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Promoting & Upgrading the TLF

by on January 22, 2009 · 16 comments

First, let me just thank all the TLF readers who actively participate by commenting on the site.  We really value your participation in this community built on a shared interest in technology policy!

Readers who visit the site will notice two new badges at the top righthand corner of the site for the TLF’s Twitter and Facebook pages.  Please take a moment to follow us on Twitter and to become a fan of our Facebook page—and to “share” that page with your friends on Facebook.  Of course, we also have RSS feeds for the blog and the Tech Policy Weekly podcast (RSS or iTunes), which should again become more “weekly” this year.

I’d love to hear any ideas any TLF readers might have about how to increase the site’s readership or upgrade its functionality.  With the TLF’s five year anniversary coming up this August, we’re looking for ways to make the most of the blog as a tool for “keeping the politicans’ hands off the ‘net and everything else related to technology.”

Two quick tech tips for using the site.  First, regarding Disqus (“Discuss”), our Comment Management System:  If you haven’t already done so, don’t forget to “claim” comments made with your email address.  As Disqus explains, this will help ensure that no one else posts a comment under your name (something only someone as dastardly as, say, Jim Harper might do):

If you’ve made a comment on a blog using Disqus, you automatically have a profile. To claim the comments and profile, verify your identity by clicking “Claim” on the profile. Once the profile is claimed, no one else will be able to use that profile or email address to comment aside from you.

Second, Adam and I often post PDFs in our posts using the nifty iPaper viewer provided by Scribd (for example here).  Because it’s Flash, this tool allows you to see a PDF embedded on a page without having to download it or wait for the whole document to load.  A few of our crochetier TLF colleagues have complained that the Flash viewer is too small to read easily.  The simple solution is to click the rectangle-in rectangle button at the top right corner of the Scribd viewer, which will instantly expand the viewer to full-screen.  If clicked again, the viewer will revert to its original size.  This feature doesn’t seem to be as self-explanatory as the folks at Scribd assume.  

Again, thanks for reading and for your feedback!

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How not to fix Health Care

by on January 22, 2009 · 13 comments

Scott Gottlieb reports in the WSJ online on provisions in the fiscal stimulus package now before the House that would restrict the drugs doctors could prescribe based on cost effectiveness. This entails top-down assessments not only of how good the drugs are, but what an additional year of a person’s life is worth. Rather ironic, in an environment where some argue in favor of a government controlled health care system because health care is a “right.” His article also points the way to a better solution–let private companies that study the effectiveness of treatments publicize the results.

I have not looked at the details of this plan, but it seems to me that especially if it does not leave patients the option of paying out of pocket for alternative treatments, it is ripe for consitutional challenges, under Griswold that protects rights to use contraceptives, for example. It will be interesting if restrictions on speech, prohibiting doctors from telling patients that alternative treatments are available that they are not permitted to prescribe, eventually accompany the the attempt to restrict prescriptions.

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MIT Professor David Clark on the Future of the Internet, at George Mason on Feb. 3

by on January 21, 2009 · 24 comments

I just posted information about David Clark’s pending lecture on “The Internet Today and Tomorrow” on my blog, DrewClark.com, and further information is also avaiDavid Clark Lecturelable at the Information Economy Project web site at George Mason University School of Law.  (I’m the Assistant Director at the Information Economy Project, which aims to bring the rigor of law & economics to issues of telecommunications and technology policy.)

The lecture, by Computer Science Professor David Clark, is the latest in the Information Economy Project’s “Big Ideas About Information” lecture series.

The Internet is now sufficiently embedded in society that it is regularly triggering social, economic and regulatory issues. The hot topics of today are network neutrality, network management, and the question of imposing regulatory limits on Internet service providers. However, those are just today’s hot topics. What will happen tomorrow? Can we speculate and perhaps get a bit ahead of the curve?

In this talk, Professor Clark will start with a perspective on today’s issue of network neutrality and the role of the Internet service provider, and will then look further into the future to look at some emerging issues, such as the role of the social network as a platform, the problems of building a more secure and available Internet, the emerging requirement for identity mechanisms, and the industrial implications of network virtualization and overlays. This talk will describe some new ideas from the technical community that might shift the landscape of regulation and industrial structure.

