Tech at Night: Net Neutrality, Google, HTML 5
Republicans are eager to get to work against the President’s regulatory bypasses of the last two years. Cliff Stearns promises “aggressive and rigorous” oversight of Internet, Energy, and Obamacare, says Hillicon Valley. As the Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, that’s no idle threat.
Meanwhile Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton is looking forward as well as backward, by looking to guide the FCC proactively on the issue of increasing the wireless spectrum available for Internet access. I think it’s usually better when legislators lead rather than letting those unelected, unaccountable regulatory bodies go off on their own, so I’m glad of this.
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Tech at Night: Google, Daily Kos, Australia, Nuclear Power, Fraud, DRM
Previously we covered Chris Bowers working over at Daily Kos on a linking scheme to manipulate Google’s search service. Now we come across a new attack on the company, a plan to manipulate click tracking the firm does to figure out what links are most interesting to its users. Of course, the Daily Kos folk want to smear Republicans using Google.
Again, we look to Google to see if they will penalize the firm for attacking it, or just wink, nod, and do nothing. They went after Kay Bailey Hutchison’s campaign for Governor over manipulative tactics. A failure to act against Daily Kos shows bias on Google’s part, no more, no less.
I’m actually mentioned, though not by name, in this Politico piece, and I stand by that position. Google needs to be fair and delist Daily Kos until these tactics are ceased.
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