June 2009

Louisiana Bill Taxes Internet Access Despite Federal Moratorium

by Braden Cox on June 17, 2009 · 2 comments

There’s a hearing going on as I write on a Louisiana bill (HB 569) that would create a new tax on the Internet bills of consumers, despite the fact that there’s a federal moratorium prohibiting it.

We just heard Attorney General James D. “Buddy” Caldwell say that this isn’t a “tax”, it’s a “fee.” Louisiana is taking an interesting approach – HB 569 would impose a tax of 15 cents per month on ISP subscribers that would go to preventing and prosecuting Internet-based crimes against children. AG Caldwell claims that it is merely a “usage fee” — the price we pay for using the Internet.

But the Internet Tax Freedom Act explicitly sought to prevent the imposition of a tax that simply used different terminology. The Act defines a tax as:

(i) any charge imposed by any governmental entity for the purpose of generating revenues for governmental purposes, and is not a fee imposed for a specific privilege, service, or benefit conferred; or
(ii) the imposition on a seller of an obligation to collect and to remit to a governmental entity any sales or use tax imposed on a buyer by a governmental entity.

Under this definition, a charge on Internet access is not like a fee imposed for recording a mortgage, for example. When you pay a recording fee, you pay for the costs you impose on the government for handling your transaction. If you were to pay a “usage fee” for law enforcement to deal with online safety, you’re paying for general services, something that law enforcement/government should be doing anyway to protect the public. Continue reading →

2 comments

A Right to Anonymous Speech but Not a Right to Sue for Outing

by Berin Szoka on June 16, 2009 · 4 comments

The Gawker offers a fascinating discussion of the legal right to anonymity:

“There is clearly a moral case that some people should be able to join the public debate and retain their anonymity,” Tench told Gawker. “And I think this will have a chilling effect. Blogs like this can only exist anonymously, and I imagine that anyone who wanted to set one up is thinking about this case.”

As well they should. But the notion that anonymous publishers have a right, in perpetuity, to keep their identities a secret—or that people who learn their identities are honor-bound not to reveal them—is nonsense.

Amen! One can resist, fiercely, government efforts to reduce online anonymity through age verification or identity authentication mandates, as Adam Thierer have argued most recently in our work about efforts to expand COPPA to cover adolescents (“COPPA 2.0,” which would indirectly mandate age verification for large numbers of adults for the first time). One might even argue that there are moral reasons to resist the urge to out pseudonymous/anonymous bloggers (just as one might avoid outing closeted gays out of respect for their privacy). But one need not accept the pernicious idea that the government should punish the outing of peusodonymous/anonymous writers, which is simply a restraint on legitimate free speech.

This exchange, cited by the Gawker article, is particularly interesting, and demonstrates how one can distinguish the question of whether outing is “right” or “appropriate” from the question of whether it should be punished by law:

When the National Review‘s Ed Whelan revealed Publius, who writes for Obsidian Wings, to be a professor of law at the South Texas College of Law named John F. Blevins earlier this month, the palpable online outrage forced Whelan to apologize.

4 comments

The Costs of SSL Encryption for Webmail & Other Cloud Services

by Berin Szoka on June 16, 2009 · 23 comments

Internet policy Shame Artist extraordinaire Chris Soghoian has struck again! Chris recently shamed the online advertising industry into improving their privacy practices with his Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out (TACO) plug-in for Firefox. Now Chris has set his sight on the security practices of cloud service providers.

A letter released this morning, signed by 37 leading online security experts (and organized by Chris), calls on Google to offer persistent SSL (HTTPS) encryption by default for all Google services—or at the very least, to make more visible the option currently given to users to opt-in to use SSL for all communications. Google, in its response, indicated that it was already “looking into whether it would make sense to turn on HTTPS as the default for all Gmail users.”

While Google’s response identifies some clear problems with implementing persistent SSL for all users (esp. connection speed), few would deny that it makes sense for webmail providers to encrypt all traffic using SSL, rather than sending email data “in the clear,” which risks interception by hackers. We at PFF hold no brief for Google, in fact we have found ourselves disagreeing with them on many other occasions on a range of issues (most notably net neutrality mandates). Nonetheless, on this front, Google has long been a leader, having offered SSL since Gmail launched and having begun providing the persistent HTTPS option last summer while most of their competitors still use SSL only for the initial authentication that occurs when a user first signs in. While the letter focuses on Google and webmail in particular, this issue has far broader implications for all online cloud service providers.

