As I pointed out here last week, the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) recently released 47-page document outlining “Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention of Journalism” has been raising eyebrows in many different quarters. Even though it is just a “discussion draft” and the agency hasn’t formally endorsed any of the recommendations in it yet, the sweeping scope and radical nature of many of the proposals in the document has already raised the blood pressure for many folks. It doesn’t help that the document reads like the CliffsNotes for the recent media-takeover manifesto, The Death and Life of American Journalism, by the neo-Marxist media scholar Robert W. McChesney and Nation editor John Nichols. Their book is horrifying in its imperial ambitions since it invites the government become the High Lord and Protector of the Fourth Estate. [For an in-depth look at all of McChesney’s disturbing views on these issues, see: “Free Press, Robert McChesney & the “Struggle” for Media.”]
The FTC’s seeming infatuation with McChesney’s proposals has many rightly concerned about where exactly the Obama Administration’s FTC (and FCC) may be taking us in the name of “saving journalism.” In an editorial this week, Investors Business Daily worries that the feds are “Seizing The News Business“ and wonders “why, as the administration contemplates a federal takeover of their business, [there is] such thundering silence” from journalists and media executive themselves. The good news, however, is that a recent survey found plenty of skepticism among news executives regading government subsidies and regulatory meddling in their business. According to this April survey by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism in association with the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) and the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA), revealed that, “Fully 75% of all news executives surveyed—and 88% of newspaper executives—said they had ’serious reservations,’ or the highest level of concern, about direct subsidies from the government.” A smaller percentage (only 46%) had serious reservations about tax credits for news organizations, then again, only 13% said they “would welcome such funding” and just 6% said they were “enthusiastic” about it.
And now there’s this new survey by Rasmussen Reports which finds that average Americans find some of the FTC’s proposed recommendations pretty silly: Continue reading →
A new voluntary Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG or TAG) is being announced today with the goal of bringing together Internet engineers and other technical experts “to develop consensus on broadband network management practices or other related technical issues that can affect users’ Internet experience, including the impact to and from applications, content and devices that utilize the Internet.” BITAG’s goals include: (1) educating policymakers on such technical issues; (2) attempting to address specific technical matters in an effort to minimize related policy disputes; and (3) serving as a sounding board for new ideas and network management practices. BITAG will be chaired by University of Colorado at Boulder Adjunct Professor Dale Hatfield.
This is absolutely terrific news, and it’s exactly the sort of thing Mike Wendy and I called for in our recent PFF white paper, “The Constructive Alternative to Net Neutrality Regulation and Title II Reclassification Wars.”In that piece, we argued that we needed “quick, non-government-driven dispute resolution fora, best practices and industry-led guidance.” That’s exactly what BITAG will provide.
Indeed, this new Technical Advisory Group is a very sensible step forward and it represents a constructive alternative to the ‘Net Neutrality Wars’ that continue to rage in Washington. BITAG essentially “de-politicizes” the Internet engineering issues by offering an independent forum for parties to have technical disputes mediated and resolved – without government involvement or onerous rulemakings. Consequently, this will help avoid the red tape and incessant delays that usually accompany bureaucratic resolution mechanisms, which can stifle continuous technological innovation and investments. Continue reading →
Faithful readers know of my geeky love for tech policy books. I read lots of ’em. There’s a steady stream of Amazon.com boxes that piles up on my doorstop some days because my mailman can’t fit them all in my mailbox. But I go pretty hard on all the books I review. It’s rare for me pen a glowing review. Occasionally, however, a book will come along that I think is both worthy of your time and which demands a place on your bookshelf because it is such an indispensable resource. Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace is one of those books.
Smartly organized and edited by Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, and Jonathan Zittrain, Access Controlled is essential reading for anyone studying the methods governments are using globally to stifle online expression and dissent. As I noted of their previous edition, Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, 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, and the editors have made them all available online here (I’ve listed them down below with links embedded). 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.
In their interesting chapter on “Control and Subversion in Russian Cyberspace,” Deibert and Rohozinski create a useful taxonomy to illustrate the three general types of speech and information controls that states are deploying today. What I find most interesting is how, 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. Here’s how Deibert and Rohozinski define those three classes (or “generations”) of controls: Continue reading →
There’s a bill moving in California (SB 1361) that restricts how social networking sites display the personal information of 13 to 17 yr olds. It’s billed as a privacy bill and at first glance seems relatively harmless — after all, kids don’t need to be broadcasting their contact information, right? Maybe. It all depends.
It depends on the situation, obviously. We teach our kids to recognize risky situations and to react appropriately.
But whether or not teens are at risk by publishing their telephone numbers is not the threshold question here. The law presumes such and I’m not aware of any specific findings offered in testimony about the bill.
Instead, the issue at hand is whether we need a law to restrict social networking websites from publishing certain information from teenagers. And with any law, there’s always the corresponding principle of unintended consequences.
A bit more about the bill. It restricts a social networking website from displaying the home address and telephone numbers of minors who self-identify as being under 18. It only applies to “web fields specifically designated to display the registered user’s home address or telephone number” – recognizing the impracticality of having hundreds of thousands of websites police every area where kids can share information.
Arguing against bills that aim to protect children is really hard work – who can be against the children (or in this case, adolescents)? But I truly believe this bill has serious unintended consequences and sets a bad precedent for how minors are allowed to share information on the Internet.
Here’s why SB 1361 shouldn’t become law: Continue reading →
I participated last week in a Techdirt webinar titled, “What IT needs to know about Law.” (You can read Dennis Yang’s summary here, or follow his link to watch the full one-hour discussion. Free registration required.)
