With every passing month, the United States falls further behind the global leaders in broadband Internet access thanks to a combination of market and policy failures…Our broadband problem is becoming a crisis.
- Free Press, 2006

Much ink has been spilled over the claim that the US is “falling behind” in broadband. Most of that rhetoric centers around a single statistic: the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ranks the US 15th in the world in broadband connections per capita. The…

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The Federal Trade Commission seems to think so. A fresh set of proposed Federal Trade Commission guidelines, if approved this summer, would potentially allow the agency to police the relationship between bloggers and advertisers, forcing bloggers to disclose any revenue, gifts, or freebies they have received for publishing consumer reviews of goods and services. These guidelines mark the FTC’s first systemic foray into regulating the blogosphere, a Herculean task if ever there was one. An example, excerpted from the aforementioned…

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An article in this morning’s wall street journal commends a coalition of business associations and councils that sent a letter to China’s Premier publicly criticizing the latest attempt to censor information Chinese citizens can access on the internet. The green dam-youth escort mandate would require all computers going into the nation to be equipped with an information blocking software.

It is rare public criticism of China’s policy, but it’s not brave, it will do nothing to change the policy, and reveals the…

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So much for the idyllic “free information” model of the internet. The Federal Trade Commission is drafting new rules that would extend its authority to encompass bloggers who promote products in exchange for compensation or giveaways. The FTC’s new oversight could be quite extensive, even covering the common marketing practice of affiliate links, as the Associated Press reports:

New guidelines, expected to be approved late this summer with possible modifications, would clarify that the agency can go after bloggers — as well as the companies that compensate…

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A group of US Senators has sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission expressing their concern that the exclusive arrangements that are common between wireless service providers and mobile handset manufacturers may be hindering competition and innovation. Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) are worried that the prevalence of such exclusivity arrangements (for example, AT&T and Apple’s iPhone, or Sprint-Nextel and the Palm Pre) restrict consumer choice.

Are consumers getting a bad deal? In an essay published last…

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Under that Orwellian slogan, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, or “Ma Bell,” operated its telephone monopoly for the better part of the 20th century. For sixty years, regulators nurtured Ma Bell’s control of the industry, convinced that the telephone market was a natural monopoly. At one point, AT&T’s grip was so tight that the company owned not only the wires in our walls but also the telephones we plugged into them, and its monopoly persisted until the company in…

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President Obama has just  announced the creation of a new “cyber czar.” During his remarks, he noted that “cyber crime has cost Americans more than $8 billion.”

He continued, “My presidency has so far cost Americans more than $4 trillion.”

Just kidding about that last part. Kind of.

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May so far has been full of omens for the future of technology regulation. On Monday the 11th, the Obama administration announced that it would take a tougher new stance on antitrust issues and repealed several antitrust guidelines issued by the Justice Department under George W. Bush. Christine Varney, the newly confirmed assistant Attorney General for antitrust, vowed to keep tech companies in the line of fire.

On May 13th, the European commission fined Intel $1.45 billion for engaging in “anti-competitive practices,”…

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California legislators, along with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, are still trying to ban the sale of violent video games to minors. Now, they’re taking their fight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Similar state bans on violent games have been deemed unconstitutional by the courts again and again and again (and again). But knowing that the law is in blatant violation of the First Amendment hasn’t stopped the “Governator” (who, ironically, has starred in more than a few violent movies over the last couple decades) from trying to impose his parenting…

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Facebook has been at the center of a controversy involving its moderation policies and The Pirate Bay, a popular Bittorrent tracker that was found guilty of copyright infringement by a Swedish court last month. Since early April, Facebook has enforced a “site-wide” ban on links to The Pirate Bay - including those in private messages.

This practice may run afoul of federal wiretapping statutes that bar service providers from “intercepting” private messages, according to an article that appeared on Wired Threat Level last week.…

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“Meet Bronze!” “Bronze is Your Friend!” “Bronze is Brilliant; User-Friendly; and Multi-Purpose!” “Stone is Dead, Prepare for the Age of Bronze!”

