like–I’m sure it’s possible they’re just lying; but you should probably be careful whose “information” you believe instead.

But, no, Milton, the spectrum argument did not “fall apart months ago.”  Gigi Sohn, Harold Feld and Sprint just said it did.  There’s a difference.

“Letter-Gate”

As for the infamous letter alleged to show that AT&T could expand LTE service from its previously-planned 80% of the country to the 97% it promises if the merger goes through for significantly less than it would cost to buy T-Mobile:  I don’t know exactly what its import is—but no one outside AT&T and, maybe, the FCC really does, either.  But I think a little sensible skepticism is in order.

First, for those who haven’t read it, the letter says, in relevant part:

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss AT&T’s current LTE deployment plans to reach 80 percent of the U.S. population by the end of 2013…; the estimated [Begin Confidential Information] $3.8 billion [End Confidential Information] in additional capital expenditures to expand LTE coverage from 80 to 97 percent of the U.S. population; and AT&T’s commitment to expand LTE to over 97 percent of the U.S. population as a result of this transaction.

That part, “$3.8 billion,” between the words “Begin Confidential Information” and “End Confidential Information” was supposed to be redacted, but apparently wasn’t when the letter was first posted to the FCC’s website.

While Public Knowledge and other critics of the deal would have you believe that this proves AT&T could roll-out nationwide LTE service for 1/10 of the cost of the T-Mobile deal, it’s basically impossible to tell what this number really means–except it certainly doesn’t mean that.

Claims about its meaning are actually largely content-less; nothing I’ve seen asks (or can possibly answer) whether the number in the letter was full cost, partial cost, annualized cost, based off of what baseline, etc., etc.  Moreover, unless I’m mistaken, nothing in the letter said anything at all about $3.8 billion being used to relieve congestion, meet future demand, increase speeds, reduce latency, expand coverage in urban areas, etc.  It seems to me that it’s referring to “additional” (additional to what?) capital expense to build infrastructure to make it even possible to offer LTE coverage to 97% of the U.S. population following the merger.  AT&T has from the outset said (bragged, more like it, because it’s supposed to bring lots of jobs and that’s what the politicians care about) that it planned to spend an “additional” $8 billion–additional to the $39 billion required to buy T-Mobile, that is–to build out its infrastructure as part of the deal.  But neither this letter nor any of AT&T’s statements (nor anyone with any familiarity with the relevant facts) has ever said it could or would have full-speed, LTE service available and up and running to 97% of the country for $3.8 billion or even $8 billion–or even merely $39 billion.  In fact, AT&T seemed to be saying that it was going to cost at least $47 billion to make that happen (and I can assure you that doesn’t begin to account for all the costs associated with integrating T-Mobile with AT&T once the $39 billion is out the door).

As I’ve alluded to above, deploying LTE service to rural areas is probably not as important for AT&T as increasing its network’s capacity in urban areas. The T-Mobile deal allows AT&T to alleviate the congestion problems experienced by its existing customers in urban areas more quickly than any other option–and because T-Mobile’s network is already up and running, that’s still true even if the federal government was somehow able to make tons of spectrum immediately available.  Moreover, with respect to the $3.8 billion, as I’ve discussed at length above, without T-Mobile’s–or someone’s!–additional spectrum and the miraculous removal of local government impediments to tower construction, pretty much no amount of money would enable AT&T to actually deliver LTE service to 97% of the country.  Is that what it would cost to build the extra pieces of hardware necessary to support such an offering?  That sounds plausible.  But actually deliver it? Hardly.

And just to play this out, let’s say the letter did mean just that — that AT&T could deliver real, fine LTE service to 97% of the country for a mere $3.8 billion direct, marginal outlay, even without T-Mobile.  It is still the case that none of us outsiders knows what such a claim would assume about where the necessary spectrum would come from and what, absent the merger, the effect would be on existing 3G coverage, congestion, pricing, etc., and what the expected ROI for such a project would be.  Elsewhere in the letter its author states that AT&T considered whether making this investment (without the T-Mobile merger) was prudent, and repeatedly rejected it.  In other words, all those armchair CEOs are organizing AT&T’s business and spending its money without the foggiest clue as to what the real consequences would be of doing so–and then claiming that, although, unlike them, actually in possession of the data relevant to such an assessment, AT&T must be lying, and could only justify spending $39 billion to buy T-Mobile as a means of securing its monopoly power.

And I think it’s important to gut check that claim, as well, as it’s what critics claim to fear (The Ma Bell from the Black Lagoon).  Unpacked, it goes something like this:

Given that:

1.  AT&T is going to spend $39 billion to buy T-Mobile;
2. It is going to spend $8 billion to build additional infrastructure;
3. Having bought T-Mobile, it is going to incur some ungodly amount of expense integrating T-Mobile’s assets and employees with its own;
4. It is going to incur huge, ongoing additional costs to govern a now-larger, more-complex organization;
5. It is going to continue to be regulated by the FCC and watched carefully by the DOJ and its unofficial consumer watchdog minions;
6. It will continue to face competition from its current largest and second-largest competitor;
7. It will continue to face entry threats from the likes of Dish and Lightsquared;
8. It will continue to face competition from fixed broadband offered by the likes of Comcast and Time Warner;
9. It will do all this quite publicly, under the watchful eyes of Congress and its union to whom it has made all manner of politically-expedient promises;

 Then it follows that:

1. Although it can’t muster the gumption to risk $3.8 billion to legitimately (it is claimed) extend full LTE coverage to 97% of the U.S. population, it nevertheless thinks it’s a sure bet that it will be able to recoup all of these expenditures, in this competitive and regulatory environment, by virtue of having thus taken out not its largest, not even its second-largest, but its smallest “national” competitor, and thereby having converted itself into an unfettered monopolist. QED.

The mind boggles.

