Senior Fellow in Technology & Innovation at the R Street Institute in Washington, DC. Formerly a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, President of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, Director of Telecommunications Studies at the Cato Institute, and a Fellow in Economic Policy at the Heritage Foundation.
In my last post, I discussed an outstanding new paper from Ronald Cass on “Antitrust for High-Tech and Low: Regulation, Innovation, and Risk.” As I noted, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever read about the relationship between antitrust regulation and the modern information economy. That got me thinking about what other papers on this topic that I might recommend to others. So, for what it’s worth, here are the 12 papers that have most influenced my own thinking on the issue. (If you have other suggestions for what belongs on the list, let me know. No reason to keep it limited to just 12.)
Stan J. Liebowitz & Stephen E. Margolis,”Path Dependence, Lock-in, and History,” 11(1) Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, (April 1995): 205-26.
Ronald Cass, Dean Emeritus of Boston University School of Law, has penned the best paper on antitrust regulation that you will read this year, especially if you’re interested in the relationship between antitrust and information technology sectors. His paper is entitled, “Antitrust for High-Tech and Low: Regulation, Innovation, and Risk,” and it makes two straightforward points:
Antitrust enforcement has characteristics and risks similar to other forms of regulation.
Antitrust authorities need to exercise special care in making enforcement decisions respecting conduct of individual dominant firms in high-technology industries.
Here are some highlights from the paper that build on those two points. Continue reading →
I have always found it strange that the ACLU speaks with two voices when it comes to user empowerment as a response to government regulation of the Internet. That is, when responding to government efforts to regulate the Internet for online safety or speech purposes, the ACLU stresses personal responsibility and user empowerment as the first-order response. But as soon as the conversation switches to online advertising and data collection, the ACLU suggests that people are basically sheep who can’t possibly look out for themselves and, therefore, increased Internet regulation is essential. They’re not the only ones adopting this paradoxical position. In previous essays I’ve highlighted how both EFF and CDT do the same thing. But let me focus here on ACLU.
Writing today on the ACLU “Free Future” blog, ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley cites a new paper that he says proves “the absurdity of the position that individuals who desire privacy must attempt to win a technological arms race with the multi-billion dollar internet-advertising industry.” The new study Stanley cites says that “advertisers are making it impossible to avoid online tracking” and that it isn’t paternalistic for government to intervene and regulate if the goal is to enhance user privacy choices. Stanley wholeheartedly agrees. In this and other posts, he and other ACLU analysts have endorsed greater government action to address this perceived threat on the grounds that, in essence, user empowerment cannot work when it comes to online privacy.
Again, this represents a very different position from the one that ACLU has staked out and brilliantly defended over the past 15 years when it comes to user empowerment as the proper and practical response to government regulation of objectionable online speech and pornography. For those not familiar, beginning in the mid-1990s, lawmakers started pursuing a number of new forms of Internet regulation — direct censorship and mandatory age verification were the primary methods of control — aimed at curbing objectionable online speech. In case after case, the ACLU rose up to rightly defend our online liberties against such government encroachment. (I was proud to have worked closely with many former ACLU officials in these battles.) Most notably, the ACLU pushed back against the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) and the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA) and they won landmark decisions for us in the process. Continue reading →
A reporter recently interviewed me for a story and asked a terrific question: Why is it that business model disruption and creative destruction seem to have sped up in recent times? My guess — and excuse me if this seems too obvious — is that it must have something to do with the very nature of intangible, digital technologies of the new economy versus the tangible, analog technologies of the old economy. That is, in markets built largely upon binary code, the pace and nature of change becomes relentlessly hyper-Schumpeterian precisely because digital technologies and platforms are more easily disintermediated and leap-frogged than earlier tangible technologies and platforms were. And so we get creative destruction on steroids.
Consider, for example, what constituted a “social networking site” in the old days versus today. Our old social networking sites and services in the past were town squares, parks, school parking lots, shopping malls, as well as media like newspapers, magazines, and even the mail. When we socially networked in those environments, we were creatures of our fixed, “real-space” environments as well as their many natural constraints. Disrupting, replacing, or even replicating those environments, technologies, or platforms was a monumental undertaking precisely because of the enormous costs associated with doing so. Continue reading →
It was my honor today to be a panelist at a Hill event on “Apps, Ads, Kids & COPPA: Implications of the FTC’s Additional Proposed Revisions,” which was co-sponsored by the Family Online Safety Institute and the Association for Competitive Technology. It was a free-wheeling discussion, but I prepared some talking points for the event that I thought I would share here for anyone interested in my views about the Federal Trade Commission’s latest proposed revisions to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
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The Commission deserves credit for very wisely ignoring calls by some to extend the coverage of COPPA’s regulatory provisions from children under 13 all the way up to teens up to 18.
that would have been a constitutional and technical enforcement nightmare. But the FTC realized that long ago and abandoned any thought of doing that. So that is a huge win since we won’t be revisiting the COPA age verification wars.
