I recently took over as Chairman of the Space Frontier Foundation, a citizens’ advocacy group dedicated to the opening the space frontier to human settlement. Established in 1988 to preserve the ideas of Dr. Gerard O’Neill, author of The High Frontier, the Foundation has worked to enable the fulfillment of O’Neill’s vision of humans living and working in space to the benefit of all humanity through:
Cultural change—spreading awareness of the vast, untapped potential of space to make humanity richer, safer, healthier and freer;
Supporting the growth of the entrepreneurial NewSpace industry; and
Promoting government policies supports NewSpace.
I’m hosting an anniversary bash for Sputnik at my home, so if you’re interested in space—as a place, not just a government program—and happen to be in DC on October 4, please consider joining us. Just email me to RSVP and I’ll add you to the evite (berin dot szoka at gmail dot com).
(In case you were wondering: We’re working now to upgrade our rather outdated website. If you’d like to help, just let me know!)
By Berin Szoka & Adam Thierer
Progress Snapshot 4.19 (PDF)
Since the fall of 2008, a debate has raged in Washington over “targeted online advertising,” an ominous-sounding shorthand for the customization of Internet ads to match the interests of users. Not only are these ads more relevant and therefore less annoying to Internet users than untargeted ads, they are more cost-effective to advertisers and more profitable to websites that sell ad space. While such “smarter” online advertising scares some—prompting comparisons to a corporate “Big Brother” spying on Internet users—it is also expected to fuel the rapid growth of Internet advertising revenues from $21.7 billion in 2007 to $50.3 billion in 2011-an annual growth rate of more than 24%. Since this growing revenue stream ultimately funds the free content and services that Internet users increasingly take for granted, policymakers should think very carefully about what’s really best for consumers before rushing to regulate an industry that has thrived for over a decade under a layered approach that combines technological “self-help” by privacy-wary consumers, consumer education, industry self-regulation, existing state privacy tort laws, and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforcement of corporate privacy policies.
In an upcoming PFF Special Report, we will address the many technical, economic, and legal aspects of this complicated policy issue-especially the possibility that regulation may unintentionally thwart market responses to the growing phenomenon of users blocking online ads.
We will also issue a three-part challenge to those who call for regulation of online advertising practices:
Identify the harm or market failure that requires government intervention.
Prove that there is no less restrictive alternative to regulation.
Explain how the benefits of regulation outweigh its costs.
Poor Joe Biden. He gets fewer Google searches than that Jesus guy–whatever he‘s running for.
Google Trends is a nifty proxy for measuring public interest in a very narrowly defined subject. The examples above show “Search volume” (the total number of Google search queries for each keyword) and “News reference volume” (the same for news stories) for the last twelve months in the U.S. The lettered boxes indicate news stories tagged by keyword–which I have omitted from this screenshot for the sake of simplicity.
The San Diego Union Tribune has an outstanding summary of the recently-unveiled SpaceShipTwo (SS2) (Wikipedia), successor to SpaceShipOne, which became the first private vehicle to reach space in 2004 and won the $10m Ansari X-Prize. SS2 is vying to become the world’s first commercially operational spaceplane and the first in Virgin Galactic’s fleet. Pictured at left is Virgin founder and multi-billionaire Richard Branson, and to his right, Burt Rutan, designer of SS1 and SS2. The PDF does an excellent job of illustrating the basics of an SS2 flight, though at nearly 9mb, the file isn’t a quick download.
At a press conference this morning at the National Press club in Washington, the Space Solar Alliance for Future Energy (SSAFE) announced a milestone demonstration of the critical technology enabling SBSP: long-distance, solar-powered wireless power transmission. The demonstration project, led by NASA veteran John C. Mankins, demonstrated microwave power transmission between two Hawaiian islands 148 kilometers apart, more than the distance from the surface of Earth to the boundary of space. Although SBSP satellites would ultimately operate at much higher altitudes in the geosynchronous orbit (35,786 km AMSL), Mankins has successfully demonstrated the feasibility of long-distance energy transmission in principle.