So.  Back to Milton and his suggestion that I was wrong to claim that the DOJ’s action here is a threat to innovation and progress and his assertion that AT&T’s claims surrounding the benefits of the transaction fail to stand up to scrutiny:  C’mon, Miltons of the world!  Where’s your normally healthy skepticism?  I know you don’t like big infrastructure providers.  I know you’re angry your iPhone isn’t as functional as it is beautiful.  I know capitalists are only slightly more trustworthy than regulators (or is it the other way around?).  But why give in so credulously to the claims of the professional critics?  Isn’t it more likely that the deal’s critics are just blowing smoke here because they don’t like any consolidation?  It doesn’t take much research to understand (to the extent anyone can understand something so complex) the current state of the U.S. broadband market and its discontents–and why something like this merger is a plausible response.  And you don’t have to like, trust, or even stand the sight of any business executive to know that, however stupid or evil, he is still constrained by powerful market forces beyond his ken.  And “Letter-Gate” is just another pseudo-scandal contrived to suit an agenda of aggressive government meddling.

We all ought to be more wary of such claims, less quick to join anyone in condemning big as bad, and far less quick to, implicitly or explicitly, substitute the known depredations of the government for the possible ones of the market without a hell of a lot better evidence to do so.

Like Milton, I’m very worried about the political vulnerabilities that might arise if the wireless sector grows more concentrated. Still, I think it’s a big mistake to legitimize one repressive incarnation of coercive state power (antitrust intervention) to reduce the likelihood that another incarnation (information control) will intensify. This approach is not only defeatist, as Hance argues, but it also requires a tactical assessment that rests on several dubious assumptions.

First, Milton overestimates the marginal risk that the AT&T – T-Mobile deal will pave the way for an information control regime. The wireless market isn’t static; the disappearance of T-Mobile as an independent entity (which may well occur regardless of whether this deal goes through) hardly means we’re forever “doomed” to live with 3 nationwide wireless players. With major spectrum auctions likely on the horizon, and the possibility of existing spectrum holdings being combined in creative ways, the eventual emergence of one or more nationwide wireless competitors is quite possible — especially if, as skeptics of the AT&T – T-Mobile deal often argue, the wireless market underperforms in the years following the acquisition.

More importantly, network operators, like almost all Internet gatekeepers, face mounting pressure from their users not to facilitate censorship, surveillance, and repression. Case in point: AT&T is a leading member of the Digital Due Process coalition (to which I also belong) that’s urging Congress to substantially strengthen the 1986 federal statute that governs law enforcement access to private electronic communications. Consider that AT&T’s position on this major issue is officially at odds with the official position of the same Justice Department that’s currently reviewing the AT&T – T-Mobile deal. Would a docile, subservient network operator challenge its state overseers so publicly?

Or take Google. Arguably, it’s an enormously important gatekeeper — in many respects, it’s an even greater “chokepoint” than any single network operator — but the firm has held strong against substantial pressures from the U.S. government to facilitate censorship and surveillance. (See, e.g.: Google’s successful 2006 challenge to a Justice Department request seeking search query logs; Google’s recent refusal to remove DUI apps from its Android market; Google’s widely noted hesitance toward censoring search results absent a lawfully issued takedown request; Google’s 2010 joint amicus brief urging a federal district court to reject a Justice Department subpoena seeking to compel Yahoo! to disclose the contents of a user’s opened emails).

I could go on. The point is that large network operators are often willing to vigorously resist — both in private and in public — governmental demands that they facilitate information control. Working in cahoots with unpopular governmental actors is terrible PR; some major players seem to think it’s bad for business, too.

It’s often overlooked that antitrust intervention deprives us of beneficial competitive reactions to business deals — even deals that, viewed in isolation, appear to be “harmful.” The consequence of the AT&T – T-Mobile deal won’t simply be the two companies operating as a single entity; the deal will also force rivals to respond in unforeseeable ways that will tend to benefit consumers and fuel innovation. As Hance reminds us, this virtuous cycle of Schumpeterian creative destruction is fundamental to the long-term evolution of markets. When government blocks proposed business arrangements, it contributes to stasis — and static markets tend to be much easier to regulate and control than relatively dynamic markets.

To be sure, if the combination of AT&T and T-Mobile exacerbates political pressures for imposing a network information control regime, we cyber-libertarians should fight back vigorously. Turning to antitrust intervention to keep markets relatively unconcentrated — and, hence, more difficult to regulate — is a mistake.

If you welcome the growing pressures for regulating business arrangements in the high-tech sector, an emboldened antitrust regime is just what the doctor ordered.

It’s my great pleasure to welcome Milton Mueller to the TLF as an occasional contributor. Milton is a professor at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. Cyberlaw and Internet policy scholars are certainly familiar with Milton’s impressive body of research on communications, media, and high-tech issues over the past 25 years. You can find much of it on his website here.  Regular readers of the TLF will also recall that I have praised Milton’s one-of-a-kind research on Internet governance issues, going so far as to label him the “de Tocqueville of cyberspace.”  His work with the Internet Governance Project and the Global Internet Governance Academic Network is truly indispensable, and in books like Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace (2002) and his more recent Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance (2010), Milton brilliantly explores the forces shaping Internet policy across the globe. (Also, make sure to listen to this podcast that Jerry Brito did with Milton about the book and his ongoing research.)

More importantly, as I noted in my review of Network and States last year, Milton has sought to breathe new life into the old cyber-libertarian philosophy that was more prevalent during the Net’s founding era but has lost favor today. In the book, he notes that his “normative stance is rooted in the Internet’s early promise of unfettered and borderless global communication, and its largely accidental and temporary escape from traditional institutional mechanisms of control.”  He has also given our little movement its marching orders, arguing that “we need to find ways to translate classical liberal rights and freedom into a governance framework suitable for the global Internet.  There can be no cyberliberty without a political movement to define, defend, and institutionalize individual rights and freedoms on a transnational scale,” he says.  Terrific stuff, and I very much look forward to Milton developing this framework in more detail here at the TLF in coming years.