That being said, each tweak or expansion of COPPA, the FTC opens the door a bit wider to a discussion of some sort age verification or age stratification scheme for the Internet.
And we know from recent AG activity (recall old MySpace age verification battle) and Hill activity (i.e. Markey-Barton bill) that there remains an appetite for doing something more to age-segment Internet populations
Those of you who spend a lot of time thinking about public choice economics and the problem of cronyism more generally might appreciate this little blurb I found today about the Universal Service Fund (USF).
It goes without saying that America’s “universal service” (telephone subsidy) system is a cesspool of cronyism, favoring some companies over others and grotesquely distorting economic incentives in the process. And the costs just keep growing without any end in sight. Just go to any FCC meeting or congressional hearing about universal service policy and listen to all the companies insisting that they need the subsidy gravy trail to keep on rolling and you’ll understand why that is the case. But plenty of policymakers (especially rural lawmakers) love the system, too, since it allows them to dispense targeted favors.
Anyway, I was flipping through the latest copy of “The RCA Voice” which is the quarterly newsletter of what used to be called the Rural Cellular Association, but now just goes by RCA. RCA represents rural wireless carriers who, among other things, would like increased government subsidies for–you guessed it–rural wireless services. Their latest newsletter includes an interview with Rep. Don Young (R-AK) who was applauded by RCA for launching the Congressional Universal Service Fund Caucus, whose members basically want to steer even more money into the USF system (and their congressional districts). Here’s the relevant part of the Q&A with Rep. Young:
RCA VOICE: “How important is it for carriers serving rural areas to be engaged with their members of Congress on USF issues?”
REP. DON YOUNG (R-AK): “The more carriers engage with both their Representatives and Senators, the better. While the early bird may get the worm, the bird that doesn’t even try definitely won’t get any worms. The same applies to Congress.”
Well, you gotta admire chutzpah like that! It pretty much perfectly sums up why universal service has always been a textbook case study of public choice dynamics in action. Sadly, it also explains why there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that this racket will be cleaned up any time soon.
Last month, it was my great privilege to be invited to deliver some remarks at the University of Maine’s Center for Law and Innovation (CLI) as part of their annual “Privacy in Practice” conference. Rita Heimes and Andrew Clearwater of the CLI put together a terrific program that also featured privacy gurus Harriet Pearson, Chris Wolf, Omer Tene, Kris Klein and Trevor Hughes. [Click on their names to watch their presentations.] In my remarks, I presented a wide-ranging (sometimes rambling) overview of how privacy policy is unfolding here in the U.S. as compared to the European Union, and also offered a full-throated defense of America’s approach to privacy as compared to the model from the other side of the Atlantic that many now want us to adopt here in the U.S. I also identified the many interesting parallels between online child safety policy and privacy policy here in the U.S. and discussed how we can apply a similar toolbox of solutions to problems that arise in both contexts. If you’re interested, I’ve embedded my entire 20-minute speech below, but I encourage you to also check out the other speakers videos that the folks at the CLI have posted on their site here. And keep an eye on the Maine Center for Law and Innovation; it is an up and coming powerhouse in the field of cyberlaw and Internet policy.
It is unlikely there has ever been a more important figure in the history of regulatory policy than Alfred Kahn. As I noted in this appreciation upon his passing in December 2010, his achievements as both an academic and a policymaker in this arena where monumental. His life was the very embodiment of the phrase “ideas have consequences.” His ideas changed the world profoundly and all consumers owe him a massive debt of gratitude for reversing the anti-consumer regulatory policies that stifled competition, choice, and innovation. It was also my profound pleasure to get to know Fred personally over the last two decades of his life and to enjoy his spectacular wit and unparalleled charm. He was the most gracious and entertaining intellectual I have ever interacted with and I miss him dearly.
As I noted in my earlier appreciation, Fred was a self-described “good liberal Democrat” who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to serve as Chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board in the mid-1970s and promptly set to work with other liberals, such as Sen. Ted Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, and Ralph Nader, to dismantle anti-consumer airline cartels that had been sustained by government regulation. These men achieved a veritable public policy revolution in just a few short years. Not only did they comprehensively deregulate airline markets but they also got rid of the entire regulatory agency in the process. Folks, that is how you end crony capitalism once and for all! Continue reading →
[Based on forthcoming article in the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, Vol. 14 Issue 1, Winter 2013, http://mjlst.umn.edu]
I hope everyone caught these recent articles by two of my favorite journalists, Kashmir Hill (“Do We Overestimate The Internet’s Danger For Kids?”) and Larry Magid (“Putting Techno-Panics into Perspective.”) In these and other essays, Hill and Magid do a nice job discussing how society responds to new Internet risks while also explaining how those risks are often blown out of proportion to begin with.
Is competition really a problem in the tech industry? That was the question the folks over at WebProNews asked me to come on their show and discuss this week. I offer my thoughts in the following 15-minute clip. Also, down below I have embedded a few of my recent relevant essays on this topic, a few of which I mentioned during the show.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology. Learn more about TLF →
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.