For the past day and a half, the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society hosted a public meeting of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force. Discussions focused mostly on what technical solutions exist for addressing the perceived lack of online safety on social networking websites. But overall there’s still a need to connect the most important dot—do proposed solutions actually make children safer?
Being at Harvard Law School I was reminded of the movie the Paper Chase, where Professor Charles Kingsfield wielded the Socratic Method to better train his students for the rigors of law practice. In this spirit, I think there are three main questions that the task force must fully address when it issues its report later this year:
1. What are the perceived Internet safety problems? This should be a broad inquiry into all the safety-related issues (harassment, bullying, inappropriate content and contact, etc.) and not just limited to social networking websites. Also, there should be an attempt to define those problems that are unique to the Internet and others where root causes are offline problems.
2. What are the possible technical solutions to these problems? It’s important to recognize that some of the problems will NOT primarily be technology fixes (such as education in school classrooms) and even age verification would rely on offline information.
3. Do the solutions offered in #2 to the problems in #1 actually do anything to make children safer? It’s not whether the technology works that’s the salient inquiry. It’s whether the technology works to make children safer.
There were 16 or so companies that presented technology solutions based on age verification, identity verification, filtering/auditing, text analysis, and certificates/authentication tools. Some were better than others, and while most addressed questions one and two above, they were silent about number three.
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.
Continue reading →
The introduction below was originally written by Berin Szoka, but now that I (Adam Marcus) am a full-fledged TLF member, I have taken authorship.
Adam Marcus, our exceptionally tech-savvy new research assistant at PFF, has published his first piece at the PFF blog, which I reprint here for your edification.
Today Google’s DC office hosted an interesting panel on cloud computing. What was missing was a good definition of what “cloud computing” actually is.
While Wikipedia has its own broad definition of cloud computing, many think of cloud computing more narrowly as strictly web-based for which clients need nothing but a web browser. But that definition doesn’t cover things like Skype and SETI@home. And just because PFF has implemented Outlook Web Access so we can access the Exchange server via the Web, doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve implemented what most people might think of as “cloud computing.” Yet these are all variations on a common theme, which leads me to propose my own basic definition: any client/server system that operates over the Internet.
To understand the potential policy and legal issues raised by cloud computing so-defined, one must break down the discussion into a 4-part grid. One axis is divided into private data (e.g., email) and public data (e.g., photo sharing). The other axis is divided into data hosted on a single server or centralized server farm and data hosted on multiple computers in a dynamic peer-to-peer network (e.g., BitTorrent file sharing).
Continue reading →
A good illustration about how information on products and services reaches consumers, and how the overall bargain between businesses and consumers is formed, comes in the shape of this Ars Technica story about Google’s new Chrome browser.
Intrepid Ars reporter Nate Anderson writes (two days ago now):
Today’s Internet outrage du jour has been Chrome’s EULA, which appears to give Google a nonexclusive right to display and distribute every bit of content transmitted through the browser. Now, Google tells Ars that it’s a mistake, the EULA will be corrected, and the correction will be retroactive.
Standing in the shoes of a great mass of consumers who one assumes wouldn’t like that EULA term, Anderson quickly and effectively bargained Google back from it. Writing about the episode, he (and other, less prominent outlets) dealt Google a PR slap for even including such a term in the first place. The mighty Google is chastened and has corrected what it calls an error.
It’s a commonly held belief that consumers are powerless to fight large corporations, and it’s true that a single consumer is unlikely to be successful bargaining with a large company about some dimension of the goods or services it provides, especially if he or she has peculiar tastes.
But this episode shows how the media act as a conduit through which consumers bargain with large corporations – successfully. When the corporation has gotten on the wrong side of a significant enough consumer interest in their product, it will back down so quickly that it’s easy to miss.
This is the market at work. It’s imperfect, but it’s the best way we’ve got to figure out what consumers want and get it delivered to them.
[Update: Aw crap – just went to catch up on my TLF reading and see that Berin already had it covered. He’s a smart fellow, and you should listen to him.]
Braden has noted the release of John McCain’s tech policy–rightly decrying McCain’s socialistic community broadband concept. But far more outrageous, in my view is this bit of doublethink. First, the good part we should all applaud:
John McCain Has Fought to Keep the Internet Free From Government Regulation
The role of government in the Innovation Age should be focused on creating opportunities for all Americans and maintaining the vibrancy of the Internet economy. Given the enormous benefits we have seen from a lightly regulated Internet and software market, our government should refrain from imposing burdensome regulation. John McCain understands that unnecessary government intrusion can harm the innovative genius of the Internet. Government should have to prove regulation is needed, rather than have entrepreneurs prove it is not.
Amen! Even a hardened Ron Paul/Bob Taft/Grover Cleveland/Jack Randolph-survivalist/libertarian-crank like me can rally behind that banner. But then this self-styled champion of deregulation pulls a really fast one:
John McCain Will Preserve Consumer Freedoms. John McCain will focus on policies that leave consumers free to access the content they choose; free to use the applications and services they choose; free to attach devices they choose, if they do not harm the network; and free to chose among broadband service providers.
That sure sounds nice, but it’s all Wu-vian code for re-regulation, not de-regulation. You might recognize that McCain is talking obliquely here about the FCC’s 1968 Carterfone doctrine, which has consumed much attention on the TLF (see this piece in particular).
McCain then insists that he will be a bold leader for “good” regulations: Continue reading →
In 1998, the Internet was “green” with an influx of venture capital money. A decade later, green on the ‘Net is rapidly being identified with benefits to the environment. Due to high gas prices, there are a number of reports documenting increased use of the Internet for teleconferencing and telecommuting. I used these two as examples of activities we shouldn’t discourage when arguing in favor of extending the Internet access tax moratorium.
