My blogging has been light the last couple of weeks because I’m busy finishing up a big study on eminent domain abuse in Missouri, which will be published by the Show-Me Institute. Obviously, most of that isn’t going to be relevant to a tech policy blog, but I have noticed an interesting parallel between the eminent domain debate and the software patent debate.
A bit of background: cities in Missouri (and in other states) have gotten used to a “clear cutting” style of real estate development in which the city council will declare an entire neighborhood “blighted” or in need of redevelopment, and then put out bids for a comprehensive re-development plan. Large developers submit re-development plans with price tags in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars specifying which properties will be demolished, what will be built in their place, and what kinds of tenants will be sought for the new buildings. Once a plan has been selected, the city will employ the power of eminent domain to help the chose developer seize the property of anyone who refuses to sell voluntarily (and “voluntarily” is a bit of a misnomer when property owners know their land will be taken whether they like it or not). Then the developer will bulldoze most of the old neighborhood and replace it with a shopping mall, condos, or whatever else was specified in the re-development plan.
Almost all of the redevelopment plans cities pursue are done this way. City officials are absolutely horrified at the thought of letting just anyone buy property in the development area and make improvements. After all, everyone knows that without a “master plan,” neighborhoods would descend into chaos. Besides, what incentive would a big developer have to start a major development project if some other guy could open a competing business down the street?
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C|Net’s News.com exists to make money. It pays reporters and editors to produce stories that will interest people and get them to read C|Net content, because that readership induces advertisers to pay them.
So it is no act of beneficence or altruism when a reporter goes out and asks 13 security companies whether government spyware used in investigations would be detected by their security software, or whether they would intentionally fail to report it. The results are interesting, and they’ve been reproduced verbatim by C|Net, in a calculated attempt to make money.
I’m having a little fun with the “greed” talk, of course, and don’t see anything wrong with seeking profit, because profit-seekers do a lot of good for others. In this case, a reporter is putting tough questions to software companies on our behalf – and putting those companies on notice that they should think twice before altering or degrading their products at the behest of law enforcement.
That’s a small but important help to our privacy protections. And it’s provided by the market for infotainment – which is as important, if not more important, than lobbying our representatives or trying to sue the government.
By Drew Clark
The National Association of Broadcasters likes to think of itself as the king of Capitol Hill. It carefully cultivates an invincible image. And some in the mainstream media buy it. The New York Times describes NAB as “the powerful trade lobby.” But in truth, right now television and radio broadcasters have never been weaker than in 1982, when Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., uttered these famous words: “The NAB can’t lobby its way out of a paper bag.”
Over the last 10 years, the NAB spent $55 million in lobbying expenditures – more than any other association – to disprove Packwood’s hypothesis. But still, the association is now getting hit on all sides. On radio, this year NAB is battling the proposed merger of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio. Besting such a merger would normally be easy – if NAB hadn’t been arguing for the opposite of what it now seeks. And last month an alliance of performers and recording companies called MusicFirst decided to strike for a performance royalty from over-the-air radio stations. American copyright law exempts terrestrial broadcasters from paying for performances.
But the biggest deal is now heading into the spotlight: vacant television channels known as “white spaces.” Everyone covets them: technology companies like Dell, Google, Intel and Microsoft, wireless carriers like Sprint-Nextel, advocates for rural broadband, and non-profit spectrum utopians who look at white spaces and see decentralized community networks.
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Over on Verizon’s PolicyBlog, Link Hoewing, VZ’s Assistant Vice President – Internet and Technology Issues, has posted an interesting comparison of the US and European mobile markets. He’s put together a side-by-side chart comparing contracts, competition, coverage, prices, new services, and more. He’s asked for input from others, so take a look.
Credit is due Google for announcing a privacy-improving change to its cookie policy. According to Peter Fleischer, writing on the official Google blog, Google will be altering its cookie-setting practices to give its cookies an expiration date of two years from the time they’re set. The previous cookie practice was to give all cookies persistence until 2038.
Google’s change doesn’t tame the cookie monster, of course. A cookie re-issued every ≤2 years until 2038 and beyond has the same tracking power as a cookie expiring 31 years hence. But rare users of Google rightly should be “forgotten” by Google in two years.
As important as the substance of the new cookie policy, Google is talking about their information practices and the effects their practices have on privacy. What other company does even that?
It remains with you to tame the cookie monster, if that’s what you care to do. Your web browser provides you the ability to control them, which gives you the responsibility to do so. I control mine.
Ever get frustrated asking your Member of Congress to limit government surveillance and the advance of surveillance technology? Ever even try? Probably not, because you know you wouldn’t get a straightforward answer if you did.
