I haven’t been able to think of a policy angle to the spat (via Matthew Ingram) between Google and eBay, but this is just too funny to pass up.
Earlier this week the NY Times reported that Google filed a complaint with the Department of Justice about Microsoft’s desktop search. At a time when Google is under scrutiny in the EU for privacy practices, censorship in China, and has potential antitrust issues of its own with the recent DoubleClick acquisition, this complaint is politically precarious.
But the complaint hits on a broader public policy point: will antitrust regulation put the heat on tech companies that innovate by integrating?
That’s the subject of my new paper along with co-author
Steve DelBianco. In Consumer Demand Drives Innovation and Integration in Desktop Computing, we examine the competition policy concerns raised by the
on-demand desktop, and the danger that overzealous regulators could constrain
the future of Web2.0.
Feature integration is an essential way to improve products
and motivate existing consumers to upgrade. Traditional desktop vendors like
Microsoft and Apple usually spend several years integrating new features into
major releases of their operating systems and applications. Even a core Linux distribution like Debian
manages only about one release each year. Consumers often prefer a bundled
product that provides more value for the money, and the software industry
typically responds by combining services in a suite of applications.
A judge ordered [PDF] the FBI today to finally release agency records about its abuse of National Security Letters (NSLs) to collect Americans’ personal information. The ruling came just a day after the EFF urged [PDF] the judge to immediately respond in its lawsuit over agency delays.
EFF sued the FBI in April for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request about the misuse of NSLs as revealed in a Justice Department report. As we noted yesterday, more evidence of abuse was uncovered by the Washington Post, and EFF urged the judge Thursday to force the FBI to stop stalling the release of its records on the deeply flawed program.
I bet we’ll learn all sorts of interesting things from these records!
Broadcasters have long had one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in Washington. But it now seems that the National Association of Broadcasters has met its match — an equally powerful outfit known as the National Association of Broadcasters. Yes, that’s right — NAB, under new president David Rehr, has been shooting quite effective bullets recently at itself.
The battle was triggered by the proposed merger between XM and Sirius Satellite Radio. NAB has gone on the warpath against the merger, arguing that it would create a monopoly. Of course, to argue that, it has to argue that broadcast radio doesn’t compete with satellite radio. That argument, however, was rebutted by NAB’s David Rehr (yes, the same one), who just last year gave a stirring speech about broadcast radio’s satellite competitors, declaring:
In 2006 we have satellite and Internet radio. And barely a day passes without the introduction of a new competing device or service. And we have news for our competitors: “We will beat you — as we have beaten those change agents in the past.”
My friend and former colleague Radley Balko makes the case for the repeal of the online gambling ban:
Tech Policy Weekly from the Technology Liberation Front is a weekly podcast about technology policy from TLF’s learned band of contributors. The shows’s panelists this week are Adam Thierer of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, Tim Lee of the Cato Institute, Braden Cox of the Association for Competitive Technology, and Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Topics include,
- Fred von Lohmann makes the case for collective licensing on campus in the Washington Post,
- Tim Lee makes the case against software patents in the New York Times, and
- Google brings an antitrust complaint against Microsoft’s desktop search software.
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!
The Broward County Commission triggered a political mini-hurricane this week, when it considered cancelling its emergency communications contract with a local radio station because its programming is too conservative. For the past year, WIOD-AM has been the county’s “official” station for emergency news and information. On Tuesday, the county commission delayed its renewal of the station’s contract. The problem: the station airs conservative talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. The station is out of step with area politics, explained Commissioner Stacy Ritter. “They have every right to speak, but we don’t have to do business with them,” she said.
How thoughtful. I know when I’m looking for disaster information, I’ll want it to be from someone who is in step with my area’s politics.
The reaction, of course, was swift – with Limbaugh, Hannity and others ridiculing the decision – and county officials were deluged with complaints. And to Broward’s credit, several commissioners on the all-Democrat board who had missed the Tuesday meeting came to WIOD’s defense. Yesterday, the county backed off, with a majority of commissioners pledging to renew the contract.
It’s tempting to dismiss the episode as just another bizarre Broward controversy. But the petty censorship attempt by local officials here may be a dry run for a much broader attempt at content control by Congress. Can you say Fairness Doctrine?
It’s also interesting to observe how the national media covered the story. While the controversy received nationwide coverage from conservative outlets, the mainstream national media largely ignored it. Of course, the Miami Herald – the largest newspaper in Florida – did run a piece on the events in Broward. They missed the censorship angle, though – instead they focused with horror on the fact that Rush Limbaugh had called Ritter a “babe.”
So much for the MSM.
It’s a shame that Frontline Wireless LLC‘s bold plan for a wireless broadband network providing nationwide interoperable public safety services in emergencies — that would be paid for by commercial users who can access the network on a wholesale, open-access basis at other times — includes a requirement that the successful bidder “must adopt open access policies not only on the E Block spectrum, but on any other licensed spectrum it holds.”
The rationale? According to Frontline:
The rationale for extending this requirement is clear: it prevents potential anti-competitive behavior. If the winner of the E Block spectrum holds other spectrum, it will be incentivized to offer consumers a single service device that will work on multiple bands. If the open access rules does not apply to all bands held by the E Block licensee, then the carrier could easily push consumers to other bands and tell them their devices are non-compliant. Consumers would not know (nor should they care) which band they are using, but a licensee acting strategically and in its best interests could readily defeat the purpose of open access requirements imposed on the E Block license.
But Frontline’s proposal already prevents such an outcome through a separate requirement that would prohibit the licensee from using the E Block network capacity for its own retail services or selling it to affiliated third parties. The necessity of an overlapping requirement doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, other than the fact that it has obvious value to Frontline as a restraint on competing bidders.
Nothing like a clever turn of phrase to capture and popularize an idea. At TechCrunch, Duncan Riley has come up with “American Tracking & Takedown.”
Here’s a Cato TechKnowledge on how the Senate immigration bill attempts to revive the flagging REAL ID Act.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.