No Free Lunch: The Costs of Encryption
Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, etc. are, of course, “free” (i.e., ad-supported). Google in particular has lead the way in increasing the functionality offered in Gmail, not just constantly increasing the total storage space provided to every user (now over 7GB), but regularly adding innovative new features—at no charge to users. Continue reading →

23 comments

For Real-Time News from Iran . . .

by Jim Harper on June 15, 2009 · 7 comments

. . . follow @persiankiwi.

7 comments

Hilarious DTV Transition Video

by Berin Szoka on June 12, 2009 · 6 comments

Hilarious video on the DTV transition.

6 comments

European Regulators Think Consumers Too Stupid to Know How to Download a Different Browser

by Adam Thierer on June 11, 2009 · 30 comments

According to Ina Fried of CNet News, Microsoft plans to remove its Internet Explorer web browser from the new versions of Windows 7 when it ships it in Europe later this year. [Additional coverage at ZDNet.] MS is apparently doing so to assuage the concerns of EU antitrust officials, who have been obsessed with the company for the past decade. [Update: Here is MS official announcement.]

Apparently, European officials think their citizens are too stupid to find an alternative browser. I mean, seriously, how hard is it? Does the competition lack name recognition such that consumers can’t find them? Hmmm… Google and Apple seem to be pretty well known brands, and their browsers (Chrome & Safari) are pretty easy to find. And then there’s Mozilla’s Firefox browser (my PC favorite) and Opera (my mobile phone favorite), which are outstanding browsers. [Incidentally, Firefox already has 31% share of the European market.]

OK, OK, the regulators might say, but these competitors are just too expensive! Uh, no, wait… every one of them is free. So, strike that theory.

Well, the regulators need another theory then. How about illegal tying of products and services! You know, there’s only certain sites or services you can use with IE, right? Nope, that theory doesn’t work either. And does anyone believe that MS could really tie OS functionality to the use of IE? How long would the world tolerate Outlook e-mails or Word documents that only allowed linking to URLs via IE?? Come on.

OK, any other theories left? Not that I can think of. Which brings us back to the only theory the Euro-crats have left: people are sheep. They’ll take whatever MS bundles into the OS free, you see, and they will use it more than they use competing products. Thus, we regulators have to save them from their own stupidity! The masses just don’t know what’s good for them! These free, integrated services are harming them! And, therefore, the only remaining solution is to kill innovation by crippling functionality and removing the free offering. That’s pro-consumer! … or so say the European antitrust bureaucrats.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, a whole lotta innovation continues to take place. But shhhh.. don’t tell the Euro-crats. They need a company to pick on. Welcome to the Theater of the Techno-Absurd.

30 comments

Preserving Resale Rights and Promoting Transparency for Event Tickets

by Braden Cox on June 10, 2009 · 24 comments

miley-cyrus-paperless-ticket-tour Recent developments have the events ticket market going paperless (tickets) and creating a paper trail (via proposed legislation).

First, there’s Ticketmaster’s efforts to push “paperless tickets” into greater use. On Monday the Wall Street Journal reported on how the upcoming Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana) tour will sell only paperless tickets.

I’ve previously blogged about paperless tickets here, here and here and continue to maintain that they are not about consumer convenience. Why? Well, at the venue you have to present the credit card used to purchase the tickets, which means everybody in your party has to arrive at the same time. And if you can’t go you won’t be able to resell your tickets or even give them away. Ticketmaster won’t give you a refund, that’s for sure!

With paperless tickets, Ticketmaster says it is trying to stop scalping, but why? As yesterday’s Los Angeles Times opinion piece cogently argues:

Secondary markets are important. They help overcome the inefficiencies in primary markets, while giving purchasers a safety net. If “paperless” tickets are the only option for consumers, there will be no secondary market unless Ticketmaster provides one. That’s quite a power grab for a company that’s awaiting the Justice Department’s approval for a blockbuster merger (with Live Nation, the country’s leading concert promoter).

Continue reading →

24 comments

Nothing Nice on This List — iAwful State Legislation

by Braden Cox on June 9, 2009 · 10 comments

iawful

Sometimes legislation is so bad, it’s awful! or iAWFUL (the Internet Advocates’ Watchlist for Ugly Laws).

I’m happy to announce that NetChoice just created a top ten list where we’ll keep track of the worst of the worst. iAWFUL identifies the 10 worst legislative and regulatory proposals targeted at the Internet. We’ll continually update to reflect the most immediate dangers, based on regulatory severity and likelihood of passage.

While misguided Internet legislation is nothing new, the threat that such legislation poses has increased dramatically. The latest breed of legislative proposals are among the most restrictive we’ve ever seen, and they can crop up anywhere, as state lawmakers increasingly take the lead.

