Mediapost has published an interview I gave to Omar Tawakol, founder of the BlueKai registry entitled “User Empowerment, Not Regulation, Is The Answer to Privacy Concerns About Targeted Ads” in which I summarize the arguments Adam Thierer and I have been making since our “Principles to Guide the Debate” piece last September.
We argue for user empowerment over restrictive defaults (like “opt-in”) for data use and collection because, as the Supreme Court held in 2000: “Technology expands the capacity to choose; and it denies the potential of this revolution if we assume the Government is best positioned to make these choices for us.”
We promote tools that let users make their own decisions about privacy, not only because those decisions are fundamentally subjective, but because regulatory mandates could stifle the development of online content and commerce.
I also note the parallels between speech controls and privacy regulation, and call for a consistent, principled approach to both:
Since 1997, the Supreme Court has struck down multiple legislative attempts to censor online and offline content [especially the CDA] because there were “less restrictive alternatives” that would not so heavily burden free speech rights. In a 2000 cable-related decision, the Court held that “targeted blocking [by users] is less restrictive than banning, and the Government cannot ban speech if targeted blocking is a feasible and effective means of furthering its compelling interests.”
Courts have struck down other federal and state speech controls because parents had the tools to filter their kids’ access to information online, in video games, etc., as described in my PFF colleague Adam Thierer’s ongoing catalog of these tools…
Many who oppose industry self-regulation are not really “consumer advocates” because they don’t recognize that consumers have many, competing values. Those regulatory advocates are more interested in their preferred one-size-fits-all mandates than in empowering users to determine their own privacy preferences.
Like advocates of censorship, privacy zealots assert great dangers to which citizens are supposedly oblivious but which urgently require government intervention-dismissing arguments to the contrary as either uninformed or irresponsible.
The comments on the interview are equally worth reading. Jeff Chester, who has made a career out of attacking advertising, quickly posted a comment dismissing, but ignoring, my arguments about consumer welfare as corporate propaganda—just as he did with his comment on the post Adam and I wrote in June about congressional hearings on the issue featuring Chester (and Scott Cleland, the right-wing “Bizarro Chester“). I’ve had it with Chester’s ad hominem attacks on the motives of those who disagree with him, as I explained in my reply to Chester: Continue reading →
I recently finished Tyler Cowen’s latest book, Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World. Like everything he writes, this book is worth reading and it will be of interest to those who follow technology policy debates since Cowen makes a passionate case for “Internet optimism” in the face of recent criticisms of the Internet and the Information Age in general.
Cowen is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and the co-author, along with Alex Tabarrok, of the wonderful MarginalRevolution.com blog. And if you haven’t read Cowen’s
In Praise of Commercial Culture, stop what you’re doing and go get yourself a copy right now. Brilliant book. Compared to that book, Create Your Own Economy is a difficult book to summarize. Seriously, this book is all over the place… but in a good way. Even though it sometimes feels like “Tyler’s Miscellaneous Ramblings,” those ramblings will keep you engaged and entertained. Cord Blomquist did a pretty good job of summarizing the general themes of the book in this post two months ago when he noted that, “despite cultural reflexes that would have us do otherwise, we should embrace… new technologies as means to be more selective about what information we absorb and therefore welcome the increased volume of bytes into our lives. In his new book, [Cowen] explores technology as a vehicle to help you determine what you really value, not a series of a email-powered torture devices.” That’s a pretty good summation, but the book is about much more than that.
Instead of a full-blown review, I want to focus on some of passages from Cowen’s book about coping with information overload, which I think readers here might find of interest. In doing so, I will contrast Cowen’s views with those of John Freeman, who just penned “A Manifesto for Slow Communication” in The Wall Street Journal. As we will see, Cowen and Freeman’s differences exemplify the heated ongoing debate taking place among “Internet optimists & pessimists,” which I have discussed here many times before. Continue reading →
Alternate title – Sec. 230: Not just good for the consequences any more!
Since Sec. 230 has been a hot topic around here recently, I figured this would be a good time to fire up some controversy and cross-link to an old OpenMarket post. In it, I discuss the Principle of Intervening Action, a principle postulated by Alan Gewirth that states that we are responsible soley for our own actions. I argue that this principle is correct.
I mention its application to Sec. 230 (and to safe harbor under the DMCA), but do not lay out the argument explicity. Essentially, it’s this: if a user does something unjust, it is the user that should be held responsible. The website is not the one that performed the unjust action and thus cannot justly be punished for it. But perhaps PIA points in the opposite direction, in at least some cases. If a user orders a website to do something (e.g. posting an infringing video, though we can argue about whether that’s really unjust), PIA eliminates the “following orders” defense. If you do it, you’re responsible. So, is the user the one “doing” the action or is the user directing the site to “do” it?
Discuss (or Disqus)!
This clip from Fox News shows why more reporters need to contact the experts here at TLF:
http://www.youtube.com/v/mpDs1ii5n6w&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b
The “security expert” being interviewed in the clip, Robert Siciliano, doesn’t seem to understand what cookies do. He claims that “cookies closest cousin is spyware.” Siciliano also implies that the Obama Administration might somehow be in league with Google to gather our private information.
I think there may be some valid concerns with cookies being implemented on certain government sites, but this sort of hyperbole only feeds into the baseless fears that already exist about technology.
I should note that Judge Andrew Napolitano provides some interesting analysis on the topic after the Siciliano interview, which is included in the clip.
Hat tip: dvorak.org/blog
As we’ve noted here before, there are many ways to follow the TLF. [Did you notice those cool icons over on the upper right-hand side of the page?] But we wanted to make sure that our readers were aware of our Twitter feed, in particular, as well as the individual feeds of some of our contributors. So, in case you are interested, here ya go!
