My essay last week for Slate.com (the title I proposed is above, but it must have been too “punny” for the editors) generated a lot of feedback, for which I’m always grateful, even when it’s hostile and ad hominem.  Which much of it was. The piece argues generally that when it comes to the Internet, [...]

I’m pleased to join in announcing the launch of TechFreedom, a non-profit, non-partisan technology policy think tank.  TechFreedom’s mission is “to promote the progress of technology that improves the human condition and expands individual capacity to choose.” I have agreed to participate in TechFreedom’s activities as a Senior Adjunct Fellow.  As my first contribution, we [...]

Adam Thierer pointed me to a posting by Maria Popova at Brain Pickings, in which Popova has pieced together a somewhat cheesy 1972 documentary based on Alvin Toffler’s classic “Future Shock.”  The over-the-top narration by Orson Welles is well worth the price of your time.  I read Future Shock as a kid (I was 11 [...]

I recorded a commentary today  for KQED–NPR in the Bay Area–on the importance of the National Broadband Plan.  In the wake of tumult over net neutrality, Title II, and other regulatory gibberish, the important goals of the NBP, published in March of 2010, have been lost.  That’s unfortunate, because the authors did a great job [...]

The fall has been filled with important developments in the technology world, and I continue to be a regular source for journalists as well as publishing frequent editorials and analyses of my own.  I’ve just posted another ten items to the Media Page of my website, including several articles I’ve written for CNET News.com, an [...]

I published an opinion piece today at CNET, calling on all tech stakeholders in Washington to stop the pointless quibbling and sniping about net neutrality, reclassification, and other side-show issues.  (I’m too depressed to list them here—but see “Fox-Cablevision and the Net Neutrality Hammer” for an example of just how degraded the conversation has become.) [...]

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 [...]

I was pleased to be interviewed last night on BBC America World News (live!) about the convictions of three senior Google executives by an Italian court for privacy violations.  The case involved a video uploaded to Google Videos (before the acquisition of YouTube) that showed the bullying of a person with disabilities. (See “Larger Threat [...]

My op-ed today in The Hill (see “The Winter of Our Content,”) argues against those who want to derail the merger of Comcast and NBC Universal.  I don’t know enough to say whether the deal makes good business sense—that’s for the companies’ shareholders to decide in any case.  But I do know that every media [...]

Forty years after the first successful connection was made on the predecessor to the Internet, the U.S. has given up its fading claims to govern the network. A fight over governance which erupted in 1998 has ended with a whimper. In this case, I’m not talking about the regulation of human activity that takes place [...]