I don’t have a great deal to add to coverage of last week’s big patent story, which concerned the filing of a complaint by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen against major technology companies including Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo. Diane Searcey of The Wall Street Journal, Tom Krazit at CNET News.com, and Mike Masnick on Techdirt [...]
Posted in Digital Life, Information Economics, Patents
Emotions ran high at this week’s Privacy Identity and Innovation conference in Seattle. They usually do when the topic of privacy and technology is raised, and to me that was the real take-away from the event. As expected, the organizers did an excellent job providing attendees with provocative panels, presentations and keynotes talks—in particular an [...]
Posted in Digital Life, Information Economics, Privacy
The Progress and Freedom Foundation has just published a white paper I wrote for them titled “The Seven Deadly Sins of Title II Reclassification (NOI Remix).” This is an expanded and revised version of an earlier blog post that looks deeply into the FCC’s pending Notice of Inquiry regarding broadband Internet access. You can download [...]
Posted in Digital Life, Information Economics, Infrastructure, Privacy, Security
I’ve just published a long analysis for CNET of the proposed legislative framework presented yesterday by Google and Verizon. The proposal has generated howls of anguish from the usual suspects (see Cecilia Kang, “Silicon Valley criticizes Google-Verizon accord” in The Washington Post; Matthew Lasar’s “Google-Verizon NN Pact Riddled with Loopholes” on Ars Technica and Marguerite [...]
Posted in Digital Life, Infrastructure
At ten A.M. this morning, CNET News.com asked if I could write an article unraveling the legal implications of a rumored deal between Google and Verizon on net neutrality. I didn’t see how I could analyze a deal whose terms (and indeed, whose existence) are unknown, but I thought it was a good opportunity to [...]
Posted in Infrastructure, Uncategorized
I dashed off a piece for CNET today on the Copyright Office’s cell phone “jailbreaking” rulemaking earlier this week. Though there has already been extensive coverage (including solid pieces in The Washington Post, a New York Times editorial, CNET, and Techdirt), there were a few interesting aspects to the decision I thought were worth highlighting. [...]
Posted in Copyright, Digital Life, Information Economics, Software Law
The White House and the Federal Communications Commission have painted themselves into a very tight and very dangerous corner on Net Neutrality. To date, a bi-partisan majority of Congress, labor leaders, consumer groups and, increasingly, some of the initial advocates of open Internet rules are all shouting that the agency has gone off the rails [...]
Posted in Copyright, Infrastructure
If I ever had any hope of “keeping up” with developments in the regulation of information technology—or even the nine specific areas I explored in The Laws of Disruption—that hope was lost long ago. The last few months I haven’t even been able to keep up just sorting the piles of printouts of stories I’ve [...]
Posted in Antitrust, Copyright, Criminal, Digital Life, Globalization, Information Economics, Infrastructure, Patents, Privacy, Security, Software Law, Trademarks
Better late than never, I’ve finally given a close read to the Notice of Inquiry issued by the FCC on June 17th. (See my earlier comments, “FCC Votes for Reclassification, Dog Bites Man”.) In some sense there was no surprise to the contents; the Commission’s legal counsel and Chairman Julius Genachowski had both published comments [...]
Posted in Copyright, Criminal, Digital Life, Information Economics, Infrastructure, Privacy, Security
I dashed off a quick analysis of the Bilski decision for CNET yesterday (see “Supreme Court Hedges on Business Method Patents”), a follow-up to a piece I wrote for The Big Money when the case was argued last fall. (See “Not with my Digital Economy, You Don’t.”) The decision was a surprise for me. I [...]
Posted in Copyright, Digital Life, Information Economics, Patents, Software Law