WCITLeaks having some success, possibly, as WCIT itself starts talking about openness. When even pro-Internet-regulation folks oppose UN or ITU regulation of the Internet, it needs sunshine for public evaluation.
Mary Bono Mack’s response is the right one: oppose all government meddling, not just the UN or ITU.
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You want more proof that every single private industry privacy debate in DC is completely wrong headed? MSIE 10’s do not track default is unpopular. People don’t care. They value cheap/free stuff and convenience over privacy protection.
Other countries are looking to tax American businesses online. Does Barack Obama have the guts to fight for us? Or will he bow once again?
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Commerce. “The business of America is business.” Innovation online is growing business, and the most important takeaway you could ever get from Tech at Night is that we need to stay out of its way. BfA seems to agree.
And some honest government action on spectrum could be a great start, but we probably won’t start down that road until after January 20, 2013 at the earliest.
Instead, we get stagnation from the Obama FCC. Stagnation and attempts to stifle free speech.
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Privacy? You want privacy in the digital age? Start by repealing campaign finance laws before you wag your socialist finger at the private sector.
Al Qaeda also denied 9/11 involvement at first, but we knew the truth. Also, how can Anonymous deny involvement in an attack when they claim to be unorganized? It’s these slipups that let us know the truth about them: they’re an organized online terror and crime group.
To paraphraze the fictionalized Wyatt Earp: “I see a Guy Fawkes mask, I kill the man wearing it.”
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It’s funny how certain names come up again and again in this space. There are just certain Republicans who are becoming solid Tech leaders. Marsha Blackburn is one of them, pushing to force Barack Obama to take a stand against the Chinese online.
Again, a Republican governor comes out for the sales tax compact, this time Governor Christie. The Marketplace Fairness Act I still say needs firm, explicit protections against a national sales tax added onto the state harmonized sales taxes, but the principle is reasonable.
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Gotta love it when Tech at Night is declared because Comcast, despite telling me they’d auto-bill my card, choose not to do the auto-bill and instead just shuts off my Internet out of the blue. Lovely. So anyway, I’m unfortunately now low on time to create lengthy narratives, so we’ll do what we can.
So, Steve Scalise, a rising tech star in the House, is at it again. HR 3310 passed I believe through suspension, and now it’s up to the Senate to move on the bill. It’s a simple, but effective concept: Take 8 separate reports the FCC is currently making, and turn it into one report. Efficiency and transparency rolled into one.
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Memorial Day weekend brought little news, so Tech at Night will be quick tonight. Enjoy.
It’s an argument we’ve all made, but it apparently still needs to be made: Market pressure is better than government at protecting people’s ability to get what they want. We can see this from the actual behavior of actual companies, and that’s just one reason that Net Neutrality and countless other power-grabby regulations are wrong.
The FCC is America’s greatest impediment to universal access to high-speed Internet. Get it out of the way.
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Quick hits night. Enjoy!
Google beats Oracle on the matter of patent infringement in the big Java/Android case. So the only question left is how the copyright matters will be resolved.
New York legislators want to censor the Internet? Come on guys, come on.
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In an example of lucky timing, the GSA scandal proved why Darrell Issa’s DATA act was needed. Transparency in government allows for oversight. So the bill passed the House by voice vote.
I first floated a while back the idea that this sudden, strident CISPA opposition was roote d in a desire to distract the public from the much stronger and more dangerous Lieberman-Collins bill in the Senate. It’ll work with the libertarian left because hey, they’ll believe whatever the left says about eeevil Bushitlerian Rethuglicans. But it disappoints me when the right, including FreedomWorks, is tricked and puts effort into CISPA instead of Lieberman-Collins. Did we learn nothing from Net Neutrality?
But yeah, when the usual whiny groups along with Barack Obama and the administration are joining together to talk exclusively about CISPA but not at all about Lieberman-Collins, I’m right.
House Republicans may in fact limit the bill in response to the veto threat, but the fact is we need a flexible legal framework to empower the good guys to have information which is critical when countering bad guys who share information all the time.
International attacks are real though. In fact, everyone may want to check into this account by the FBI about a thwarted attack that may still infect your computer.
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CISPA is still a harmless bill devoid of new mandates of power grabs, but I’m actually short of new things to say about it this week. Lieberman-Collins is the real threat. Watch the other hand.
Let’s start with some spectrum instead. Verizon is under fire for trying to buy spectrum from Comcast and other cable companies, even as it tries to sell other spectrum. Note though that observers are saying T-Mobile, recently held up as a competitor who must be propped up by government action, stands to benefit in the marketplace by Verizon’s actions. Sprint, however, is put under pressure to to continued mismanagement and lack of funds to invest in its network.
Why would Verizon buy and sell its spectrum is all over the place, and consolidation allows for less demanding hardware requirements for its phones, which benefits Verizon’s customers. That’s good thinking, and that kind of market innovation should be rewarded, not regulated out of existence.
Look: it’s well and good to try to find a treasure trove of unused spectrum as Mark Warner wants, but hope is not a substitute for making more efficient use of what we already know about.
Though while Warner is optimistic, the NAB is insane. I mean, seriously? Did they miss where Verizon is also buying spectrum, so that it’ll have a net gain? Or that Verizon needs to look to the future, unlike various American broadcasters, who are doing the same old thing, and gradually losing out to new technologies? Jealous much of the Internet, NAB?
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