That’s why I was delighted to read about the Seeing Yellow project on Ars Technica. The idea is for people to call and pressure printer manufacturers to let them turn off the tracking function that has been incorporated into many color printers at the behest of the U.S. government. Knowing that consumers care about their privacy, printer manufacturers (and others who learn from their experience) will be inclined not to build surveillance into their products.
It may not happen right away, but active consumerism gives you a vote about government surveillance every time you buy a printer, not just once every two, four, or six years.
Here‘s a sign of where we’re headed with uniform government identification systems and social control.
No, it’s not some futurist’s musings about the coming dystopia. It’s S. 1788, a bill introduced in Congress Friday to revoke people’s passports it they’re more than $2,500 in arrears on their child support payments. Bill text isn’t available yet, but what due process is given before the government revokes a person’s ability to travel internationally? Do we want to discuss whether this is an appropriate penalty for being in debt?
What other good purposes might de-identifying people promote? Simson Garfinkel wrote a good article on this back in 1994. In a Wired article called “Nobody Fucks with the DMV,” he wrote:
The driver’s license has become something it was never intended to be: a badge of good citizenship. Pay your bills to city and state, pay your child support, don’t get caught using drugs, and the state will let you keep on trucking. Screw up, and they’ll clip your wings.
Now for the futurist’s musings: Your margin of error for getting cross-ways with government regulations will get narrower and narrower as government identity systems get stronger and stronger.
We’re facing war against a technological civilization far superior to our own! Our enemy can take any shape! They could be anywhere!
– Defense Secretary Keller, played by Jon Voight in Transformers
I took a break from trying to transform bad tech regulation to see Transformers the movie. It was surprisingly cynical for a big, kid-oriented blockbuster movie. At the beginning of the ending credits, the mom and dad of the main character (Sam Witwicky, played by Shia LaBeouf) insert some skepticism about trusting the government with national security secrets to really act in the best interest of the country. And anyone notice that the evil Decepticons were military vehicles, while the good Autobots were civilian vehicles (all GM autos). A veiled message of the power of the market to do good versus government control? And what about the writing on the side of the police vehicle – “to punish and enslave” (which was the only non-military bad guy vehicle, a Saleen S281 based on the Ford Mustang)?
Over the last couple of months, we’ve noticed that our best shows have been when we had a really smart guest like Randy Picker, Tim Wu, or Fred Von Lohmann and got into an issue in some depth. These episodes tended to run long, because there was too much to discuss in the 7 minutes or so we gave to each issue. So starting this week, we’re trying something a little bit different with the podcast. Instead of trying to cover three issues each week, we’re going to starting having a single guest and cover a single topic, in depth, for 15 to 20 minutes.
Our first episode in the new format is Scott Wallsten of the Progress and Freedom Foundation. You’ve probably heard the factoid that the United States ranks near the bottom among developed countries when it comes to broadband speeds and penetration. In this week’s podcast, Scott helps us dig into these numbers and explain why the United States isn’t doing as badly as is commonly supposed. And he argues that it’s silly to base complex policy decisions on a one-dimensional ranking.
There are several ways to listen to the TLF Podcast. You can press play on the player below to listen right now, or download the MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the podcast by clicking on the button for your preferred service. And do us a favor, Digg this podcast!
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As is typical, Julian makes a point I’ve been trying to make for a while, only it sounds a lot more eloquent when he says it. In reply to Brian Doherty’s argument that those who decry commercialism while using the products of capitalism are somehow hypocritical, Julian says:
Certainly very few Burners would last a week in the Nevada desert without many of the products of commerce, but it just doesn’t follow that the desire for a temporary commercial-free zone is therefore somehow hypocritical or steeped in “performative contradiction.” It is perfectly coherent to be a thoroughgoing free-marketeer, to appreciate how deftly the price system harnessed the self-love of thousands of individuals, from lumberjacks and miners to carpenters and plumbers, in order to produce your local church—and yet still prefer that Starbucks refrain from opening up shop in the narthex. Having bought prophylactics at the corner deli in the evening does not forbid you from taking umbrage if your lover leaves a fifty on the nightstand the following morning. The most ardent capitalist will want a few spaces where she can feel confident that her neighbor’s friendliness is not the opening gambit in a pitch to sell her a T-shirt, even if she was happy to buy the one she’s wearing. We are entitled to happily engage the butcher, the brewer, and the baker on the basis of our respective self-loves while hoping for a little benevolence from our brothers, our bowling buddies, and our Burners.
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The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
