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Tech at Night: Post-Election Edition

Tech at Night

Sorry for missing Tech at Night on Monday, but I had to rest up for Election Day. And of course, as you may have heard, Republicans ended up having a good night. What you may not have heard though, was that the forces of radical Internet regulation had a very bad night. Democrats went for broke on Net Neutrality but as covered by Moe Lane and RS Insider, support for unilateral regulation of the Internet killed Congressional jobs. Every single member who signed the PCCC pledge to support the FCC on Title II reclassification, lost. Every one of them!

It’s time the FCC owned up to the rejection the American people dealt their plans, and pledged to wait for Congress to act.

In case you didn’t have enough reason to mistrust Politico, guess what? Politico’s parent company Allbritton is yet another Internet company siding with the FCC. Politico: just another lefty rag with a lefty parent.

Random note for possible use by the readers. You may wonder how to protect yourself better against Internet snoopers like Google Street View, and even some more active forms of attack, and Digital Society has a decent-looking primer on the subject.

Speaking of Google: it’s no wonder the firm wised up and split from the Free Press radicals on private networks as they relate to Net Neutrality, when Google is now to build a private network for Stanford.

And it’s not only the US government that’s letting Google off the hook for the WiSpy street view scandal, though. For some reason the UK is letting them off the hook entirely. Scotland Yard is calling off the investigation in return for Google promising not to do it again. I’m at a loss to explain this, myself.

Remember the old catchphrase “Information wants to be free?” Don’t tell that to the authors of the video player engine VLC. They’re looking to take down VLC from the Apple App Store for violating the terms of the GNU GPL. They must restrict your choice of video players for your own freedom of choice, you know.

So many issues seem to boil down to that: people want to regulate you and take away your choices for your own good. Nanny state knows best. Which is why I supported the Waxman bill warts and all: it put a cap on just how much the nannies on the left could actually do.

Update: I almost forgot this story: Google has now contacted Google Buzz users. Apparently the firm is settling a class action lawsuit over the service, though the actual victims won’t receive a dime. Funny how that works.

COMMENTS

  • http://www.ArchitecturalShots.com mdyou

    This morning on CNBC, Jack Welch took on the net neutrality issue, too. It surprised me to hear anything critical on the mainstream media. For that matter, you don’t hear much at all about the issue, let alone anything critical.

    Welch’s point was that, among other things, an activist FCC is a job killer, just like the EPA and the NLRB.

    The general public needs to hear more of this.

  • http://blog.khelektopia.us Brian Johnson

    They’re doing what they’re entitled to do. The program is distributed under the terms of the GNU/GPL license which states if you can do whatever you want with the program, have the code, change it, give it away, sell it, whatever, but you must do the same for others and give them the source code. From what I read at the linked article:

    “…Apple insists on inserting DRM that prevents such sharing into all of it?s Apps”

    So I’m confused why VLC is in the wrong when Apple is the one who violated the license. If a mobile of Windows Media Player appeared in the App store against the licensing agreement of MS, and MS demanded it be taken out, would there be howling over MS enforcing what they’re legally able to enforce? I’m confused here.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Their deranged definition of freedom means not being able to run their software.

    This is the software equivalent of the old Stalinist purges.

    But please, quote me some Richard Stallman.

  • http://blog.khelektopia.us Brian Johnson

    Sorry Neil, my comment wasn’t intended as an attack. I was just looking for clarification on the subject. I certainly have no interest in having a public spat with a brother-in-arms whom I respect.

    Thank you for your time in responding.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    But when you came out shooting, and misrepresented Apple (and not the VLC submitter) as infringing on the license, IT ook your comment as pretty hostile.

    Perhaps more than you intended then? Fair enough. I’ll stand down. :)

  • http://blog.khelek.us Brian Johnson

    And I apologize the comment came across harshly, as well as the fact that, in the comments (http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/10/31/vlc-for-ipadiphone-to-be-removed-from-the-app-store/#comment-502121) they talk about the matter being a bit more complex, which I hadn’t read. Having read more, I can see where the issues lie. I should’ve been better informed before commenting.

    Again, thanks for taking the time, Neil. Please keep up the great tech posts :)

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    But yeah, technically this is a straight copyright matter.

    The story behind the story is that the GNU GPL is a politically activist license.

    I’m a grizzled veteran of software licensing wars, let me tell you. Look up the old story of KDE vs Debian. :)

  • Wing Zero

    Can we put that bill on hold until January, and then get some wart remover?

    Or do we find ourselves in the position that is must pass now?

    Second, (I don’t mean to thread jack) I don’t know if you’ve mentioned it or found it, but I’ve heard of a Firefox addon that alerts you when you send information to Google. Any info on that?