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Philosopher’s Corner: The Principle of Intervening Action
I promised, and I shall deliver. As it’s my last day as an intern at CEI, this is my last Philosopher’s Corner post, and it covers a very important question: What actions am I responsible for? If I cause someone else to act, am I responsible for what they do as a result? This question implicates not only whole swaths of tort law, but also such issues as safe harbor for websites from copyright infringement or other law-breaking by their users.
Luckily, Alan Gewirth (the famous political philosopher with whom Cato’s Roger Pilon worked on his dissertation) has proposed a moral standard, which he calls the “principle of intervening action” (POI) that responds to this problem. (For the full text of Gewirth’s argument, check out pages 229-230 in his book, Human Rights: Essays on the Justification and Applications.) As I explained in my thesis (email me for a copy): Continue reading this post »
Liters Illegal in the UK (Litres, Too)
Who doesn't love a good half-litre?
Over at the self-proclaimed “irreverant blog for food outlaws” Crispy on the Outside (which our own Richard Morrison dubs “one of the finest libertarian food blogs I’ve ever seen”), Baylen Linnekin reports on pub owners being fined £2,000 for serving metric quantities of beer. The owners established a bar catering to the Polish community, who use the metric system. So, they served half-liters (roughly equivalent to a pint) and three-tenths-liters of beer to their customers, none of whom complained. The British government cracked down on this use of metric measurements.
Ironically, Britain had earlier fined a stall owner for selling produce by the pound instead of using metric. That stall owner had been catering to an African-Caribbean community that was used to the English measurements.
Proprietors should be free to list their offerings in whatever standard they choose. Britain should allow for a greater diversity of shops, with niche clientele, by eliminating restrictions on how people can measure things.
FEC: You Can Blog About Candidates
The Federal Election Commission has held that bloggers are covered by the same rules as journalists, permitting them to write about candidates without their actions counting as campaign contributions. Today, the FEC extended that precedent, concluding that even if bloggers coordinate with campaigns, they are nonetheless exempted from campaign contribution requirements. A rare victory for free speech online!
Your Cable Company Also Rents You a Cable Box? Sue ‘Em!
Time Warner Cable is getting slapped with an anti-tying lawsuit. The plaintiff claims that by renting him a cable box, the company engaged in unfair trade practices. He acknowledges that he could have instead rented a CableCARD and used his own cable box, but claims it was too difficult.
But tying arrangements are good for consumers. They allow cable companies to offer packages that customers want (after all, if I’m buying cable service, I probably want a box too) at lower prices than they’d be able to provide a la carte. That’s because bundling provides revenue predictability. It’s the same reason you can get combination platters at restaurants for less than each a la carte item added together - and the same reason a dozen eggs costs less than two half-dozens.
Now, I will admit that perhaps the same analysis does not apply wholesale to cable companies, who are often government-granted monopolies. But the correct solution to this problem is not more regulation, but rather to eliminate the anti-competitive franchise system.
For more details, stay tuned to TLF for Ryan Radia’s upcoming post on the subject.
UK to Mandate Data Retention of… Everything
The British government has not been known for its high level of respect for privacy. But this truly surprised me. Vnunet reports:
The Home office has issued a consultation paper for a new law that would force phone companies, ISPs and network operators to record and store every phone call, web page request and text message.
The information would have to be stored for 12 months by service providers and would be searchable by a wide variety of organisations, including local councils, health authorities, and even Ofsted and the Post Office.
Every website I visit, every email I send, every phone call I make, every text I send… that’s pretty much everything about me. Where to begin? The security problems are obvious. Not only will the massive database with all information collected in the past year about everyone become the greatest target for hackers ever forged; hacking is not even needed to get in. Just find a friend who works at the Post Office! Anonymity will become impossible. Private feuds or flings will become public. Dissenting speech will be chilled.
At least the proposal only applies to one’s electronic communications. In-person conversations on the street are still safe… oh wait, they’re not.
Still More Broadband Fear-Mongering
On Tuesday, I reported on overblown concerns that the rate of increase in broadband subscribers is not the same as it used to be, when fewer people already had broadband. Today, there’s more broadband fear-mongering, this time about speed. A new report makes similar claims to ones already released by a DC law firm and the OECD.
The new report uses data from a speed testing website run by “the Communications Workers of America, a group that would see its membership benefit greatly from any large-scale improvements to the nation’s broadband infrastructure.” On the other hand, SpeedTest, a more general speed testing service, shows not nearly as large of a gap.
All of the hubbub over international speed rankings ignores that it is, in fact, possible to have too much bandwidth. Laying tons of wirelines all over risks cementing old technology. It may not be worth the billions of dollars involved to ensure that everyone gets 50mbps instead of just 5mbps. This is especially true in the US, which has much lower population density than the countries who top the speed rankings. Laying fiber to every farm in Kansas and village in New Mexico will not be nearly as cheap or valuable as linking Osaka and Tokyo.
If you want the US’s broadband speeds to catch up to other countries, there are a few steps we can take. As I said in the conclusion to an earlier post:
If broadband Chicken Littles are truly concerned about the US’s internet future, they should focus on solutions like allowing services such as next-gen mobile broadband and satellite ISPs to become a reality (both through deregulation and spectrum liberalization) and, most importantly, eliminating franchising.
Online Privacy Comic
It’s Friday again, and also my last day as an intern at CEI. So, I’m posting another Toothpastefordinner comic. Any complaints? No? Good. This one, released yesterday, takes a look at the typical overzealous advocate of online privacy laws. It’s hardly a parody.