Milton will continue to do much of his blogging over at the Internet Governance Project blog, but will drop by here on occasion to cross-post some of those writings or to comment on other pressing Internet policy issues of the day. Welcome to the TLF, Milton!

Wow, what a year for cyberlaw and information technology policy books!  Both in terms of number of titles and the gravity of the books released, 2010 was one of the biggest years of the past decade (perhaps matched only by 2006 or 2008 in terms of significance).  So, here’s my annual list of the Most Important Info-Tech Policy Books of 2010.

First, however, as is the case each year [see my 2008 & 2009 lists], I need to repeat a few disclaimers.  First, what qualifies as an “important” info-tech policy book is highly subjective, but I would define it as a title that many people — especially scholars in the field — are currently discussing and that we will likely be referencing for many years to come.  But I “weight” books in the sense that narrowly-focused titles lose a few points. For example, books that deal mostly with privacy issues, copyright law, or antitrust policy do not exactly qualify as the same sort of “info-tech policy book” as other titles that offer a broader exploration of policy issues / concerns. For that reason, “big picture” info-tech policy books tend to rank higher on my lists.

The second caveat: Merely because a book appears on my list it does not necessarily mean I agree with everything in it. In fact, as was the case in previous years, I found much with which to disagree in my picks for the most important books of 2010 and I find that the cyber-libertarianism I subscribe to has very few fans out there.

With those caveats in mind, here are my choices for the Most Important Info-Tech Policy Books of 2010.

(1) Tim Wu – The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

In The Master Switch, Tim Wu claims that information industries are prone to “cycles” that generally advance from “open” to “closed” and he correctly notes that regulatory capture and bureaucratic mismanagement are major culprits. “Again and again in the histories I have recounted,” he says, “the state has shown itself an inferior arbiter of what is good for the information industries. The federal government’s role in radio and television from the 1920s through the 1960s, for instance, was nothing short of a disgrace… Government’s tendency to protect large market players amounts to an illegitimate complicity … [particularly its] sense of obligation to protect big industries irrespective of their having become uncompetitive.”

Wu is correct. Strangely, however, he never seems to draw any lesson from that “disgrace” and “complicity.” Indeed, sometimes within a line or two of raising such concerns in his book, Wu seems to dismiss those findings entirely and proposes giving the government far more power to play games within the information sector. If Wu believes what he said about the dangers of regulatory capture and bureaucratic bungling, why is he so eager to empower the State to do even more meddling in information technology sectors?

When it comes to solutions, Wu fails to conduct any serious cost-benefit analysis of the trade-offs associated with an aggrandizement of State power in the name of countering the supposed evils of private power. The solutions Wu offers are typically presented as cost-free options. Yet, Prof. Wu’s primary solution, a so-called “Separation Principle,” would have a devastating impact on high-technology innovation and competitiveness. Claiming that information industries are too important to be governed by traditional laws and regulations, Wu advocates a sweeping industrial policy that would separate information industries into three buckets — content, distribution, and devices — and keep them segregated by force of law. Integration and cross-sector arrangements would essentially become illegal in this system of information apartheid.

Mysteriously, Wu is adamant about this not being a regulatory solution, instead preferring to call it a “constitutional” approach. But such semantic sophistry can’t disguise the fact that his regime would be an ambitious industrial policy for America’s information economy. Entire companies and sectors would need to be undone, and all future technological innovation would need to be subjected to regulatory classification proceedings to determine in which bucket they belong.  Ironically, therefore, Wu’s proposed approach would greatly empower the same regulators that he claimed drove previous industries into the ground! They would have even more sway over the future of technological innovation, media policy decisions, and free speech issues. Again, Wu never address the potential downsides or costs of his proposed approach even though we know that, when it comes to regulation, there is no free lunch. Something has to give.

In sum, I believe Wu’s hyper-pessimistic worldview and extreme recommendations are unwarranted and I made my reservations known in a 6-part series of essays about his book.  [See Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.]  Nonetheless, The Master Switch is a profoundly important book that we’ll be debating for many years to come.

Listen to Jerry Brito’s “Surprisingly Free” podcast discussion with Tim Wu here.

(#2) Kevin Kelly – What Technology Wants

Kevin Kelly has written a terrifically interesting book that is actually two books in one. The bookends (Parts 1 and 4) are pretty out there. In those portions of the book, Kelly aims to prove that “the technium” – “the greater, global, massively interconnected system of technology vibrating around us” — is a “force” or even a living “organism” that has a “vital spirit” and which “has its own wants” and “a noticeable measure of autonomy.” “The technium is whispering to itself,” he says. At times, Kelly sounds like he’s longing for humanity’s assimilation into the machine or The Matrix. “We can think of technology as our extended body,” he says. He speaks repeatedly of human-machine “symbiosis.” “We are now symbiotic with technology” and, apparently, that symbiotic bonding can get pretty intense as “humans are the reproductive organs of technology.” Sounds a little kinky, but what the hell does that even mean? I think those are the weaker sections of the book. He sounds like one of those enviro-extremists who proselytizes about Gaia theories of Earth as a spirit or deity.

But Kelly redeems himself with eight absolutely stunning chapters in the middle two sections of the book. Gone is most of the Gaia-like talk of the technium as a living organism. Kelly instead focuses on explaining to us in plain terms the progression of technology in our lives and how we’ve come to cope with it. He notes, for example, that “Over the centuries, societies have declared many technologies to be dangerous, economically upsetting, immoral, unwise, or simply too unknown for our good. The remedy to this perceived evil is usually a form of prohibition. The offending innovation may be taxed severely or legislated to narrow purposes or restricted to the outskirts or banned altogether.”

