Andrew Grossman, Heritage’s senior web editor, sent over the following on the just-released Google Desktop, and the looming battle between Google and MS. (To see more from Grossman, check out the Heritage policy weblog):
“Last week, Google, a company renowned for its search service, released the Google Desktop, a piece of software that lets users search through the materials stored on their own computers, from e-mail to Word files to Web pages that they have recently browsed. The Desktop is Google’s first major foray onto the desktop, and its release may mark the beginning of the end of Microsoft’s dominance of the desktop software market. Someone should tell the trustbusters in Washington and Brussels that their services are no longer needed, if they ever were.”
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My latest C:\Spin article develops a methodology for determining when new legislation is needed to address bad online conduct. The skinny – first examine existing law, then consider whether new legislation will add not just a new law but a new ability or tool for law enforcement, and finally, assess educational opportunities and market initiatives.
Now that the Induce Act is dead, all eyes will be on spyware.
The FTC opened a new front in the war against spyware yesterday, filing charges against Sanford Wallace, claiming he has distributed software surreptiously installs itself on PCs, changed user’s home pages, install advertising programs, and even cause CD trays to fly open. Then, in what the FTC calls the very definition of “online chutzpah“–the programs would trigger ads offering to sell the victim anti-spyware programs at $30 a pop.
Reportedly, the fine could be 10,000 per violation. Given the vast number of computers thus infected, that could tote up pretty fast. Good. I hope its in the trillions. This is exactly the sort of case that the government should be bringing–against Internet vermin that are violating the rights of web surfers.
Notably, the case was brought under the FTC’s current authority to stop “unfair or deceptive” practices,” without any no new legislation from Congress. Supporters of legislation nevertheless argue that future cases may be harder to make under existing laws. Perhaps true, but we should try them before rushing in with new rules. That’s exactly what the FTC is doing, to Mr. Wallace’s chagrin, and to the delight of the rest of us.
For those of you who have followed the ongoing saga of Internet taxation, you’re familiar with a hideous little creation known as the Streamlined Sales Tax Project or “SSTP.” As I detailed in this briefing paper last year, the SSTP is basically a giant sales tax cartel scheme. In the name of “tax fairness” and a supposed “level playing field,” some state and local officials would allow the extraterritorial taxation of interstate commerce via this Frankenstein monster of a tax collection scheme. Tax competition among the states would suffer as a result and consumers would be burdened with billions in new tax obligations. All this to get at the tiny amount of e-commerce out there, which still isn’t more than 2 percent of all retail sales in America!
The folks over at Progress & Freedom Foundation have just released a new report documenting just how costly this SSTP scheme would be. Take a look at their findings here.
Let’s hope Congress doesn’t give in to state and local pressures to erase the protections our Constitution provides for interstate commerce and vendors.
To no one’s real surprise, the House approved the Bono spyware bill (H.R. 2929) yesterday, by a 399-1 vote. The less-comprehensive Goodlatte bill (H.R. 4661) is also expected to pass today. TLF regulars know the problems with these bills. Here’s a piece released from Heritage last week. For more vitriol, see Jim’s Harper’s vent here. I also just posted this resource page on the topic, with more links than you can shake a curser at, earlier this week.
No one, of course, really expects legislation to solve the spyware problem–the bad guys will probably escape its reach, those that can’t fall under one or another current law. And the private-sector is coming up with solutions at warp-speed. So why is Congress rushing in? The basic political problem is the “don’t stand there, do something” syndrome. It’s hard to get elected by letting markets work–its always better to have voted for a law, any law. Even if, no, especially if the problem is being solved anyway.
In any case, the whole spyware controversy may only be an opening act for a much bigger Internet privacy battle. Ari Schwartz of the Center for Democracy and Technology is quoted in today’s Internet Daily saying that the spyware bills is only “one of the first privacy bills we’ve had [pass] the House”, and calling for more comprehensive privacy legislation to follow. Stay tuned. The show is just beginning.
Just a heads up on a new Heritage Foundation study on the Bush Administration’s record on regulation. The study covers regulatory policy broadly–including, but not limited to, tech. The bottom line: Bush as done relatively well in limiting adoption of new regulations, but needs to do more to reduce the burden of existing regulations.
Interestingly, the study finds that the FCC is one of the few agencies that has had more decisions that reduced burdens than decisions that increased burdens in recent years. That doesn’t, however, mean that dereg has gone as far as it should: in fact the study scores the Administration for not giving enough support to dereg initiatives at the FCC. Among the final recommendations: having the FCC submit regulatory impact analyses to OMB before actions are taken.
A new article on the spyware issue, just released by Heritage. I argue that while spyware is a real problem, the answer will be found in private-sector innovation, not new legislation…
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Need something to celebrate? The web just fended off another attempt at regulatory choking, this time by activists trying to impose on websites the “reasonable accommodation” requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). You can thank Access Now v. Southwest Airlines, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 20060 (11th Cir., Sept. 24, 2004) [PDF format], for that win. Take it easy on the champagne, though; another assault looms.
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Good article by Tom Hazlett on the Oracle-PeopleSoft case (from the Financial Times):
The US government’s antitrust enforcers have been rebuked. In a stinging rejection of the Department of Justice’s lawsuit to block the acquisition of PeopleSoft by Oracle, federal judge Vaughn Walker handed the antitrust division its collective head. While the DOJ alleged that the merger would substantially reduce competition in enterprise software applications for high-end corporate users, Oracle is now free to pursue its hostile tender for PeopleSoft shares…
Well, just when you think nothing good can come from the other side of the Atlantic, there’s news like this. It looks like Mario Monti, the EU’s outgoing competition commissioner is set to give a “si” to Oracle’s takeover of PeopleSoft. The legal arguments against the merger were always screwy, on either side of the Atlantic. But given the EU’s history of blocking mergers that could hurt European firms (Germany’s SAP is a big competitor to both Oracle and PeopleSoft), many of us were bracing for the worst. The decision, however, may tell us little about the future direction of EU policy, however, as Monti is leaving Brussels next month, to make way for a new commissioner.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.