Bad Internet bills unfortunately take many forms, but we see 4 broad categories:

1. Misguided efforts to ‘child-proof’ the Internet

New Jersey Social Networking Bill (A 3757) – What’s wrong? It turns social networking sites into social networking police. It requires social networking websites to promptly review user allegations of harassment and abusive language, and to provide a report of the result of any review “upon request” from the user (blog post here).

California Social Networking Bill (AB 632) – What’s wrong? It can be abused to stifle free speech. It should seem obvious that if you post a photo onto a social networking site, it’s a public image. California doesn’t think so, so it’s micromanaging website terms of service. It started as a tech mandate, and would have imposed civil liability on websites that failed to implement technologies that would prevent copying or saving of images. This bill was recently amended to require social networking websites to disclose to its users that uploaded photos can be copied without consent by persons who view the image. The definition of a “social networking Internet Web site” is broad, so this would apply to a large number of sites on the Internet (previous blog post here).

2. There’s a tax for that!
Continue reading →

10 comments

DHS Privacy Office Goes Transparent

by Jim Harper on June 9, 2009 · 9 comments

The Department of Homeland Security’s Privacy Office sez:

On his first full day in office, President Obama directed his administration to seek an “unprecedented level of openness in government.” In the spirit of openness and transparency consistent with the directives of the administration and with her personal philosophy, the Chief Privacy Officer of the Department of Homeland Security would like to engage in quarterly updates on privacy activities in the Department for the privacy advocacy community. The inaugural Privacy Information for Advocates (PIA) will be held in person on Friday, June 19, 2009, in the DHS Privacy Office located at 1621 N. Kent Street, Suite 900 in Rosslyn, VA. The update will begin at 3:00 pm. If you plan to attend, please RSVP to Lynn Parker at Lynn[dot]Parker1[at]dhs[dot]gov before noon on Wednesday, June 17. RSVPs are required in order to confirm participation.

I have a quibble with the acronym – heh heh – “PIA” is also the acronym for “Privacy Impact Assessment.” But if you carefully use context to discern meaning, you’ll probably figure out when people are talking about the meeting versus when they are talking about the document.

But people who are not “in the know” won’t understand the difference, and as to them your power and authority will rise until you reach the status of privacy demi-god.

Oh, whatever. Just go to the meeting.

9 comments

Free-Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy: Bringing Some Sanity Back to Parenting Debates

by Adam Thierer on June 5, 2009 · 140 comments

When it comes to theories about how to best raise kids, I’m a big believer in what might be referred to “a resiliency approach” to child-rearing. That is, instead of endlessly coddling our children and hovering over them like “helicopter parents,” as so many parents do today, I believe it makes more sense to instill some core values and common sense principles and then give them some breathing room to live life and learn lessons from it. Yes, that includes making mistakes. And, oh yes, your little darlings might actually gets some bump and bruises along the way — or at least have their egos bruised in the process. But this is how kids learn lessons and become responsible adults and citizens. Wrapping them in bubble wrap and filling their heads without nothing but fear about the outside would will ultimately lead to the opposite: sheltered, immature, irresponsible, and unprepared young adults — many of whom expect someone else (the government, their college, their employer, or still their parents!) to be there to take care of them well into their 20’s or even 30’s. Again, you gotta let kids live a little and learn from their experiences.

This explains why I find Lenore Skenazy’s new book, Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry, to be such a breath of fresh air. [Here’s her blog of the same name.] She argues that “if we try to prevent every possible danger of difficult in our child’s everyday life, that child never gets a chance to grow up.” (p. 5) As she told Salon recently:

You want kids to feel like the world isn’t so dangerous. You want to teach them how to cross the street safely. You want to teach them that you never go off with a stranger. You teach them what to do in an emergency, and then you assume that generally emergencies don’t happen, but they’re prepared if they do. Then, you let them go out.

The fun of childhood is not holding your mom’s hand. The fun of childhood is when you don’t have to hold your mom’s hand, when you’ve done something that you can feel proud of. To take all those possibilities away from our kids seems like saying: “I’m giving you the greatest gift of all, I’m giving you safety. Oh, and by the way I’m taking away your childhood and any sense of self-confidence or pride. I hope you don’t mind.”

Exactly right, in my opinion. Again, let kids live and learn from it. Teach lessons but then encourage ‘learning by doing’ and let them understand these things for themselves. That is resiliency theory in a nutshell.

Continue reading →

140 comments

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