The key message of The Laws of Disruption is that IT and other executives need to know a great deal about law—and more all the time. And Techdirt does an admirable job of reporting the latest breakdowns between innovation and regulation on a daily basis. So I was happy to participate.
Legally-Defensible Security
Not surprisingly, there were far too many topics to cover in a single seminar, so we decided to focus narrowly on just one: potential legal liability when data security is breached, whether through negligence (lost laptop) or the criminal act of a third party (hacking attacks). We were fortunate to have as the main presenter David Navetta, founding partner with The Information Law Group, who had recently written an excellent article on what he calls “legally-defensible security” practices.
Continue reading →
For the past month, online companies have considered the privacy legislation discussion draft from Rep. Boucher and Stearns. The legislation is a broad attempt to set privacy defaults for the collection, use and sharing of information on the Internet.
Last Friday, NetChoice submitted comments to Rep. Boucher and Stearns.
While there are some aspects of the bill to like (eg. no private right of action), we’re worried that the bill does too much, too soon, to set opt-in or opt-out defaults. We explored in a previous post why flexibility in setting user defaults is important for continued social network innovation.
Fortunately, open and thoughtful consideration of this matter can continue without undue pressures to find a quick fix for privacy. Because while there have been state legislative proposals on privacy, there is not now a patchwork of state laws creating unworkable compliance challenges for interstate e-commerce. In other words, we can take our time and get this right.
Our comments discuss how the draft bill would interfere with four commonplace scenarios for collecting and using information. Here’s one of ’em:
1. The Operational Purpose exemption in this draft legislation is too narrow, in that it does not permit use of covered information for marketing or advertising to existing customers.
Case 1: A consumer buys a new washer and dryer and writes her email address on a product registration card. That’s an Operational Purpose, so no consent is required to collect the info.
But if the retailer later wants to send an email offering an extended service contract, he has to first obtain consent to send the email, since that’s a use of covered information for marketing purposes.
Continue reading →
Nicholas Carr, bestselling author who writes on the social, economic, and business implications of technology, discusses his new book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Carr posits that the internet is changing not only they way we consume information but also the biological and neurological workings of our brains. He addresses the internet’s effect on attention span and the ability to think deeply, neuroplasticity, multitasking, reading books v. snippets, Google, commonplaces, and much more.
Related Readings
Do check out the interview, and consider subscribing to the show on iTunes. Past guests have included Gina Trapani and Anil Dash on crowdsourcing, James Grimmelman on online harassment and the Google Books case, Michael Geist on ACTA, Tom Hazlett on spectrum reform, and Tyler Cowen on just about everything.
Coming up in next two episodes we’ll have Nick Carr and Clay Shirky discussing their new books. So what are you waiting for? Subscribe!
State governments are getting bolder about diverting funds intended to maintain and modernize 911 emergency calling systems for other uses.
As states face greater budget gaps spurred by reckless spending and unsustainable obligations to the public sector employees, legislatures have been turning everywhere for extra cash. The 911 surcharge that appears on most consumer phone bills is no exception.
Originally, 911 fees were supposed to be used exclusively to fund 911 calling centers and the training of operators, the primary rationale behind the decision to assess the fees on phone bills. Instead, 911 money is being funneled elsewhere, sometimes for other law enforcement needs like weapons, vehicles and uniforms; sometimes for cost and services that arguably should be funded from general revenues. In New York State, for instance, of the $600 million collected from 911 fees in the past 15 years, just $84 million—14 percent—was used for municipal 911 center operation, according to a Buffalo News report cited by Emergency Management magazine.
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I spend a lot of time here trying to debunk media “moral panics,” “techno-panics,” or unfounded hysteria over the impact of commercialism in general on kids. To believe what some politicians and regulatory agitators have to say, today’s youth always seem at the precipice of the moral abyss. Our misguided youth are seemingly all going straight to hell and they dragging our culture and society down with them.
Except they’re not. It’s all the same old tripe we’ve heard one generation after another. As the late University of North Carolina journalism professor Margaret A. Blanchard once noted: “[P]arents and grandparents who lead the efforts to cleanse today’s society seem to forget that they survived alleged attacks on their morals by different media when they were children. Each generation’s adults either lose faith in the ability of their young people to do the same or they become convinced that the dangers facing the new generation are much more substantial than the ones they faced as children.” And Thomas Hine, author of The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager, argues that: “We seem to have moved, without skipping a beat, from blaming our parents for the ills of society to blaming our children. We want them to embody virtues we only rarely practice. We want them to eschew habits we’ve never managed to break.”
Anyway, I was reminded of this again today as I was finally reading through a report published last year by the U.K.’s Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It’s entitled “The Impact of the Commercial World on Children’s Wellbeing” and it is very much worth your attention. Several people had recommended I check it out in recent months, but I’m ashamed to say I am only now getting around to it as I prepare an amicus brief for the Supreme Court’s review of a California video game law. But this U.K. report is not to be missed. Here are a few of the choice bits from the study: Continue reading →
The Contract From America is a very interesting political document, seeking to rally people around a set of policies that—unlike the Contract With America from years ago—was generated from the bottom up.
On the WashingtonWatch.com blog, I’ve been assessing the ten items in the Contract From America. The Tea Party movement stands for a lot of ideas in a lot of people’s minds. Here’s a chance to see what substantive policies are important to a large cross-section of this political movement.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.