But banning technology never works, he argues, largely because humans adapt and embrace new tools and developments. “[H]istory shows that it is very hard for a society as a whole to say no to technology for very long.” “Prohibitions are in effect postponements” and “wholesale prohibitions simply do not work to eliminate a technology that is considered subversive or morally wrong. Technologies can be postponed but not stopped.”  Importantly, Kelly doesn’t turn a blind eye to the downsides of technology. In fact, he is refreshingly candid about the trade-offs we face. He argues that, “If we examine technologies honestly, each one as its faults as well as its virtues. There are no technologies without vices and none that are neutral. The consequences of a technology expand with its disruptive nature. Powerful technologies will be powerful in both directions – for good and bad. There is no powerfully constructive technology that is not also powerfully destructive in another direction, just as there is no great idea that cannot be greatly perverted for great harm… This should be the first law of technological expectation: The greater the promise of a new technology, the greater its potential for harm as well.”

Quite right. But then Kelly then goes on to masterfully discuss the dangers of applying the “precautionary principle” to technological advancement. Kelly correctly argues, is that because “every good produces harm somewhere… by the strict logic of an absolute Precautionary Principle no technologies would be permitted.” (p. 247-8) Under such a regime, progress becomes impossible because trade-offs are considered unacceptable. This doesn’t mean humans shouldn’t try to foresee problems associated with new technologies or address them preemptively. But that can be done without resisting new technologies or technological change altogether. “The proper response to a lousy technology is not to stop technology or to produce no technology,” Kelly argues. “It is to develop a better, more convivial technology.”

In sum, I loved the middle sections of What Technology Wants, but I could have done without the silly “technology-as-organism” theories found in the opening and closing chapters. Overall, however, Kevin Kelly has written a book that demands our attention. We will be talking about What Technology Wants for many, many years to come.

See my complete review of the book here, and make sure to listen to Kelly’s interesting podcast discussion with Jerry Brito here.

(#3) Jaron Lanier – You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto

Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget is an intriguing but highly pessimistic look at the impact of the Internet and digital technology on our lives, culture, and economy. Like other Net skeptics, Lanier worries about the loss of individuality, the rise of “mob” behavior, the dangers of free culture, and the rise of a new sharecropper economy in which a small handful of capitalists are supposedly getting rich off the backs of free labor. As a respected Internet visionary, a gifted computer scientist, an expert on virtual reality, and a master wordsmith, the concerns Lanier articulates here deserve to be taken seriously — even if one ultimately does not share his lugubrious worldview. And I don’t.

He rightly castigates extreme varieties of quixotic techno-utopianism, which he labels “cybernetic totalism,” or the belief by some extreme digital age optimists that a “hive mind” or “noosphere” is coming about. It’s a vision of the Net as an organism powered by the wisdom of crowds. Lanier thinks such thinking is all bunk and, worse yet, that it has dangerous ramifications for humanity and individuality. He also asks us to think twice before taking too big of a gulp of the “free culture” kool-aid and extreme varieties of cyber-collectivism, which I wholeheartedly agree with.

But his critique is too sweeping and he refuses at times to acknowledge the many legitimate innovations associated with open source software or Web 2.0 technologies. He also gets so caught up in his critique of the free culture movement that he unfairly indicts the entire digital generation and wrongly claims most modern culture is moribund and little more than “a petty mashup of preweb culture.” Sorry, but I just don’t buy that. And it’s entirely subjective, anyway.

I also found Lanier’s “lords of the cloud” critique of social networking and advertising unpersuasive. Lanier seems to believe that Google, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other Web 2.0 sites are all just part of the hive mind indoctrination scheme. Or, at a minimum, they are turning our brains into Jello, he claims, and destroying our individuality. But here Lanier is guilty of a form of hyper-nostolgia about those mythical “good ‘ol days” when all was supposedly much better. The Web 1.0 world was any better than today’s cyberspace; it had its own share of problems. And today’s leading cloud companies aren’t exploiting us or manipulating our minds by offering us great platforms or free services. Indeed, they are offering us wonderful new avenues for self-expression and interaction with others.

Lanier doesn’t seem willing to leave room for a middle ground position that rejects extreme techno-utopianism and the most extreme elements of the free culture mindset, but which also acknowledges there is much good to be found in modern digital culture and online life. Despite that, his book is easily one of the most important information technology policy books of recent years.

My lengthy review of Lanier’s book is can be found here.

(#4) Nicholas Carr – The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains

Rich with historical anecdotes and replete with scientific surveys and evidence, The Shallows is a book that demands your respect whether you are comfortable giving it or not. And many people won’t be. After all, Carr is a bit of a skunk at the cyber-garden party. I mean, how dare he suggest that all is not wine and roses with our glorious new world of instantaneous connectivity, abundant information flows, and cheap (often free) media content! Obviously, most of us want to believe that all adds up to a more well-rounded worldview and greater wisdom about the world around us. Carr is skeptical of those claims and The Shallows is his latest effort to poke a hole in the cyber-utopian claims that sometimes pervade discussions about Internet. Although, ultimately, he doesn’t quite convinced me that “The Web is a technology of forgetfulness,” he has made a powerful case that its effects may not be as salubrious as many of us have assumed.

But the ultimate question is: Do the costs really outweigh the benefits? Is it the case that these technologies “turn numb the most intimate, the most human, of our natural capacities — those for reason, perception, memory, emotion”? I think that goes a bit too far. Importantly, Carr doesn’t really ever answer the crucial question: Were we really better off in the decades prior to the rise of the Net? Did we really read more and engage in the more contemplative deep-reading and thinking he Carr fears we are losing because of the Net? Count me among those who think that — whatever most of us are doing in front our our computers most nights, and no matter how distracting it is — it has to be better than much of the junk we wasted our spare time on in the past!

It would have also been nice to have seen Carr offer up some personal suggestions for how we each might better manage cognitive overload, which can be a real problem. In a brief “digression” chapter entitled “On the Writing of This Book,” Carr does mention some of the steps he took personally to make sure he could complete The Shallows without being driven to distraction by the Web and digital technologies. But he doesn’t dwell on that much, which is a shame. A bit of a self-help can go a long way toward alleviating the worst forms of cognitive overload, although it will continue to be a struggle for many of us.

