By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 30th at 11:45 PM  | 

Am I tired of expressing dissatisfaction with the Obama FCC and other government intrusions? Never! Al Franken is setting up an unfalsifiable rationale for government action against Verizon and Comcast. Gotta love that, eh? I’m sure he, the FCC, or both will try to overturn the courts who say bundling is not anticompetitive. I like bundling. It saves me money when I’m buying both things | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 22nd at 03:30 AM  | 

Previously on Tech at Night I linked to a story that suggested there was a split between Darrell Issa and Chuck Grassley on FCC transparency. It turns out the story I relied on, had it wrong. Oversight wasn’t grading transparency itself; the committee was grading the management of FOIA requests, and FCC did relatively well by having established processes for dealing with FOIA. and tracking | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 20th at 03:30 AM  | 

The House is doing anything but shirking its responsibility to apply oversight to the Obama administration. The FCC in particular is getting the attention it needs. “Regulatory hubris” in picking winners and losers is part of the problem, says Commissioner Robert McDowell. He should know, as he’s on the inside. Darrell Issa and Chuck Grassley disagree on the FCC’s transparency though. Issa gives them a | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 17th at 03:30 AM  | 

The FCC may yet get what’s coming to it. It’s been going out of its way to get headlines as it tries to pick winners and losers in industry, but now the attention is coming from the House as the Appropriations Committee will discuss the FCC’s budget. Prepare for hysterical shouting on the order of the SimCity 2000 Transportation advisor if the Republicans threaten to | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 15th at 03:30 AM  | 

Apologies, but I’m going to be a bit brief tonight. I have a lot going on this week, and starting Tech at Night at midnight my time just isn’t good. Sorry! Chuck Grassley’s continuing the fight against the runaway FCC, leaving open the option of continuing after initial investigations. Good on him. Don’t foreclose options needlessly. But even as Republicans attempt to keep government from | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 10th at 01:45 AM  | 

I know, I know. The way that broadcasts travel across state lines, it’s important that some sort of national control step in, because the states can’t do it. But the way the Obama FCC operates, sometimes I wonder if it’s worth all the trouble. Instead of working to ensure we have the spectrum we need allocated to the purposes we want, The Obama FCC constantly | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 8th at 01:30 AM  | 

ACTA. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is Darrell Issa’s next project, as he’s not happy about the treaty. So, he’s put the treaty online for all to see. I still don’t know of any specific reason to oppose the treaty. My understanding is that it basically brings the west in on the DMCA. There may be details I’ve missed though. The best argument against the treaty | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 2nd at 03:00 AM  | 

Harry Reid may be on a mad dash to bring the radical Liebmerman/Collins/Rockefeller cybersecurity bill, but a broad spectrum of Republicans continue to fight. Democrats may have toned down its Internet Kill Switch provisions, but still is a massive power grab online, and the new SECURE IT act is a much better idea. What I absolutely love about SECURE it is that it hits all | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 29th at 12:00 AM  | 

Special Tuesday edition! Having been very busy hitting a launch window for a client, I had to skip Friday and Monday. So to make up for it, this week I start on Tuesday. Riddle me this: FCC refuses to be transparent about its dealings with LightSquared (who by the way just changed CEOs, as the firm continues to flail desperately in response to the FCC’s | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 16th at 03:00 AM  | 

I meant to talk about the cybersecurity bill on Monday as it’s a big story. But, it’s gotten even bigger since. You see, a broad spectrum of Republicans is coming out against it. Names like Kay Bailey Hutchison, John McCain, Mike Enzi, Saxby Chambliss, Jeff Sessions, and even Lisa Murkowski are against the crazy Rush Harry Reid and the Democrats are putting on the bill | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 2nd at 03:00 AM  | 

Sometimes, the anarchists lose. Even in leftist Sweden, The Pirate Bay’s founders lost their last appeal. It’s guys like these, who deliberately put up a system for infringing on US copyrights while playing word games to justify it, that motivated SOPA and that drive the desire for a treaty like ACTA. Google considers its privacy changes a public policy issue as the firm is getting | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 31st at 02:07 AM  | 

There’s a lot of fear going around about ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a plurilateral agreement under the WTO between the US, the EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and Morocco. Some of the fears look real, some don’t. For example, even though it was negotiated in secret, the text is easily available. Another false complaint is that it’s another SOPA, when | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 28th at 03:00 AM  | 

So, Google is integrating its websites more. As a result, some privacy settings will apply network-wide, and one site will be able to use data from another site. People are flipping out, naturally. People have been giving Google this data for ages. People have known that Google was watching them, and yet they chose to keep using Google and in fact use one account for | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 25th at 11:30 PM  | 

Some are still worried about the Megaupload takedown (including many the

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 23rd at 11:30 PM  | 

Filesonic stops infringing. I guess the site’s leadership didn’t want to go to jail like Ninjavideo, or get hit like Megaupload did. People put up with ad-laden, obnoxious ‘file sharing’ sites when they want to download something that can’t be distributed legally, by less annoying sites. Everyone knows this. It’s a good thing that Megaupload was taken down. That was a blow for property rights. | Read More »