Creative destruction is never easy for an economy to digest, especially when the industry involved has an exceptionally loud megaphone to amplify its screaming. In a report released on Monday, former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie Jr. (with co-author Michael Schudson) insists that Americans take “collective responsibility” for fostering journalism and news reporting (saving unprofitable, poorly-managed news outfits). Of course, Downie doesn’t directly ask citizens for money - that would be uncouth. Instead, he suggests that universities and nonprofits, internet…

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This week, the New America Foundation called for government-mandated “Truth-in-Labeling” from the nation’s broadband service providers. They’ve even created a mock-up of what they think such a disclosure form should look like. In addition to fees, service limits, and contract terms, NAF would like the disclosures to include information such as minimum reliability, maximum latency, and a service guarantee.

While it’s true that the actual speed a user experiences is often a fraction of the advertised speed, this isn’t secret knowledge.…

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Your host Richard Morrison welcomes returning guest co-host William Yeatman and special guest commenter Ryan Radia to the program for Episode 61 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with the FCC’s just-announced proposal for “net neutrality,” Treasury documents that reveal the true cost of cap-and-trade legislation and the plan for getting over California’s great depression. We then move on to the G20 Summit’s potential path to prosperity and the ever-expanding scandal that is ACORN.

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This story just hit the Drudge Report’s front page.  Declan McCullagh at CNET writes today about the latest revision of S.773, a bill that would give the president “emergency control” of the internet in case of a “cybersecurity emergency.”  Wayne Crews, CEI Vice President for Policy,  released a statement on the naming of the cybersecurity chief and wrote an article on this back in May.  See an excerpt below:

Policy makers should avoid collectivizing and centralizing risk management, especially in frontier industries like information technology.…

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Your host Richard Morrison welcomes back returning guest co-hosts Michelle Minton and Jeremy Lott for Episode 54 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with ominous hints of new taxes, California state employees making strike threats and the possible antitrust implications of the Microhoo partnership. We continue with a double-dipping pay scandal, the suppression of dissent in Venezuela and some fully transparent Olympic News.

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The long-awaited collaboration of Microsoft and Yahoo on search has the tech business community abuzz. CEI analysts Wayne Crews and Ryan Young made their original statements here. Media outlets immediately took note, as seen in this Investor’s Business Daily story (posted, fitting enough, at Yahoo Finance) from yesterday:

Ryan Young, a fellow of regulatory studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, says the deal should be approved.

“It will make Google stay on its toes,” he said. “Bing and Yahoo should improve from the…

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Statements of Ryan Young and Wayne Crews

Washington, D.C., July 29, 2009 - Today, Microsoft and Yahoo announced a ten-year partnership of their search businesses in order to better compete against Google. The Department of Justice, citing antitrust concerns, is likely to investigate the deal before allowing it to go through. Competitive Enterprise Institute technology policy experts Wayne Crews and Ryan Young argue that regulators can best serve consumer interests by leaving well enough alone.

Ryan Young, Fellow in Regulatory Studies:

“What is…

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CEI Information Policy Analyst Ryan Radia responds to Jonathan Zittrain’s “Lost in the Cloud” in today’s New York Times.  Read it here or see below.

To the Editor:

In discussing the privacy risks that have accompanied the growth of the Internet, Prof. Jonathan Zittrain rightly bemoans the willingness of governments to violate individuals’ privacy rights. Unfortunately, he proposes new legal restrictions that would stifle online innovation while doing little to enhance consumer privacy.

Mr. Zittrain proposes a “fair practices law” that would require companies to…

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Below see CEI President Fred Smith’s comments on Jonathan Hillel’s piece in the San Jose Mercury News:

Hillel’s piece raises the very interesting question of whether the use of copyrighted materials must forever remain out of reach of most people.  The vast majority of creative works disappear from public view within a very short time of their release.   Few books or records are best sellers, many magazines (especially specialized magazines and journals) go out of existence in a decade or so.  Yet,…

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In yesterday’s San Jose Mercury News, CEI Policy Fellow Jonathan Hillel talks about the Justice Department’s antitrust investigation into the Google Search Settlement. Read it here.

Afraid of Google taking over the world? The Justice Department seems to be. It recently confirmed its antitrust investigation into the Google Book Search Settlement, citing “public comments expressing concern” as impetus for the inquiry. European Union officials have also started sniffing around.

These concerns are misguided, and outmoded antitrust regulation will stunt the growth of…

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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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Back in 1999 and 2000, a fierce debate raged as to whether digital networks and devices increase or decrease electricity consumption and emissions.  Does the growth of the digital economy jeopardize the Kyoto agenda by increasing emissions? Or is the Internet a “green” force reducing our energy and carbon intensity?

On one side of the debate, researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory argued that the Internet could help reduce emissions by, for example, promoting telecommuting, online shopping, and efficient supply-chain management. On the other…

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Back in January I wrote about several advertising industry trade associations coming together to impose self-regulation in an attempt to deter federal regulation of behavioral advertising under the Obama administration. I pointed out that the Federal Trade Commission had advised the advertising industry back in December 2007 that it were pushing the envelope on what the FTC considered to be reasonable behavioral advertising. It seems as though the industry may have viewed this as an idle threat under the Bush administration,…

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Bloomberg is reporting that an agreement on a stimulus package has been reached in the Senate.  Included in the compromise was the decision to strip $2 billion in broadband funding for rural areas.  The Senate version of the bill originally included $9 billion in funding for broadband expansion in unserved and underserved areas.  The key here is that Bloomberg refers to the removed $2 billion as funding to “promote broadband.”  So it is still entirely unclear what remains in the bill…

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Aside from the fact that the Senate lacks the necessary votes to pass its version of the stimulus, the bill does actually have a much more in-depth plan for broadband expansion into unserved and underserved areas of the country.  In stark contrast, the House version has no concrete plan.

The Senate version of the stimulus raises the amount of money spent on broadband up to $9 billion, much more than $2.825 billion in the House version.  But either amount is a dangerous…

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Speeding its way across the Internetz today are copies of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Eager policy analysts, lobbyists, and grassroots organizations all over the country are scouring its 258 pages as we speak. As a tech policy analyst who is very interested to see what was going to happen with the Promised One’s Broadband Stimulus plan, I too dove into the fine reading that my giant PDF copy of the proposed act would provide.

Prior to my…

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The prevention of regulation and the Rule of Law pounding its mighty fist within a medium or sector of business is generally something that is lauded around these parts.  On occasion, though, an industry will find that it is possibly pushing the envelope ever so much over the line and chooses to act on its own behalf.  This self-supervision, for the most part, tends to deter government involvement and the creation of legal regulation, which can in many cases be…

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O’Reilly writer Andy Oram makes the case that the assertion President-elect Barack Obama’s victory is in large part due to his campaign’s effective use of the internet is an overstatement, to say the least.  Oram counters that when all is said and done, the mainstream media is what had the most significant impact on the elections.

I feel I have to temper the hype over how the Internet has changed elections. There’s no doubt that the Internet provides enormous potential, and that people have been…

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Like everybody else in town, we’re pondering the implications of the transition to the Obama Administration for various policy areas here at CEI. On the technology/Internet front, CNet’s Declan McCullagh has a superb overview today.

On the high-technology front, president-elect Obama has indicated he’d appoint a Chief Technology Officer. The role seems federal-government-focused: The tech “czar” would manage government technology policy with respect to matters like cybersecurity, privacy and Internet policies–basically securing governement networks and keeping government agencies on the cutting…

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