Despite the reservations I raised in my review of the book, Nick Carr’s The Shallows is beautifully written and will be required reading in this field for many years to come.   And make sure to check out this “Surprisingly Free” podcast conversation that Jerry Brito had with Carr back in June.

(#5) Clay Shirky – Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

If you are an avid reader of everything Clay Skirky pens, then the chapters you’ll find in his new book, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in the a Connected Age, will seem quite familiar.  We’ve seen or heard most of the material in Cognitive Surplus many times before and I think we got the point: The Internet and digital technology has freed up an enormous amount of time for more productive / worthwhile endeavors that was previously squandered — most by too much coach potato television consumption. He spells out his thesis a bit more eloquently on pg. 63:

The harnessing of our cognitive surplus allows people to behave in increasingly generous, public, and social ways, relative to their old status as consumers and couch potatoes. The raw material of this change is the free time available to us, time we can commit to projects that range from the amusing to the culturally transformative. […] Flexible, cheap, and inclusive media now offers us opportunities to do all sorts of things we once didn’t do. In the world of “the media,” we were like children, sitting quietly at the edge of a circle and consuming whatever the grown-ups in the center of the circle produced. That has given way to a world in which most forms of communication, public and private, are available to everyone in some form. (p. 63)

Shirky spends 200+ pages here trying to bolster that claim in various ways. But, again, I’m not sure he needed to. The notion that the Net has made us and our culture better off seems fairly uncontroversial to most of us. But Shirky also overplays his hand at times and tries to read a bit too much into the significance of the rising cognitive surplus.  It’s less likely to reshape politics or civic spirit, for example, as much as he seems to suggest.

My longer review of Cognitive Surplus can be found here and you’ll want to listen to Jerry Brito’s very interesting “Surprisingly Free” podcast discussion with him here.

(#6) Barbara van Schewick – Internet Architecture and Innovation

Barbara van Schewick’s book is an extended — and I do mean extended — love letter to the “end-to-end” principle and Net neutrality.  Weighing in at almost 600 pages, van Schewick goes on much longer than she needed to make her core argument: The structure of the current Internet is sacrosanct and must be preserved. Deviations from end-to-end or “neutrality,” however defined, are to be discouraged or disallowed. “[D]ifferent ways of structuring the Internet result in very different environments for its development,” she argues.  “If left to themselves, network providers will continue to change  the internal structure of the Internet in ways that are good for them, but not necessarily for the rest of us,” she says. (p. 377)

Of course, we’ve heard all these arguments made ad nauseam in the Net neutrality wars, but to her credit, van Schewick makes them far more eloquently in this book than they have ever been made before.  She does a particularly good job of walking the reader through the guts of the Internet’s current architecture.  The layman will find the book quite challenging in light of its highly technical nature, however.  But her grasp of the subject is impressive.

Unfortunately, van Schewick doesn’t spend much time addressing the downsides associated with expanding regulation of the Internet.  There’s no acknowledgment of the danger of regulatory capture, regulatory creep, or bureaucratic meddling with highly complex systems.  She seems to assume regulators will be immune to such tendencies and, more surprisingly, have a crystal ball with which they can view the wisdom of current regulatory actions. She argues, for example, that in some cases “regulators will need to shape the technology before it is deployed.” (p. 388)  This suggests a return to the sort of anticipatory, “Mother, May I” regulatory regime America began turning away from following the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.  Do we really want the FCC micro-managing every important innovation and business decision in these fast-moving, complex markets?   Experimentation with different digital architectures would essentially become verboten under van Schewick’s paradigm.

When it comes imposing “an engineering design principle” from above, van Schewick claims that “the broad version [of the end-to-end principle] provides much more flexibility for the evolution of the network’s core than is often assumed.” (p. 389)  Yet, she never spells out what she means by that and how much flexibility she would allow in terms of core innovation before having regulators intervene.  For those of us who favor a more dynamic, experimental, and evolutionary approach to markets and technical engineering determinations, van Schewick’s approach looks like one that would freeze current high-tech markets and networks in stone.   Her occasional lip-service to the trade-offs involved in this process are appreciated but, ultimately, unbelievable since she always comes down in favor of maximizing opportunities or innovation at the edge of networks relative to the core. Innovation at the core of networks is every bit as important as innovation at the edge, however. We don’t want stagnation at the core of networks or else the applications that ride on them will suffer.

(#7) Milton Mueller — Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance

Milton Mueller’s Networks and States isn’t the most important information technology policy book of the year, but it was easily my favorite.   Mueller’s book continues his exploration of the forces shaping Internet policy across the globe. What Mueller is doing in his work in this book and elsewhere is becoming the early chronicler of the unfolding Internet governance scene. He meticulously reports on, and then deconstructs, ongoing governance developments along the cyber-frontier. He is, in effect, a sort of de Tocqueville for cyberspace; an outsider looking in and asking questions about what makes this new world tick. Fifty years from now, when historians look back on the opening era of Internet governance squabbles, Milton Mueller’s work will be among the first things they consult.

Mueller’s goal in Networks and States is two-fold and has both an empirical and normative element. First, he aims to extend his exploration of the actors and forces affecting Internet governance debates and then develop a framework and taxonomy to better map and understand these forces and actors. He does a wonderful job on that front, even though many Net governance issues can be incredibly boring. Mueller finds a way to make them far more interesting, especially by helping to familiarize the reader with the personalities and organizations that increasingly dominate these debates and the issues and principles that drive their actions or activism.

