How Silicon Valley’s Leap Ahead Was Preceded by Visible Government Footsteps

The recent passing of Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore at age 94 has brought back well-deserved stories about how this tech legend played a leading role in developing silicon microprocessors, which served as the foundation for the exponential growth of our modern computer age. But this Big Bang in Silicon Valley was preceded by a series of events that created the environment that allowed Moore and his brilliant colleagues – notably Intel co-founder Robert Noyce – to achieve the technological breakthroughs that have changed the world.

Silicon Valley is a noted center of technological advancement and entrepreneurship, achieving innovations that have left lasting and unmatched imprints on society, here and abroad. Its centrality to such developments as the personal computer, social networks, and cloud computing has made the region so successful, with continual fueling by venture capital. Few are aware, however, that the staggering growth of the area had its roots in Washington, D.C., during the regulation-intensive climate of the late 1940s through the late 1950s.

Continue reading “How Silicon Valley’s Leap Ahead Was Preceded by Visible Government Footsteps”

TikTok Is China’s Trojan Horse

People are easy to dupe.  Give us something for free and we will open the door to just about anything in return, including our most sensitive family, health, and financial information. 

The ancient Greeks knew something about the human psyche when they built a massive wooden horse and put it outside the enemy gates at Troy.  Unsuspecting Trojans marveled at the gift and ushered it inside unexamined.  Hidden in the horse were the Greek men of war who emerged to sack the city. 

Continue reading “TikTok Is China’s Trojan Horse”

Big Tech Must Self-Regulate To Protect Public Safety

In a single swipe, Twitter and Facebook have done what the U.S. government and the Constitution could not: delete the power of an irreverent president to rile and rally Americans to violent action.

Twitter announced Jan. 8 that it permanently suspended Trump’s account, while Facebook announced Jan. 7 it had suspended Trump’s account indefinitely. 

Continue reading “Big Tech Must Self-Regulate To Protect Public Safety”

The Role of Targeted Advertising In Supporting First Amendment Principles

One can scarcely remember the time, only a few short decades ago, when life moved along without the array of personal digital devices that have come to define today’s culture.  All of that changed, of course, with the advent of the Internet and the ability to access a burgeoning number of websites (which themselves were rapidly evolving). 

Personal desktop computers, portable laptops, tablets, cell phones, and “smart phones” would fuel the tech revolution.  Who could imagine that someday one’s phone, tablet, and computers would all be synchronized into a seamless whole.  Or that millions of Americans would spend vast amounts of time engaging each other via something called “social media.”

Continue reading “The Role of Targeted Advertising In Supporting First Amendment Principles”

Can Big Tech Be Reined In by Rules It Consistently Breaks?

Well informed observers of the tech industry have cautioned against two things: economic downturn and government regulation.  Each had a palpable sense of the inevitable – not a matter of if, but when.  As we enter 2020, the conditions for both are present, if not altogether ripe.

Dire predictions of a global recession have been hovering over the economy for several quarters.  But low interest rates, strong consumer spending, and investor confidence have kept the economy buoyant.  The new China trade deal and record-high NASDAQ belie economic woes.

If this election year turns out like others, the economy will hum along through the first two quarters, then decelerate as we head into November.  If an economic slowdown were to occur, it would owe as much to politics as to recessionary pressure.  And even that might recede if the president gets re-elected.

Continue reading “Can Big Tech Be Reined In by Rules It Consistently Breaks?”

The Price of Privacy on the Potomac

In case you haven’t noticed, privacy – meaning the protection of your personal data and information – is all the rage today.  In fact, privacy has become very big business not only in America, but also in Europe, where the General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) mandated sweeping privacy protections for consumers and strict restrictions on how companies can use personal information and data. 

Doing business in this new era of privacy comes at a price, mostly for compliance.  Compounding this is the lack of clear rules in the U.S. where there remains no comprehensive federal privacy law.  It is no wonder that many companies have come to the privacy table kicking and screaming, forced to abide by a growing patchwork of inconsistent state laws with no federal preemption in place.

Continue reading “The Price of Privacy on the Potomac”

Campaign To Break Big Tech Is Regulatory Overkill

When Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) first went on the warpath against big banks, she captured the attention of middle America.  Now, Warren has turned her wrath on Big Tech.  Her mantra is that big companies are bad, and the bigger the badder they are for all of us.  The government, she argues, should step up its regulation of these companies and step in to break them up if necessary.  Not only is Warren wrong but she is also out of step with most Americans today.

It would be unfair to lay all the blame on Warren for the campaign against big corporations.  This sort of populism has been a strain in American politics since the Revolution, and most recently since the Occupy Wall Street campaign.  But today’s anti-corporate movement has a new look and a new lexicon, including terms like privacy, net neutrality, and transparency, to accompany the typical notions of competition and consumer protection.

Continue reading “Campaign To Break Big Tech Is Regulatory Overkill”

Reflections on the Microsoft/Ireland Case

Last week the Supreme Court granted a review of a Second Circuit decision upholding Microsoft’s defiance of a U.S. warrant for the production of e-mail messages, stored in a server housed in Ireland, of a man suspected of drug trafficking.

At its simplest, the legal battle between Microsoft and law enforcement is a debate over the reach and intent of a law passed many years (1986) before the coming of age of the Internet.

Microsoft and its allies argue that that law, the Stored Communications Act (SCA), was written at a time when Congress knew virtually nothing about the Internet and what it would become, and that furthermore there is no indication in the language of the law or congressional intent that suggests it could be applied extraterritorially. Continue reading “Reflections on the Microsoft/Ireland Case”

News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson: Telling It Like It Is

It’s not every day that a speech given by a publishing executive is truly noteworthy, but remarks given earlier this month by Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp., are the exception to the rule.

Speaking on August 13 at Australia’s Lowy Institute for International Policy, Thomson delivered a powerful speech in which he decried, among other things, the business practices of “distribution” companies like Google, the commentariat’s disdain for markets, the theft of intellectual property, and the politically correct mindset of Silicon Valley.

Though now chief executive officer of one of the largest newspaper and publishing companies in the world, Thomson has spent most of his life as a journalist, having earlier in his career been an editor of the Financial Times, The Times newspaper in London, and the Wall Street Journal.  And it’s these experiences that inform his views about the media and more.

Speaking about markets, Thomson had this to say:

When some commentators speak of markets it is in the abstract, slightly pejorative sense – markets are actually an aggregation of collective effort and hope and action….  >> Read More

Who’s Behind the Push for Net Neutrality?

If “net neutrality” were a life form, it would be classified as a simple organism.  And that lack of complexity, as it happens, is its very appeal to certain “progressives,” garden-variety regulators, and large Internet companies, who see in government regulation of the Internet opportunities to cement and extend their franchises.

The brave and gifted Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Ajit Pai, and former commissioner Robert McDowell, are doing all they can to point out the many already identifiable problems, as well as potential pitfalls, that line the path of this regulatory nightmare.  Among those problems are higher user fees to consumers, a slowdown in the rate of investment in broadband infrastructure, regulatory creep, and the wrong kind of example to set before foreign dictators and tyrants.

Alas, none of this is likely to deter the three Democratic FCC commissioners, as instructed by the White House, from passing this regulation.

What has not been much discussed in all of this is the role in the promotion of net neutrality played by some of the actors: activist groups like Free Press, Public Knowledge, and Media Matters; huge grant-giving foundations like the Ford, Soros, and Knight foundations; and companies like Google.   >>Read More