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Windows Reduced Media Edition Redux?

by on January 20, 2009 · 12 comments

The European Commission may order Microsoft to strip Internet Explorer from certain versions of Windows, according to a preliminary ruling against Microsoft stemming from a complaint brought by Opera. Opera claims that Microsoft is “abusing its dominant position” by bundling IE with Windows, and consequently denying consumers “genuine choice” among web browsers.

If the European Commission upholds Opera’s complaint against Microsoft, it wouldn’t be the first time Microsoft has been found guilty of antitrust violations stemming from applications bundled with Windows.

Back in 2004, the Commission ruled that it was illegal for Microsoft to bundle its Windows Media Player with Windows and ordered Microsoft to offer a Media Player-less version of the operating system. Microsoft responded by unveiling the wryly named “Windows XP Reduced Media Edition.” Unsurprisingly, the European Commission rejected the name, so Microsoft renamed the OS “Windows N.”

Despite Windows N’s fairly neutral-sounding name, consumers showed little interest in Windows N when it hit the shelves. It’s quite obvious why Windows N was a flop–why would anybody want to run an operating system lacking useful components, especially when plenty of alternatives are available online at the click of a button?

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I can copy my MP3, why not my DVD?

by on January 12, 2009 · 27 comments

Apple has announced it will be dropping DRM, completing the transition from its DRM-Free-For-a-Fee model to one where DRM music isn’t an option. As Ars reports, it’ll take until August to see all DRM’d content leave the iTunes store.

This seems to be the final stage in a trasition that started in February of 2007.  That’s when Steve Jobs wrote his now famous “Thoughts on Music” memo.  Since then we’ve seen Amazon.com open it’s DRM free store and, more recently, the RIAA change its tactics and declare its war on downloaders over.  It seems that the music industry is slowly realizing how it must adapt to life in a digital world.

While music is learning its lesson, Hollywood seems to be willfully ignorant.  The major studios remain staunchly pro-DRM and continue to fight even those activities that should be perfectly legal.

Viacom, Sony, Fox, Universal, Disney, and Warner Bros. law suit against RealNetworks is the latest example of Hollywood’s refusal to adapt.  The studios are up in arms over RealDVD—software that allows consumers to copy DVDs to their personal computers.  But RealNetworks CEO Chief Executive Rob Glaser seems determine to fight the Hollywood giants.

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Yet Another Reason to Oppose REAL ID

by on January 9, 2009 · 8 comments

heather-garciaYou’d have to get your picture taken at the DMV.

“It’s stressful and degrading and my nose and chin look shiny,” says a one-time TLF blogger (not pictured here).

The woman pictured here was arrested for driving without a license. Perhaps because she didn’t want to get her picture taken at the DMV.

Say No to the national ID law – and to those trips to the DMV!

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The Most Important Number for Technology Policy in 2009

by on January 8, 2009 · 19 comments

Is $1,200,000,000,000.00.  That’s the expected 2009 Federal budget deficit.  Since the current Federal debt is estimated at a “mere” $10.6 trillion, this means that we’re expected to add nearly 9% in a single year to a debt accumulated over 233 years (since 1774).  This number also amounts to more than 8% of the U.S. economy. 

So what does this have to do with technology policy?  To start with, this figure comes from Congressional Budget Office estimates, which “don’t account for the huge economic stimulus bill Obama is expected to propose soon to try to jolt the economy.”  So, while the Obama team has talked about big “public works” and “infrastructure” spending (which used to be called, variously, “make-work,” “pork barrel” and “corporate welfare”), there’s sure to be huge pressure not to waste more taxpayer money on top of this staggering figure.  Whatever blame Bush deserves, Obama probably doesn’t want to go down in history as the man who finally caused the U.S. government to default on its unmanageable debt burden.

One certainly could make an argument that the kind of technology-related “infrastructure” stimulus Obama has talked about (e.g., broadband subsidies) would be less of a waste of money than, say, simply building more bridges (as Japan did in the 1990s, its “lost decade”) or other reflexively Keynesian responses.  But even so, I suspect that the total amount of funding made available for such projects won’t be anywhere near enough to satisfy the technology policy Left.  