Mueller’s second goal in Networks and States is to breathe new life into the old cyber-libertarian philosophy that was more prevalent during the Net’s founding era but has lost favor today. Mueller says his “normative stance is rooted in the Internet’s early promise of unfettered and borderless global communication, and its largely accidental and temporary escape from traditional institutional mechanisms of control.” Mueller makes a convincing case for giving cyber-libertarianism, or what he calls “denationalized liberalism,” another chance; a chance that it really never had. “At its core,” Mueller continues, “denationalized liberalism favors a universal right to receive and impart information regardless of frontiers, and sees freedom to communicate and exchange information as fundamental and primary elements of human choice and political and social activity.” Moreover, “this ideology holds a presumption in favor of networked, associative relations over hierarchical relations as a mode of transnational governance,” he argues. “Governance should emerge primarily as a byproduct of many unilateral and bilateral decisions by its members to exchange or negotiate with other members (or refuse to do so).” Finally, he says, “a denationalized liberalism strives to make Internet users and suppliers an autonomous, global polity.” In essence, it’s about free will, freedom of action, and freedom of association. It’s essentially classical liberalism for the Information Age. Mueller admits that “such an ideology needs to answer tough questions about when hierarchical exercises of power are justified and through which instruments they are exercised.” But he continues on to make the case for “question[ing] the scope of national sovereignty over communications.” “The governance of the Internet needs to explicitly recognize and embrace the principle that there are limits to national sovereignty over the flow of information,” he says.

Mueller has made a beautiful case for cyber-libertarianism and he has given the movement its marching orders: “In short, we need to find ways to translate classical liberal rights and freedom into a governance framework suitable for the global Internet. There can be no cyberliberty without a political movement to define, defend, and institutionalize individual rights and freedoms on a transnational scale.”   Even if you aren’t compelled to join the cause, however, I highly recommend you pick up Mueller’s Network and States, anyway. It’s a terrific survey of the current state of Internet governance and an important work of political science since it offers us a useful spectrum of Net governance viewpoints.

My longer review of Networks and States is here and here’s Jerry Brito’s podcast discussion with Mueller about his book.

(#8) Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, and Jonathan Zittrain (eds.) – Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace

Smartly organized and edited, Access Controlled is essential reading for anyone interested in studying the methods governments are using globally to stifle online expression and dissent. There is simply no other resource out there like this; it should be required reading in every cyberlaw or information policy program.

The book, which is a project of the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), is divided into two parts. Part 1 of the book includes six chapters on “Theory and Analysis.” They are terrifically informative essays. The beefy second part of the book provides a whopping 480 pages of detailed regional and country-by-country overviews of the global state of online speech controls and discuss the long-term ramifications of increasing government meddling with online networks.

The book also offers a useful taxonomy to illustrate the three general types of speech and information controls that states are deploying today. Throughout the book, various authors document the increasing movement away from “first generation controls,” which are epitomized by “Great Firewall of China”-like filtering methods, and toward second- and third-generation controls, which are more refined and difficult to monitor.

The individual authors seem to adopt a somewhat gloomy outlook toward the long-term prospects for “technologies of freedom” relative to “technologies of control.” But I think it’s vital to put things in some historical context in this regard. It’s important to recall that, as a communications medium, the Net is still quite young. So, is the Net really more susceptible to State control and manipulation than previous communications technologies and platforms? I’m not so sure, although it’s hard to find a metric to compare them in an analytically rigorous fashion. It’s certainly true that the State has access to more data about its citizens than in the past, but it’s also true that we have more information about the State than ever before, too! And, again, we also have access to more of those technologies of freedom than ever before to at least try to fight back. Compare, for example, the plight of a dissident in a Cold War-era Eastern Bloc communist state to a dissident in China or Iran today. Which one had a better chance of getting their words (or audio and video) out to the local or global community?  And what do the recent Wikileaks episodes teach us in this regard?

Despite those small quibbles, Access Controlled is an indispensable resource that belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who covers information technology policy and wants to better understand global Internet regulation.  Very highly recommended.  My complete review of the book is here.

(#9) Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake – Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It

Clarke and Knake’s book is important if for no other reason than, as they note, “there are few books on cyber war.” Thus, their treatment of the issue will likely remain the most relevant text in the field for some time to come. They define cyber war as “actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation’s computers or networks for the purposes of causing damage or disruption” and they argue that such actions are on the rise. And they also claim that the U.S. has the most to lose if and when a major cyber war breaks out, since we are now so utterly dependent upon digital technologies and networks.

At their best, Clarke and Knake walk the reader through the mechanics of cyber war, who some of the key players and countries are who could engage in it, and identify what the costs of such of war would entail. Other times, however, the book suffers from a somewhat hysterical tone, as the authors are out here not just to describe cyber war, but to also issue a clarion call for regulatory action to combat it. A bigger problem with the book is the complete lack of reference material, footnotes, or even an index. If you’re going to go around sounding like a couple of cyber-Jeremiahs, you really should include some reference material to back up your gloomy assertions of impending doom.

The authors go after ISPs and many other companies for supposedly not caring about cyber-security. In reality, those companies have powerful incentives to make sure their networks are relatively safe and secure to avoid costly attacks and retain customers who demand their online information and activities be trouble-free. And most ISPs take steps not just to guard against malware and other types of cyber attacks, but they also offer customers free (or cheap) security software as part of a growing suite of gratis services (anti-virus, parental controls, e-mail, etc).

Clarke and Knake would like to see government impose a fairly sweeping set of new rules on ISPs to better secure their networks against potential attacks. In true deputize-the-middleman fashion, they want ISPs to engage in a great deal more network monitoring (using deep-packet inspection techniques) under threat of legal sanction if things go wrong. They admit there are corresponding costs and privacy concerns, but largely dismiss them and essentially ask us to just get over those concerns in the name of a safer and more secure cyberspace. They do, however, say they would be willing to have a “Privacy and Civil Liberties Board” appointed “to ensure that neither the ISPs nor the government was illegal spying on us.” I doubt that will soothe the fears of those who (like me) are fundamentally suspicious of government snooping.

Overall, Clarke and Knake have written a book that is worth reading, but suffers from hyperbolic rhetoric and a serious lack of documentation. Readers should also seek out other perspectives on cyber-security issues, which take a more reasoned approach to the issue.   Read my longer review of Cyber War here.

