Hey look, it’s Tech at Night before midnight Pacific time. Guess who’s got two thumbs and is finishing the week early? This guy.
The FCC is creating yet more new regulations. The Obama Administration just can’t get enough of these things. I didn’t know if anyone would have noticed it happen, but The Hill caught it as well.
Meanwhile the FCC slowly moves to increase national 4G competition in America by moving inch by inch toward approving the AT&T/T-Mobile deal, over the continued whining of Al Franken. Franken says he is “very suspicious of consolidation of power.” Yet, he won’t lift a finger against large unions, and he voted for Obamacare. Hmm.
I’d been under the impression that Patrick Leahy’s America Invents Act was a done deal once it passed the House, despite the objections of Tech at Night and Dana Rohrabacher. RedState diarist Ron Robinson says it’s not over though, and has a call to action posted.
More on patents: Daniel Foty has an extended analysis of Google, Motorola, and patents. He suggests, and I agree, that in the short run, buyers of phones won’t notice. But the deal is part of an ongoing escalation of patent litigation in America.
We’ll close with some more on the California referendum to repeal the unconstitutional, punitive Internet Sales Tax aimed at Amazon. It’s been looking good for the referendum, so the Democrats are panicked. They’re now looking to prevent the referendum from happening by re-passing the tax as “urgent.”
Slimy enough, no? Well the new bill also exempts eBay from the tax, making it even more specifically targeted at Amazon. So eBay is now on board to punish the competition.
This whole Amazon Tax is one of the more corrupt situations I’ve seen in my lifetime of watching California politics. They’re not even hiding it. For shame.