With Friends Like Google…

A tip for the politicians of the future who want to address the markets for information and influence: don’t forget to buy your Google Ad Words or you’ll never get elected.

January 14, 2020 0

Milestone for Deregulated Internet Service

Global Internet Use 2019

Net neutrality is an odd issues because it correctly identifies some problems that do take place on the Internet – blocking, throttling, and leveraging platform dominance – while attributing them to the wrong parties. I

December 10, 2019 0

DC Circuit Passes the Baton to Congress

I don’t think Congress is ready to regulate any of these things, but it needs to admit we have a problem and commit do the background work on solving it.

October 2, 2019 0

Is it Time to Reboot Internet Policy?

None of the proposals for ISP regulation or platform regulation currently in the mix are very good. If the Internet is good for anything, it’s a great disruptor. Is is too much to ask it to disrupt its own policy frameworks toward the goal of producing more of the good and less of the bad?

August 18, 2019 0

Harold Furchgott-Roth on mmWave and Economics in Policy Making

In this podcast, Furchgott-Roth discusses the book, his roles in Congress and at the FCC, the current controversy over 5G mmWave interference, and the role of the World Radio Conference in setting standards for spectrum use around the world. 

July 16, 2019 0

Behind the Curve: EFF’s Long Strange Trip

Perhaps the time has come to tell EFF what Barlow told lawmakers in 1996: “On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone.” The future of networking is intermodal competition between networks and services that control their destinies.

June 12, 2019 0

Save the Internet Act Doesn’t

It’s reasonably clear that Internet regulation is now blowing up in our faces: Congressional Democrats are intent on raising the 2015 OIO from the dead, but for reasons that appear to be totally political. Meanwhile, data brokers make hay with our browsing histories and nobody but the Europeans seems to care.

April 9, 2019 0

House Set to Aggravate Internet Problems

The only reason for Congress to turn the clock back to 2015 is to enjoy the comfort of a well-worn path. This is cowardly and counter-productive; the rank and file should say “no” and demand a more serious approach to Internet regulation from their party leadership.

March 26, 2019 0

You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows: Delaying Spectrum Auctions

Satellite-based systems are also vertical on nature, while 5G is a horizontal, land-based system. So it appears that a political constituency has asked for an unnecessary delay in order to protect itself from the consequences of 5G. 

March 19, 2019 0

Questions for Witnesses in Tomorrow’s Net Neutrality Hearing

Net neutrality was created at a time when the only large firms conducting Internet business were ISPs. It was sensible for lawmakers to focus on ISPs in 2003. But today’s Internet is dominated by non-ISP edge services that routinely abuse personal information. Internet law need to leap forward to the present day.

February 6, 2019 0