(#10) Adrian Johns – Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates

I can’t remember the last time I read a book that qualified as a “magisterial treatment” of an issue (I suppose it would be Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing Press as an Agent of Change), but Johns’ book on piracy certainly qualifies as one.  As the subtitle makes clear, it’s a sweeping 400+ year history of the intellectual property wars.

This mammoth tome was a real struggle to finish since Johns leaves no stone unturned in his exhaustive overview of the history of intellectual property and piracy.  I read it over the course of 6 months because it felt like I was running a marathon to get through each chapter. I needed a big break between each one.  So, pick it up and get ready to pace yourself for the long slog through this important book.  And don’t jump ahead!   Some of the most interesting stories are from the early battles about the very concept of copyright and intellectual property.  I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the early American experience, which began with widespread piracy of English works as a method of undermining the tyranny of the Crown. (Reminded me of how we still screw Cuba by denying trademarks in their cigars just to stick it to Castro).

Johns offers a fairly objective narrative throughout the first 500 pages, but toward the end his own views start to emerge:

“[Enforcement] issues, it seems, have dogged intellectual property policing throughout its history, because of he nature of the enterprise.  They continue to do so today in new forms and media.  Large-scale, intensive, and internationally coordinated antipirate enforcement is sometimes justifies–the effort against counterfeit medicines is a relatively clear example–but in other cases the public good is not so evident.” (p. 507-508)

He goes on to suggest that IP may need to be rethought given new realities. “Intellectual property being a relatively recent concept, it ought to be possible to conceive of an alternative to it that suited the twenty-first century rather than the nineteenth,” he argues.  (p. 515)  Yet, the only alternatives he suggest — prizes, subsidies, compulsory licenses — are decidedly nineteenth century in nature.  That leaves him with few other options other than to suggest that the entire concept of IP should potentially be rethought, or that it may perhaps be fading anyhow in light of recent development in the information age, anyway.  IP defenders, however, should not let that discourage them from reading this book. It’s an insightful, interesting, one-of-a-kind history of this contentious subject.

(Listen to Jerry Brito’s “Surprising Free” podcast discussion with Adrian Johns here.)

Honorable Mentions:

* Rob Frieden – Winning the Silicon Sweepstakes: Can the United States Compete in Global Telecommunications?

Frieden’s book argues America has lost its edge in the global telecommunications and broadband race and that government must intervene to set us back on the right course.  What’s the proper course?  He suggest it’s the forced access infrastructural-sharing regime for communications and broadband networks that existed for several years following the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.  (UNE-P, TELRIC, line-sharing, etc) That regime was largely abandoned, however, after it became evident to most market analysts and economists that, despite the best of intentions, infrastructure-sharing did little to promote investment and innovation.

Frieden suggests all that legal and economic thinking was flawed and that we should go ‘back to the future’ with telecom / broadband policy.  I’m not buying it for one minute, but if you’re looking for a blueprint for resurrecting yesterday’s regulatory regime, this book is it.

Here’s a conversation Jerry Brito had with Rob Frieden on his podcast back in March.

* Daniel Lathrop and Laurel Ruma (eds.) – Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice

Open Government is a terrific collection of 34 essays covering the full gamut of transparency and “Government 2.0″ issues.  The collection was published by O’Reilly Media and Tim O’Reilly himself has one of the best chapters in the book on “Government as a Platform.” “The magic of open data is that the same openness that enables transparency also enables innovation, as developers build applications that reuse government data in unexpected ways.” (p. 25) This explains why in their chapter on “Enabling Innovation for Civic Engagement,” David G. Robinson, Harlan Yu, and Edward W. Felten, of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, speak of “a new baseline assumption about the public response to government data: when government puts data online, someone, somewhere will do something valuable and innovative with it.” (p.84) “By publishing its data in a form that is free, open, and reusable,” they continue, “government will empower citizens to dream up and implement their own innovative ideas of how to best connect with their governments.” (p. 89)  The book also includes a terrific chapters by my TLF colleagues Jim Harper and Jerry Brito.  This is an indispensable resource for your bookshelf. Pick it up.

* William Powers – Hamlet’s BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age

Powers is a gifted storyteller and his walk though the history of philosophy and technology makes this slender volume an enjoyable, quick read. He begins by reminding us that “whenever new devices have emerged, they’ve presented the kinds of challenges we face today — busyness, information overload, that sense of life being out of control. These challenges were as real two millennia ago as they are today, and throughout history, people have been grappling with them and looking for creative ways to manage life in the crowd.”

His key insight is that is that humans can adapt new technology, but it takes time, patience, humility, and a little effort. “The key is to strike a balance,” he says, between “the call of the crowd” and the “need for time and space apart” from it. The problem we face today is that all the pressure is on us to be what he calls “Digital Maximalists.” That is, many of us are increasingly out to maximize the time spent in front of various digital “screens” whether we have made the determination that is really in our best interest or not. It has just gradually happened, Powers argues, because “The goal is no longer to be ‘in touch’ but to erase the possibility of ever being out of touch.”

Even though Powers clearly leans more toward the techno-pessimist camp, what I like best about his book is that he generally avoids a preachy tone and excessive hand-wringing. He isn’t one of those pessimists who adopts a holy-than-thou, the-rest-of-you-just-don’t-get-it attitude. In fact, there’s a great deal of self-deprecating humor in the book as Powers explains how he is struggling with the same issues the rest of us are and trying to figure out how to strike the right balance in his own life. Importantly, he notes that each of us will strike that balance differently. “[E]veryone has to work that out for himself. We’re all different, and there’s no one-size-fits-all way to balance the outward life and the inward one.” That is a crucial insight. There’s nothing worse than a techno-skeptic who tells us they have discovered the one true path to enlightenment or happiness — especially when it entails giving up new technologies that can have so many beneficial upsides. Indeed, Powers argues that “It’s never a good idea to buy into the dark fears of the techno-Cassandras, who generally turn out to be wrong. Human beings are skillful at figuring out the best uses of new tools. However, it can take awhile.”

