By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 22nd at 11:30 PM  | 

Some legislative action still ongoing: the Senate looking to fix the ECPA, an email search law that was written to the technology of the time, and now defies the expectations of its framers.

I was told Amazon and eBay would like the sales tax compact, but eBay is coming out against it, spamming its users. But the Senate continues to support it.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 16th at 12:00 AM  | 

More proof people don’t care about privacy: Google announces a service is ending, and the competitor I use to prepare Tech at Night becomes flooded to the point of unusability Wednesday night. People just don’t care what Google is doing.

The Street View WiSpy scandal didn’t scare people off, even as Texas hits Google for those offenses. Glass excites them. The shift toward human biases doesn’t raise questions. People love Google’s services, and privacy doesn’t enter into the equation. So keep regulation out.

Make sure you catch my recent RedState post on Aaron Swartz, and how the blame casting against his prosecutor is not only unfair, it’s wrong.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 1st at 02:00 AM  | 

Governors Robert Bentley, Mitch Daniels, Dennis Daugaard, Bill Haslam, Paul LePage, Rick Snyder, and Tom Corbett are part of push for the Marketplace Fairness act. I’ve come across a July letter to John Boehner, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, and Nancy Pelosi. I find it odd they’d do so now, unless they think they have no chance under a potential Republican Congress. Could that be the case? I wonder.

And yes, those are all Republican governors, some of whom were part of the 2010 landslide. It’s only Republicans I’m seeing back MFA, not Democrats. Democrats are fine with just passing new taxes or raising old ones. They aren’t as hard up to maximize collections of old taxes as Republicans are.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 24th at 03:30 AM  | 

On Monday I did the first half of my catchup work. Now we’ll do the second half. And one of the big issues coming up is copyright. Over the last thirty years, copyright in America has been radically reformed. While traditionally it worked as patents still do work, as a temporary grant of monopoly enforceable in civil courts, we’ve gradually moved them into the realm | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 11th at 03:30 AM  | 

Net Neutrality (which Mike Wendy calls a “Private Property Slap-Down”) may not be any longer the top issue on the Obama administration’s side of things, but questions still remain. And the funny thing: all the Net Neutrality advocates in the world working in the White House were no big deal. But all of a sudden it’s a concern that a former AT&T President going to | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  December 18th at 03:00 AM  | 

Next week the FCC meets to make a decision on Net Neutrality. So there’s plenty going on as all sides press the FCC to do one thing or another. Some are lobbying more competently than others, though. Doing well are the Senate Republicans who prepare to fight and the incoming House Committee leadership who are getting loud on Net Neutrality and the runaway FCC. Doing | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  November 4th at 03:00 AM  | 

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 | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 26th at 02:00 AM  | 

Yes, we’re talking about Google again tonight. Of course they never did delist Daily Kos after the Chris Bowers manipulations, despite having gone after Kay Bailey Hutchison for breaking their rules. But we have more to ride them about: They’re blocking pro-life ads again. These ads are running on local television in DC for Republican Missy Reilly Smith who is challenging Delegate Holmes Eleanor Norton, | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 11th at 11:00 PM  | 

So, while Google may have seen the light on Net Neutrality (which is actually, amusingly enough, making the far left sound like me), they still have other issues going on. The WiSpy Street View spying issue is still ongoing, with South Korea raiding their offices and Germany pressuring the firm to be more transparent and responsive to privacy complaints about the program. Because as I | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 22nd at 12:00 AM  | 

Good evening. Once again we see shoddy thinking from the FCC as they continue the push for the National Broadband Plan. Not all Americans have equal access to high speed Internet connections they complain, ignoring the fact that some Americans choose to live out in the middle of nowhere, and that choice comes with costs. Chairman Julius Genachowski and the rest of his socialist team | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 12th at 10:30 PM  | 

On Friday, I was assured in the comments that Google didn’t actually want to gather any data, that it was purely accidental and not “a conspiracy.” Oops: Google is actually seeking even more Wifi data through the FCC. Also, Darrell Issa isn’t letting the Andrew McLaughlin scandal die quietly, and Google’s need for insider Net Neutrality lobbying may become apparent in Tech at Night for | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 9th at 10:00 PM  | 

Good evening. We’re now off to a good start with this new Monday-Wednesday-Friday column, because this time I’m getting it published before midnight on both coasts. So let’s get right to it. The two big stories I’m seeing are that Google’s Street View spying troubles are coming home to the US, and the NSA is apparently expanding its mission to protect US communications from foreign | Read More »