Now there’s a new tax on the horizon – digital downloads. Today’s CNET news article describes how states have recently passed laws taxing downloaded content from the Internet, and quotes my colleague Steve DelBianco: “A digital download is the greenest way to buy music, movies, and software, since it requires no driving to the store, no delivery vans, and no plastics or packaging.”
Indeed, Telefonica, Spain’s largest telecom provider, has a report that discusses the climate benefits of ICT. It’s based on another report published in 2003 from Digital Europe, a project funded by the European Union. The findings:
Resource comparative (minerals, fossil fuels, etc) used to access 56 minutes of music:
Physical retail: 1.56 Kg [3.4 lb]
Online Shopping: 1.31 Kg [2.9 lb]
Digital distribution (without subsequent burning): 0.60Kg [1.3 lb]
Digital distribution (burning on to a CD): 0.67 Kg [1.5 lb]
So download and be green, despite that tax regulators are green with envy about collecting taxes from digital downloads.
Catherine Holahan of Business Week points out that consumer and children’s advocacy groups are looking to expand their efforts to regulate fatty and sugary food advertising in the name of “protecting the children”:
Having successfully lobbied the government to place limits on junk food ads on TV, they now target marketing to kids via the Web. “While there are some rules for TV, there are no rules when you move online,” says Patti Miller, vice-president of children’s advocacy group Children Now and a member of the Federal Communications Commission’s Task Force on Media & Childhood Obesity. “We don’t want to reduce junk food advertising to kids [on TV] and then find that it has just moved to another platform.”
And so another classic case study in regulatory creep is born and the Net gets a little more regulated in the process as Uncle Sam becomes our Super Nanny. What’s that you say? Parents should take more responsibility for what their kids watch and eat? Silly you. Don’t you know that it takes a village to raise a village idiot? Or something like that.
Tickets, Baby, Tickets: that was the mantra of the ticket broker and reselling crowd at the Ticket Summit last week in Las Vegas. I was there to present on the legal and public policy issues of ticket reselling (with a focus on Internet sales).
The resale market for tickets is a great example of how markets work, because with event tickets it’s truly a case where supply and demand reigns supreme. But still, government regulation and the primary market have a large influence on how the resale secondary market operates.
I discussed three major influences — price caps, taxes and venue control.
Price caps–the amount you’re allowed to resell your ticket over face value — are on their way out, as legislators pretty much understand the economics of supply/demand.
Taxes are a different story, and are on the way in. A North Carolina bill (SB 1407) is the wave of the future I think – as states deregulate, they’ll think they need tax sales over face value. But general income tax laws still apply, so states and cities shouldn’t think they need a special tax (in North Carolina they call it a 3% “privilege tax”) just for tickets.
Venue control is also a growing force, and I discussed the legislative, licensing and technological ways venues can assert control over how a ticket is resold: Continue reading →
Coming off last week’s July 4 recess, the Senate held a hearing on the privacy implications of online advertising. Online ads, behavioral tracking, targeted ads – whatever you might call it – has been an explosive policy issue, but today’s hearing was mostly just sparklers, with only a few bottle rockets here and there.
The big players were there–Google, Microsoft, Facebook and NebuAd–minus the ISPs, which Dorgan called out as being absent (which is why there will be another online ads hearing just for the ISPs, sure to be full of loud M-80s).
Key concepts mentioned over and over: Self Regulation; the need for Baseline Privacy Law; Pseudo-Anonymous; Opt-in vs. Opt-out; Choice.
Key Principle #1 – Self Regulation
All the witnesses espoused the need for self regulation. I’ve never liked this term, as it sounds like more of a system of conscious personal health management than a public policy strategy. Alas, it’s the lingua franca of pro-market forces in Washington.
Google, not surprisingly, is a supporter of self-regulation when it comes to online advertisements (but see baseline privacy law below). Most surprisingly, Google took very little heat from the Committee. There weren’t any questions about why it took so long to have a privacy link on its website – which Google added only a few days ago. Was the hearing, hmm, hmm, a catalyst toward this sort of “self regulation”?
The FTC is pushing for “self-regulation” principles, which I describe more in a previous post. Continue reading →
Are small businesses empowered or encumbered by online advertisements? That was the gist of today’s hearing of the House Small Business Committee on Internet ads.
Rep. Charlie Gonzalez ran the hearing (you can watch it here on YouTube) and started off with how a book called “The Search” by John Battel inspired him to learn more about online ads. He introduced the concept of the microbusiness, which he credited to the MicroEnterprise Journal.
4 of the 5 witnesses were businessmen, so there was an apparent disconnect when Rep. Gonzalez asked the more difficult public policy questions: how do trademark protections affect search ads? Should Congress be concerned about Google/Yahoo? Or a potential Microsoft/Yahoo deal?
What was surprising is the amount of love that gushed toward gigantic Google from these small business persons. But Richard Lent of AgencyNet, a consulting firm, tempered his comments by saying that the op-out rights of consumers, making sure minors aren’t inappropriately targeted, phishing, and instituting limits on data retention were all important.
Charter communications officially announced plans to back-off its deal with NebuAd to monitor the traffic of subscribers for ad-delivery purposes. Yet the witnesses liked the ability to better target potential customers. But as a Washington Post article describes, Rick – creator of list to block ads called EasyList — doesn’t like it! His disdain for ads is a common consumer feeling that Internet ads still must overcome.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.