Indeed, the struggle with information clutter will continue. Assimilating new communications and entertainment technologies into our lives has always been challenging, but, thanks to excellent advice like that offer by William Powers in Hamlet’s BlackBerry, I am optimistic that we humans can do so sensibly and be happier — and wiser — for it in the long-run.

Here’s my complete review of Hamlet’s Blackberry and make sure to listen to Jerry Brito’s discussion with Powers here.

• Robert W. McChesney & John Nichols – The Death and Life of American Journalism

If my list was of the most important media policy books of the year, McChesney and Nichols’ book would be a shoo-in for the top spot. It’s easily the most significant text on media policy in the past few years.  It’s also the most horrifying.  In their world of “post-corporate” newsrooms, the State serves as the primary benefactor of the Fourth Estate.  Billions would flow from bureaucracies to media entities and individual journalists in the name of sustaining a “free press.” And this new media welfare state is funded by steep taxes on our mobile phones, broadband connections, and digital gadgets. McChesney and Nichols model their $35 billion annual “public works” program for the press after the Works Progress Administration of the New Deal era. Their media WPA would include a “News AmeriCorps” for out-of-work journalists, a “Citizenship News Voucher” to funnel taxpayer support to struggling media entities, a significant expansion of postal subsidies, a massive new subsidy for journalism schools, corporate welfare for newspapers sufficient to pay 50 percent of the salaries of all “journalistic employees,” and more. It’s a veritable industrial policy for the press that resembles a Soviet-style five-year plan.

Who pays the bill and how much will the takeover cost? McChesney and Nichols take a remarkably cavalier attitude about it: “The money must be spent and we will worry about where it comes from later.” Such “we’re-all-dead-in-the-long-run” reasoning seems to be the dominant philosophy in Washington policy circles these days. But the estimated $35 billion annual price tag for a “public works” program for the press should give us pause. Moreover, like every other corporate-welfare program (think agriculture subsidies), a journalistic welfare state would no doubt grow in scope and cost over time.

McChesney and Nichols suggest several potential funding sources for the program, many of which would end up burdening commercial media providers in order to subsidize their noncommercial/public media competitors. They advocate a four-part tax plan that would include: a 5 percent tax on new purchases of consumer electronics, which they estimate would bring in $4 billion a year; a 3 percent tax on monthly ISP & mobile-service bills (estimated at $6 billion a year); a 2 percent sales tax on advertising (estimated at $5 to $6 billion a year); and a 7 percent tax on broadcasters’ spectrum licenses (estimated to sap another $3-6 billion a year from an already reeling industry). In other words, they would tax every device and network in your house to transfer money to the federal government to set up a journalistic welfare state.

What McChesney and Nichols essentially advocate is a radical form of media redistributionism — with struggling private entities and others forced to the fund public or non-commercial media outlets they desire. That is, what they seek is not so much a bailout for the familiar private media that has served America so well for two centuries, but rather a massive wealth transfer from one class of media to another, with the stipulation — which they repeat numerous times in the book — that state-subsidized entities are to forgo private advertising revenues, copyright protection, and any affiliation with corporate parents. These restrictions are an essential part of their push for a “post-corporate,” government-controlled press. Indeed, it would virtually make such a press a self-fulfilling prophecy, since copyright laws and advertising have been core ingredients of a successful private media system in the U.S. They’re also why we haven’t had to resort to massive public subsidies for media, as many other nations have.

The Death and Life of American Journalism is a troubling book, but I will give it this: For those of us who still care about our fundamental First Amendment freedoms and a truly free and independent press, McChesney & Nichols’ book clearly draws the battle lines for the future of media and provides a fresh reminder about what it is we’re fighting for.

My longer review of this troubling book can be found here.

Couple of others…

• Nick Bilton –  I Live in the Future & Here’s How It Works. I didn’t have a chance to formally review Bilton’s interesting book, but make sure to listen to Bilton’s appearance on the “Surprisingly Free” podcast here.
• Lee Bollinger – Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-open: A Free Press for a New Century I had a very hard time taking this book seriously since Bollinger proposes the creation of a massive U.S. propaganda machine.  Bollinger doesn’t just want our government to help out a bit at the margins like it currently does; he wants the State to get under the covers, cuddle tight and become intimate lovers with the Press.  And then he wants the Big Press to project itself more, especially overseas, to compete with other State-owned or subsidized media enterprises.  It’s almost as disturbing as the McChesney and Nichols book referenced above.  Read my short review of Bollinger’s book here.

Let me know what I’ve missed and tell me what you think is the most important info-tech book of 2010!

This looks like a good one to me. An ITIF event tomorrow called “Info-Communism:” A Progressive Path Forward or a Political and Intellectual Dead End?

Overheated rhetoric around information policy and intellectual property damages the quality of the debate. In this paper, featured speaker and Syracuse University information studies professor Milton Mueller warns against pouring these debates into old ideological molds. Doing so preserves controversy rather than fostering the discovery of common ground. (Or “commons” ground—couldn’t help it!)

I don’t know that this forum will solve the problem, but I know it will be interesting. The sign-up page indicates that the event will be streamed.

PFF Adjunct Fellow Mike Palage led this extraordinary discussion of ICANN’s origins, evolution and future with four of ICANN’s “Founding Fathers”: Milton Mueller (author of Ruling the Root), law professor David Johnson, ICANN’s first CEO Mike Roberts and then ICANN CEO Paul Twomey. In particular, the group discussed ICANN’s mission, governance structure, and accountability; the difficult issue of new generic Top Level Domain names (gTLDs) and trademark concerns; and ICANN’s future relationship with the U.S. government. Be sure to check out the handy ICANN Glossary on page 33. The audio can be downloaded here.

Here’s the transcript (PDF):