This could result in increased pressure on the Administration to increase regulation of the technology sector in order to implement tech-leftist ideas about “protecting” users’ privacy, promoting media diversity or “fairness”, mandating net “neutrality,” “opening up” spectrum, etc.  Such  proposals might seem attractive precisely because they generally wouldn’t require increased Federal expenditures other than the cost of hiring more bureaucrats (which means more government employee union jobs anyway—hardly a bad thing for Democrats)—while the economic consequences of such proposals for companies and consumers will probably surely be trivialized.  For example, if the advocates of government control at the so-called “Free Press” can’t get universal broadband, they’ll probably press that much harder to cripple online advertising and traffic management by ISPs, just to name two popular bogeymen.obamas-new-new-deal

One might think that a sharp economic decline would cause policy-makers to think twice before undermining the business models that have supported IT innovation and real infrastructure investment.  But one has only to look at the policies of FDR’s first two terms to see how even an amiable, soft-spoken president elected on a mantra of change and “uniting” the nation in a time of crisis could consistently choose to place “Reform” (i.e., increased regulation) over “Recovery” (i.e., the health of the economy)—with devastating economic consequences.

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Abolish the FCC

by on January 8, 2009 · 18 comments

Regarding Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig’s proposal to abolish the Federal Communications Commission: Adam covered the main points here and I’d like to add a couple minor points.

The idea of abolishing the FCC used to be a right-wing fantasy. But now Silicon Valley-booster Lessig is on board.

With so much in its reach, the FCC has become the target of enormous campaigns for influence. Its commissioners are meant to be “expert” and “independent,” but they’ve never really been expert, and are now openly embracing the political role they play. Commissioners issue press releases touting their own personal policies. And lobbyists spend years getting close to members of this junior varsity Congress. Think about the storm around former FCC Chairman Michael Powell’s decision to relax media ownership rules, giving a green light to the concentration of newspapers and television stations into fewer and fewer hands. This is policy by committee, influenced by money and power, and with no one, not even the President, responsible for its failures.

Relaxing media ownership rules was and is a good idea, but aside from that Lessig is absolutely correct. The FCC has a history of inhibiting innovation, protecting favored clients and persecuting politically-unpopular industry segments who stand up for their legitimate rights. But politics are nasty, so none of this should be surprising.

Lessig is also correct that

The solution here is not tinkering. You can’t fix DNA. You have to bury it. President Obama should get Congress to shut down the FCC and similar vestigial regulators, which put stability and special interests above the public good.

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End-to-End vs. What can you spend?

by on January 7, 2009 · 29 comments

fireshot-capture-64-verizon-i-high-speed-internet_-plans-www22_verizon_com_residential_highspeedinternet_plans_plans_htmI’m re-reading Tim Lee’s excellent and very long paper on network neutrality, “The Durable Internet.”  It’s excellent partly because it’s such a long read—it’s exhaustive in addressing all the issues surrounding the neutrality debate.

With all the great writing—like Tim’s paper—available on the topic, I can’t understand why so many people who write about technology are still confused on the issue of neutrality.  If neutrality is to be understood as some form of the end-to-end principle with a bit of marketing-speak slathered on top, then how can people continue to conflate it with something as basic as differing levels of service from ISPs?

The latest example is Dan Costa writing in the last print edition of PC Magazine.  While Costa’s basic point is correct—he says it’s fair to charge people who use more bandwidth more money for their Internet connection—he seems to think it might be non-neutral.  Sure, it’s non-uniform pricing, but it’s not a violation of net neutrality.

I agree with Costa that it makes sense to charge consumers for what they consume.  To argue this is impermissible would be to argue against the basic principle of fairness.  As Costa says in his column, “Can’t we all agree that my mom and I shouldn’t be paying the same price for broadband?”

The neutrality debate has become a confused mishmash of legitimate concerns over network management practices and the cries of folks who think broadband should be free, or the same low low price for everyone.  I think it’d be great if everyone writing on the matter read Tim’s paper, read the other side of the issue over at places like Free Press, and started speaking sense on the topic.

For geek news gluttons, there’s more to say about Costa’s column, like the TOS of Sprint’s XOHM service, but I’ll leave that to the for those of you who don’t mind long windedness. (Like those of you who actually read Tim’s treatise on neutrality.)  I talk more about Costa’s column at OpenMarket.org.

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The Washington Post is Human

by on January 6, 2009 · 4 comments

Hey, you’d make mistakes too if you were up at 5:00 a.m. sending emails.

washpost

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