The practice of locking phones is a symptom of a greater disease in the U.S.: device subsidies. If we can separate the hardware from the service, consumers will ultimately have greater choice and save money. Read more »
Having learned a lesson from the backlash its peers in Congress endured recently, the White House is trying, presumably, to develop an anti-piracy strategy that’s actually sane. On Monday, it announced an open call for comments on a new IP strategy. Read more »
The U.S. government is investing billions of dollars in big data technologies and research, and now it has a team of industry executives from IBM, Amazon and elsewhere ready and willing to share their views on how it can best transition into a data-driven institution. Read more »
Critics say that a bill called CISPA, which has been passed by the House of Representatives and is on its way to the Senate, is just as bad as SOPA — but others, including Facebook, support the legislation. Should you be concerned about it? Read more »
The Freelancers Union has launched its #GetPaidNotPlayed campaign highlighting a “deadbeat epidemic” of non-payment that the organization says cost each independent worker $4,600 on average last year. To urge New York State to pass legislation protecting freelancers’ rights they’re putting together one massive invoice. Read more »
The EFF and Anonymous might have overblown the ramifications of the proposed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 — calling it SOPA 2.0 — but that doesn’t mean the bill is well-written. However, strong support means it might be hard to stop. Read more »
The impending SOPA and PIPA bills have the Internet in a tizzy, but Congress has a lot more to think about than just intellectual property. The issues at play in the SOPA debate have broad effects that span everything from the digital divide to international commerce. Read more »
What if the answer to all the political theatre surrounding SOPA was an amendment forcing copyright holders to put their money where there mouths are? Some of SOPA’s terribly harsh penalties for infringement can stay, but making false allegations would cost accusers dearly. Read more »
A bi-partisan group of senators and congressmen is proposing an alternative to the widely-criticized Stop Online Piracy Act. The new bill, known as OPEN, has already won some support from opponents of SOPA, who say OPEN’s approach to piracy is much less damaging to the web. Read more »
No matter how you categorize the Stop Online Privacy Act, or SOPA, the technology industry has unified against this issue in a way that I have not seen before — even during the network neutrality debates. We take a look at what the web is saying. Read more »
Telecommuters whose employers are based in one state but who work out of another can run into tax headaches, as both states claim a portion of their pay. Now, it appears congress is making another effort to eliminate the double bill for remote workers. Read more »
A new copyright bill proposed in the House would give governments and private corporations unprecedented powers to remove websites from the internet completely, on the flimsiest of grounds, and would also force internet service providers to play the role of copyright police or face penalties. Read more »
A proposed law has drawn the ire of copyright reformers for including prison sentences for those who stream copyright material. Now one grou… Read more at paidContent »
When the federal government finally does undertake the task of legislating cloud computing, it seems very likely that security measures and data privacy will dominate. The TechAmerica Foundation’s CLOUD2 commission announced Tuesday a data- and security-heavy set of recommendations that mirror proposed legislation targeting the cloud. Read more »
Today the Brookings Institute will host a panel discussion about proposed legislation called the Cloud Computing Act of 2011. I spoke this morning with panelist Dan Reed of Microsoft about his thoughts on the draft legislation, based on what he has seen of it. Read more »
The U.S. Senate has posted a notice for an upcoming Judiciary Committee meeting on mobile privacy, to be held May 10 at 10:00 AM EST in Washington, D.C. Apple VP of Software Technology Bud Tribble will provide testimony at the session. Read more »
IBM Research has launched a companion to its Many Eyes data-visualization service called Many Bills, which provides a visual interface for federal legislation. The company says the idea behind the project is to make it easier to understand complicated bills that run to thousands of pages. Read more »
Peer-to-peer lending services like Prosper got a new lease on life from the U.S. House of Representatives today, which included an amendment to move regulation of the space from the SEC to a new banking regulatory agency in a major financial reform bill. Read more »
Do you ever make business or personal calls on your cell phone while driving? If so, you may want to pay close attention to a campaign launched this week by the National Safety Council (NSC) to prohibit even turning on a phone while behind the wheel. […] Read more »