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Not many details have appeared, but the Atlantic reports on a speech given by the administration’s Melissa Hathaway in McLean, VA:

In her speech, Hathaway did not say much about the administration’s policy changes, although published reporters indicate that Obama plans to create a powerful national cybersecurity directorate that would work through the Department of Homeland Security, establish a national cybersecurity recovery plan and resolve longstanding conflicts between agencies.

I remain suspicious of collectivizing and centralizing risk in governmental bodies, and of…

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In FCC v. Fox today, the Supreme Court upheld regulation of “fleeting expletives” on broadcast television. What should be “fleeting” is the nearly century old FCC itself, but it’s desperately sought things to occupy itself in the 21st Century, and here’s another success. They insist they’re protecting my children.

As Adam Thierer at the Progress and Freedom Foundation put it:

While the Court decided this case on purely procedural grounds, its failure to address the constitutional issues at stake will leave the…

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My good friend and Bureaucrash ally Xaq Fixx recently altered me to an interesting story on the intersection of politics, technology and free speech. It seems that the state government of California, through the California Employment Training Panel, is paying contractors who train in-state workers in new skills - an effort to boost the Golden State’s notoriously sagging economy. Nothing too unusual there.

Enter SF Weekly’s Matt Smith, who noticed that the list of recipients of this state-subsidized training were employees of Cybernet…

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I’m beginning to think “no” is the definitive answer.  While most tend to understand the basic concepts of Internet connectivity and its associated parts, it seems that it is becoming abundantly clear that terminology has been misused by media and public organizations such that no one really understands what they are even talking about anymore.

It’s understandable that people who don’t work in the telecommunications sector are unfamiliar with networking.  But a group of writers that should understand these concepts are…

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Earlier today, Competitive Enterprise Institute President Fred Smith delivered an informative but lively, entertaining speech about the role of NGOs.  The speech was delivered at the Washington-based Atlas Economic Research Foundation, an umbrella organization that sponsors the creation of free-market NGOs worldwide.

Smith acknowledged that the libertarian movement, although weaker than its opponents, is gaining ground through the Internet, online video sharing and other peer-to-peer technologies.  The latest example of the successful usage of such technologies is yesterday’s landmark Tea Party…

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As Tea Parties brew across the land today, I’m reminded of the infamous “Tax Poem” chain email, or, spam, if you like. Set to music it could make quite the anthem I suppose.

THE TAX POEM

Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table
At which he’s fed.

Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.

Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for peanuts
Anyway!

Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him…

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There has been some noise in technology circles the last week over the FCC comment period or Notice of Inquiry (NOI) in regards to the broadband Internet portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act otherwise known as “the stimulus.”

The NOI allows individuals, association groups, public policy organizations like CEI, and businesses to issue their comments, suggestions, advise—anything really—to the FCC.   This allows “the public” to describe how they feel like the funds should be spent and the best…

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Wikinomics warns that non-elite colleges risk the same plight now facing newspapers. Rarely do the dominant industries lead innovation, and in the case of the papers:

[L]eaders of old paradigms have the greatest difficulty embracing the new. Why didn’t Gannett create The Huffington Post? Why didn’t NBC invent YouTube? Why didn’t AT&T launch Twitter? Yellow Pages should have built Facebook and Microsoft should have come up with Google. And Craigslist would have been a perfect venture for the New York Times.

As…

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AT&T and Verizon are indicating that there is a chance that they will not seek funds from the broadband stimulus portion of the American Recovery Act.

Verizon Executive VP Thomas Tauke has stated that, “We don’t have any plans to apply; we also have not made a decision not to apply.”

Similarly, AT&T Senior Executive VP told reporters that, “We do not have our hand out seeking government funds.”  But, “[AT&T is] open to considering things that might help the economy and might…

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