In Letter to Congress, AT&T Snipes at Google
Another update on Congress’s continuing investigation into online targeted advertising. Google responded by stating that the company does not engage in Deep Packet Inspection, unlike ISPs that use NebuAd or Phorm. Yahoo, however, soundly defended targeted ads with a laundry list of positives. The company concluded its exposition on the generally-ignored benefits of behavioral advertising with a wonderful summary:
Given the wide range of benefits to society to customers, bloggers, small businesses, and even advertisers who can more efficiently find the right audience for their messages and offers, it is important to give due weight to these benefits when exploring the appropriate framework for discussions of online advertising issues.
AT&T's view of Google, apparently
Today, quite a few responses from other companies went up on the FTC’s site. Verizon and Comcast just stated that they did not engage in DPI, without chastising their competitors. AT&T took a very different approach. Though bloggers have gotten up in arms over other portions of AT&T’s letter to Congress, I want to focus on the company’s overall approach.
Section 230 Defeats Wikipedia Defamation Lawsuit
A lawsuit filed for defamation against Wikipedia has just been dismissed by a federal judge. The ruling holds that Wikipedia is not liable for the actions of its users - exactly what Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was intended for.
Now, if only Italy would get the message.
Google Dominates Search, But Forever?
"If these trends continue" is a dangerous way to begin a sentence in the new economy
Ars reports that Google has expanded its domination of search, with it winning more market share against competitors over the last 18 months. But don’t go blaring the monopoly warning horns just yet. As PFF’s Adam Thierer has argued, no tech company can maintain dominance for too long. As I showed earlier, people used to worry that Yahoo was the dominant website and that it would stay in its top spot forever.
And does anyone remember Altavista, AskJeeves, or Lycos? These companies seemed to be all that and a bag of chips in the late 90s, but where are they now? A couple of new guys with a bright idea came out of nowhere and beat the old firms (who were not that old). I will go on record here and now as saying: It is inevitable that the same thing will happen to Google. Though Google seems like an excellent place to work and I would love to be on their counsel team, in ten years (after I’ve graduated law school and gotten the necessary experience) Google will not exist - at least not as the dominant internet giant we know it today.
That is simply the nature of the new economy. Startup costs are too low, there’s too much money to be had, and too many brilliant minds are floating around for any firm to dominate forever. I cannot now predict what will beat Google - another search engine like Cuil, or some totally new internet model. After all, in the late 90s, who was talking about the whole internet revolving around search? And just five years ago, who was thinking of social networking services like Facebook and Twitter?
No one can say now exactly what the internet’s future holds, but we can be certain of one thing: the big players today will not be the big players tomorrow.
UK ISP Paying for Its Users’ Illegal Downloads
Ars reports on a strange move by British ISP Virgin Media. Facing pressure from the government to cut down on P2P downloading (I guess we can forget net neutrality), Virgin has apparently agreed to use Deep Packet Inspection to monitor its users’ downloading activity and to pay record labels for those downloads.
As I just reported, the UK (and the rest of Europe) does not have the same level of safe harbor protections as the US. But ISPs just provide the pipes. Turnpikes shouldn’t be liable for their drivers’ behavior, and nor should FedEx be held responsible for what its customers send in their packages. Safe harbor provisions should expand, not contract.
Europe’s Confused eBay Liability Rule
My colleague Courtney Long and I have been posting about a series of contradictory decisions regarding whether eBay should be held liable for the fraudulent actions of its sellers. French courts held the online auction company liable for some of its users’ sales of fake Louis Vuitton purses, but a US court ruled that eBay was not liable for sales of fake Tiffany-branded items.
Apparently, the disagreement isn’t just between the US and Europe - the peril of facing multiple regulatory jurisdictions that all internet companies face. There’s also dissent within the EU. Belgium just rejected L’Oreal’s claims against eBay.
The EU should follow Belgium’s lead, not France’s. In the US, sensible provisions like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions limit websites’ liability for its users’ actions. As I wrote earlier:
The International Herald Tribune’s bloggers note that the rulings could set a scary precedent for all internet commerce. Imagine if Craig’s List was responsible for verifying the accuracy of every post - or if Match.com had to ensure that its users were actually as funny and attractive as they claim in their online profiles.
Ebay, Amazon Marketplace, Craig’s List, and even Match.com are essentially smarter online versions of classified ads. They do not sell fake goods. They just have sites on which some individuals sell fake goods. Holding them liable for what others do is a dangerous move.
Look for more on this in a later Philosopher’s Corner on the Principle of Intervening Action.
California Considers Cyberbullying Law
Following on the heels of Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, the state of California is considering passing a law harshly punishing “cyberbullies” with expulsion, up to 90 days in jail, and a $500 fine. As Larry Magid of CBS News argues, California needs to be careful not to encroach on free speech protections. The right to speak anonymously is one important aspect of free speech. And even insensitive anonymous speech deserves protection. Instead of punishing students for what they say, perhaps parents and schools should just focus on instilling good manners.
A Better Way of Measuring Tech ConsCon?
CNET and the Consumer Electronics Association have just released a new index of consumer confidence in the technology sector. Consumer confidence in technology often differs greatly from confidence in the rest of the economy. (For evidence, look no further than the mad rush for iPhones.) Hopefully, the new index will do a better job of tracking the tech sector specifically.
Now, if only we could get the CPI to reflect massive improvements in technology…
Downloading: The Green Way to Buy
I just posted on several states’ new taxes on internet downloads. Over at TLF, tech liberator Braden Cox just published an interesting piece on the green benefits of downloading. Apparently, downloading uses less than half the resources of brick-and-mortar purchases. And states want to tax it into oblivion.
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