Those of you who haven’t “cut the cord” to television (as I did about 5-6 years ago) may be interested to watch a special episode of Discovery Project Earth entitled “Orbital Powerplant) that will debut tonight at 10 pm with reruns on September 13 at 2am and noon.
This video provides more background on SBSP (until recently known as “Space Solar Power”):
As we noted in our intro to this ongoing series, Google’s tenth anniversary has passed with Googlephobia reaching new heights of hysteria.
But is Google really too big and dangerous, or are people just too lazy to find other alternatives to each of the wonderful services that Google offers? If one is truly paranoid about the firm’s supposed dominance, it doesn’t take much effort to live a Google-free life. To prove it, we set out to find alternatives to each of the services that Google provides. After awhile, we got a little tired of compiling alternatives in each category and just provided links for the additional choices at your disposal. It’s tough to see what the fuss is about with the cornucopia of choices at our disposal. If you don’t like Google, then just don’t use it or any of its services. The choice is yours.
In each case, we’ve listed Google first, even though Google may not be the market leader (e.g., Google’s relatively unknown social network Orkut).
By Berin Szoka & Adam Thierer as part of an ongoing series
With Google celebrating its 10th anniversary this week, many panicky pundits are using the occasion to claim that Google has become the Great “Satan” of the Internet. Nick Carr wonders what the future holds for “The OmniGoogle.” The normally level-headed Mike Malone worries that Google is “turning into Big Brother.” And Washington Post’s Rob Dubbin says that he can’t escape Google’s “tentacles,” even for just 24 hours. Meanwhile, speculation abounds that the Justice Department is preparing a major antitrust lawsuit against Google concerning its advertising partnership with Yahoo! or perhaps even a broader suit concerning Google’s “dominance” of online advertising generally.
Carr quotes Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s now-famous 2003 interview:
I think people tend to exaggerate Google’s significance in both directions. Some say Google is God. Others say Google is Satan. But if they think Google is too powerful, remember that with search engines, unlike other companies, all it takes is a single click to go to another search engine. People come to Google because they choose to. We don’t trick them.
In the last five years, Google has become far more than just a search engine. As Google’s suite of suite of complementary products continues to grow, so too does the specter of Google as an all-knowing and therefore all-powerful economic colossus. Yet Google isn’t even close to being the sort of nefarious monopolist out to destroy user privacy at every turn, as some seem to imply—if not exclaim. Indeed, in our view, the Net is overall a far better place because of the existence of Google and the many free services it provides consumers.
Our point is not that Google should be immune from criticism. Indeed, healthy criticism of corporate actions plays a vital role in the free market by disciplining corporate policies and behavior—often thus providing an effective alternative to government regulation. This is particularly important in the area of consumer privacy protection, as demonstrated by Google’s quick response to public concern about its Chrome EULA. Continue reading →
Most debates–from privacy to net neutrality–about consumer protection in Internet policy come down to the following increasingly-cliched exchange:
1. Advocate of Regulation: “The government must intervene to protect users against Companies who want to [___________] by writing new laws or regulations!”
2. Regulatory Skeptic: “Why don’t we rely on the FTC’s enforcement of End User License Agreements (EULAs), privacy policies and other terms of service (TOS) under existing law? If companies spell out their policies clearly and then are required to stick to them, those policies will become part of competition: Companies will compete for consumers by offering attractive policies the same way they compete for consumers by offering attractive products & prices.”
3. Advocate of Regulation: “That doesn’t work because nobody actually reads all that legalese! They’re impossibly dense for non-lawyers, so companies always make such agreements as broad as possible to allow them to do whatever they damn well please–and bury all the really scary provisions.”
