Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
In my work critiquing the Lessig-Zittrain-Wu school of thinking–which fears the decline and fall of online “openness” and digital “generativity”–I have argued that, while there is no such thing as perfect “openness,” things are actually getting more open and generative all the time. All that really counts from my perspective is that we are witnessing [...]
On this week’s John Stossel show on Fox Business Network, I debated Internet privacy, advertising, and data collection issues with Michael Fertik of Reputation.com. In the few minutes we had for the segment, I tried to reiterate a couple of keep points that we’ve hammered repeatedly here in the past: There’s no free lunch. All [...]
This is the second of two essays making “The Case for Internet Optimism.” This essay was included in the book, The Next Digital Decade: Essays on the Future of the Internet (2011), which was edited by Berin Szoka and Adam Marcus of TechFreedom. In my previous essay, which I discussed here yesterday, I examined the [...]
A group of regulatory advocates that includes Free Press, Media Access Project and the New America Foundation, have fired off a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requesting action against the nation’s #5 mobile provider, MetroPCS. These regulatory groups claim that “new service plans being offered by mobile provider MetroPCS block and discriminate against [...]
I’m always entertained by the talk among the Twitterati — especially those who seem to permanently reside in the #NetNeutrality and #FCC hashtags — about how the Internet’s “openness” is at risk, and that steps must be taken to preserve it. Regulatory regimes are often birthed by myths, and this one is no different. Contrary [...]
Tim Wu was kind enough to comment on my general overview and critique of his new book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. That essay will be the first of many I plan to pen about Wu’s important book. I appreciate Prof. Wu being willing to engage me in a debate [...]
Tim Wu’s new book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, will be released next week and it promises to make quite a splash in cyberlaw circles. It will almost certainly go down as one of the most important info-tech policy books of 2010 and will probably win the top slot in [...]
[I am currently helping Berin Szoka edit a collection of essays from various Internet policy scholars for a new PFF book called "The Next Digital Decade: Essays about the Internet's Future." I plan on including two chapters of my own in the book responding to the two distinct flavors of Internet pessimism that I increasingly [...]
It may be possible to wring consistency from the “open” manifesto Google SVP of Product Management Jonathan Rosenberg published earlier this week, but I can’t. He correctly extols the virtues of openness in technology and data for its pro-competitive effects. Closed systems may be profitable in the short run, but they are weak innovation engines: [...]
Well, here we go again. Harvard’s Jonathan Zittrain has penned another gloomy essay about how “freedom is at risk in the cloud” and the future of the Internet is in peril because nefarious digital schemers like Apple, Facebook, and Google are supposedly out to lock you into their services and take away your digital rights. [...]
February 13, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