One of my favorite recurring themes here on TLF is the definitional dispute/clarification. We point out where a term has been used in many different ways and explain the positives and negatives of the various behaviors described by that term. I just did this with privacy.
Of course, it is somewhat pointless to argue about the “true” meaning of a term, but that’s not exactly what’s involved here. Yes, we libertarians can lament when terms that used to describe things we believe in, like “liberal,” “freedom,” “rights,” “choice,” etc., get appropriated by others and terms that used to describe things we don’t believe in, like “coercion,” get ascribed to us. There may be some battles we can win, some terms we can hold onto, but these disputes often end up with two ships passing in the night.
But I’m talking about something a little different. Lots of terms that have, or get, normative connotations – that sound like they describe something good (think “democracy”) or bad (think “terrorism”) – get way overbroadened. Speakers use such terms to describe nearly anything (as long as it’s vaguely related to the original meaning) to which the speaker wants to ascribe the good/bad connotation. We here on TLF catalog those various ways such terms have been used – break the term down – and describe which ways are
really good and really bad. As I said, I just did this with privacy. If this were a more lawy, as opposed to techy, blog I’d do it with “activism,” one of my pet peeve words. (Maybe I’ll do it anyway; after all, I posted on the best and worst Supreme Court decisions even though they weren’t especially tech-focused.)
But today, it’s “regulatory capture.” We have discussed it a bit recently, including just tonight. Tim Lee did some great posts on it back in the day. It’s definitely a recurring theme here. We seem to have something fairly specific in mind when we use the term. As Tim put it, it is when “established businesses argue in favor of regulations that they perceive as hurting their competitors (often smaller competitors) more than themselves.” Indeed, I argued with a commenter on one of Wayne’s posts that this definition that makes the most sense given the meanings of the words:
Regulatory capture is when businesses capture regulatory actions and use them as tools, backed by the force of government, for imposing burdens on their competitors. Businesses banding together to oppose government intrusion is not “capture.” Fighting an enemy is not the same as capturing him and using him to do your bidding…
Call Tim’s and my definition the “appropriation” definition. Continue reading →
TLF readers are undoubtedly familiar with the concept of regulatory capture. It’s a form of government failure, when a regulatory agency becomes overly influenced by the special interests of those (often large companies) it oversees. Over at the NetChoice blog, my colleague Steve DelBianco talks about a different form of capture that’s equally bad–government capture of private sector management of the Internet’s addressing system. He asserts:
Before the US Government abdicates its oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) it should take a long, hard look at the mounting efforts by world governments to assume greater power over the Internet’s addressing system. If those efforts meet no further resistance, the once-theoretical threat of “capture” could become a reality.
So what? In place of U.S. oversight, there are those that wish to create an international government bureaucracy to run ICANN:
In place of U.S. Government management, the [European] Commission recommends the creation of a multi-governmental tribunal with authority over ICANN. The European Commission posits that this new bureaucratic structure would not involve itself in “day-to-day” activities, but the distinction between “day-to-day” and other activities is utterly meaningless from a policy standpoint. Also, given the activism of the countries involved in such an effort, it would be ludicrous to expect such an entity to use its newfound power sparingly.
Steve’s post has a lot of background and explains things in detail, but I’ll share his ultimate conclusion: our Commerce Dept. should be working with ICANN to retain the protective aspects of the JPA while ICANN develops permanent mechanisms to prevent external capture. It better hurry…it has only until the end of September to do something!
There are two key mistakes in the public policy arena that we don’t talk enough about. They are two apparently opposite sides of the same fallacious coin.
Call the first fallacy “innovation blindness.” In this case, policy makers can’t see the way new technologies or ideas might affect, say, the future cost of health care, or the environment. The result is a narrow focus on today’s problems rather than tomorrow’s opportunities. The orientation toward the problem often exacerbates it by closing off innovations that could transcend the issue altogether.
The second fallacy is “innovation assumption.” Here, the mistake is taking innovation for granted. Assume the new technology will come along even if we block experimentation. Assume the entrepreneur will start the new business, build the new facility, launch the new product, or hire new people even if we make it impossibly expensive or risky for her to do so. Assume the other guy’s business is a utility while you are the one innovating, so he should give you his product at cost — or for free — while you need profits to reinvest and grow.
Reversing these two mistakes yields the more fruitful path. We should base policy on the likely scenario of future innovation and growth. But then we have to actually allow and encourage the innovation to occur.
All this sprung to mind as I read Andy Kessler’s article,
“Why AT&T Killed Google Voice.”
For one thing, Google Voice isn’t dead . . . but let’s start at the beginning. Continue reading →
I like this new document about guarding your online reputation that has just been jointly published by Reputation Defender and the Internet Keep Safe Coalition (iKeepSafe). They list these “3 Key Tips for Parents” for how to deal with concerns about their children’s online safety, privacy, and reputation:
1. Keep Current with Technology: Talk to teachers about what forms of Internet safety tools they implement in computer labs and technology classes, consider these safety tools for home use, and stay up-to-date on the capabilities of any mobile devices your child may have.
2. Keep Communicating with Your Kids: Find out who your child talks to online, educate your kids about the permanence of any “digital footprints” they leave behind, limit the use of social networks, and make it a habit to engage your kids in critical conversation—the more you talk to your kids about their online usage, the more they will learn to use digital products in a safe and healthy manner.
3. Keep Checking Your Kid’s Internet Activity: Keep computers in a central public location, check your child’s browsing histories, and limit your child’s computer time—there’s a whole world of outdoor and offline activities where they should be involved!
All good advice. I especially like their focus on getting parents to communicate early and often with their kids. It’s something I have beat the drum about quite a bit in my own work on the subject. Continue reading →
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.