And yet… within 12 hours of releasing its new Chrome Browser, Google removed a clause from the Chrome EULA that essentially would have Given Google the right to whatever it liked with all content posted by users anywhere online using Chrome. If this incident demonstrates anything, it’s that there are significant “market forces” at work to restrain companies from writing agreements & policies that allow them to screw consumers. Indeed, it beautifully demonstrates why the Regulatory Skeptic ultimately wins this debate with one final response:
4. Regulatory Skeptic: “It doesn’t matter if 99%+ of users never read a EULA or TOS. No matter how hard companies might try to bury some ominous provision, the relatively small number of consumer protection watchdogs who do read such provisions protect everyone else by calling attention to true areas of concern. Not every blogger who complains about something he doesn’t like in a EULA is going to make Slashdot, but overall, provisions that cross a certain line will get public attention and most companies will bend over backwards to avoid bad PR. So, the market does work to protect consumers without the need for further government regulation.”
A number of TLF readers seem to have leapt to certain conclusions concerning political ads shown on the site. Most recently, Garrett Dumas responded to Sonia’s post Obama vs McCain: Who deserves the tech vote? (which generally sides with McCain) as follows:
Perhaps you think this because there is a John McCain banner on your site? The “tech vote” is a non issue as it is not up to the president or his cabinet to determine the future of technology. It is market driven and whoever controls the market, controls the direction.
Garrett’s understandable confusion merits a brief explanation. The only “banner” ad on the site chosen by us is the “Crispy on the Outside” blog ad at the top right. The ads below that are placed there by Google’s “AdSense” program, which automatically decides which ads to place on a page based on how much advertisers have bid for keyword combinations that appear on that page. TLF readers will see a mix of political ads on our site until election day from both campaigns and a variety of other groups targeting keywords that appear on our blog. For example, I currently see the following ads on our blog: Continue reading →
On Wednesday, the FCC released the decision (PDF, text) it adopted back on August 1 holding that Comcast had violated the FCC’s 2005 net neutrality principles (PDF, text) by “blocking” peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic on its network using the popular program BitTorrent. Paragraphs 3-11 lay out the FCC’s (still-disputed) finding of facts.
Commissioner McDowell‘s Scaliaesquely scathing dissent (PDF pp 61-67) provides an accessible summary of the order and should be required reading for everyone on all sides of the issue. Despite having been provided with the final version of the order only the night before its release, McDowell distills the order into six key points, rejecting the Commission’s reasoning on all but one point (jurisdiction):
Was a complaint properly brought against Comcast under FCC rules? No, FCC rules allow the kind of complaint brought against Comcast to be brought only against common carriers, which cable modem operators are not.
Does the FCC have jurisdiction over Internet network management? Yes, under the Supreme Court’s 2005 Brand X decision.
Does the FCC have rules governing Internet network management to enforce? No, “the Commission did not intend for the [2005] Internet Policy Statement to serve as enforceable rules but, rather, as a statement of general policy guidelines,” nor can the Commission “adjudicate this matter solely pursuant to ancillary authority.”
What standard of review should apply? No, even assuming this case had been properly brought under enforceable rules, the Commission applied what amounts to a “strict scrutiny” standard–something unprecedented for reviewing private, rather than governmental, action.
Was the evidence sufficient to justify the Commission’s decision? No, the “FCC does not know what Comcast did or did not do” and should have “conduct[ed] its own factual investigation” rather than relying on “apparently unsigned declarations of three individuals representing the complainant’s view, some press reports, and the conflicting declaration of a Comcast employee.” The evidence did not suggest any discriminatory motive behind Comcast’s network management techniques
Is the decision in the public interest? No. “By depriving engineers of the freedom to manage these surges of information flow by having to treat all traffic equally as the result of today’s order, the Information Superhighway could quickly become the Information Parking Lot.” Comcast had already resolved its dispute with BitTorrent through outside arbitration. The FCC should “allow the longstanding and time-tested collaborative Internet governance groups [already working to establish processes for resolving such disputes] to continue to produce the fine work they have successfully put forth for years.”
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 →
a citizens’ advocacy group dedicated to the opening the space frontier to human settlement. Established in 1988 to preserve the ideas of Dr. Gerard O’Neill, author of The High Frontier, the Foundation has worked to enable the fulfillment of O’Neill’s vision of humans living and working in space to the benefit of all humanity through:
The San Diego Union Tribune has an 
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
