Policy.
Regulation 2.0, trust & safety, net neutrality, the law catching up
- The open internet and the freedom to innovate
I spent the last two days in meetings with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his staff, discussing their proposed Open Internet rules (aka net neutrality). Monday’s meeting was with a group of NYC VCs, and Tuesday’s meeting was with group of NYC startup CEOs and GCs. Coming out of these meetings, and af...
- The FCC open internet vote
Yesterday, the FCC met to vote on its notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the Open Internet. As was generally expected, the commission voted, along partisan lines, to move forward with their plan for Open Internet rules — a plan that, as currently designed, would allow for fast lanes and slow l...
- FCC’s response to the VC open internet letter
Over the weekend, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler sent a response to the letter that over 100 VCs and angel investors submitted last week. In the letter, we stressed the importance of an open internet as a foundation for the stunning levels of investment and innovation we’ve seen in the internet applicati...
- Defending the open internet
Over the past few weeks, the future of the open internet has come into sharp focus, as the FCC’s 2010 open internet rules were struck down in court, and then plans for new rules from the FCC came into public view. Amidst fears that the internet is f**ked, debate has raged about what this all… Conti...
- Total freedom in exchange for total surveillance
Today I signed up for TSA Pre-Check. I gave the some (rather minor) details about my background and scanned my fingerprints. In two weeks, I’ll get a known traveler ID, and will then be able to skip the line and keep my jacket/shoes/belt on when traveling domestically. Convenience in exchange for ...
- Yahoo! User First Conference: Winning on Trust
“It is trust, more than money, that makes the world go round.” — Joseph Stiglitz, In No One We Trust The week before last, I visited Yahoo! to give the keynote talk at their User First conference, which brought together big companies (Google, Facebook, etc), startups (big ones like USV portfolio com...
- The Regulation 2.0 challenge
Last night, I had the pleasure of joining Meetup.com GC David Pashman‘s NYU Law class on Internet and Business Law for Technology Companies as a guest speaker. Over the course of the past semester, David’s students have played the role of internet company General Counsel, working on a variety of le...
- Playing Hardball
It seems like everywhere I look right now, people are playing hardball. I.e., taking tough / extreme positions and sticking to them ferociously. The showdown in congress over the budget and Obamacare is one case. The republicans have shown that they are willing to take it to the wall, and the Dems ...
- T-Corps and the Community IPO
Janelle Orsi has an article in Shareable that should be of interest for anyone following the “sharing economy” (or “peer economy”, or whatever you want to call it). It tackles one of the most difficult and interesting problems facing sharing economy platforms: the relationship (technically speaking,...
- Chromecast, Net Neutrality and the Rise of New Gatekeepers
For the past few weeks, I’ve been enjoying starting to use my new Chromecast. For those who don’t know, Chromecast is Google’s new internet-video-to-tv device — plug it in, then stream web content from any device to your TV. The Chromecast experience has been eye opening, and it perfectly illustrat...
- Why It’s Expensive to be Poor (And Why It Shouldn’t Be)
I spent the day yesterday at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in DC, at an event discussing mobile payments and related innovations and regulatory issues. Naturally, this is a big issue, with the huge rush to mobile everything, the continued expansion of software-powered web businesses, and ...
- PDF NYC: Powered By Us: Architecting Policy for a Connected World
Yesterday I gave a talk at this year’s Personal Democracy Forum. For those who don’t know it, PDF is a great event, and is now in its 10th year of bringing together the community of folks working at the intersection of tech, politics, and civics. You can see all the talks from yesterday (and today...
- History’s Best Innovation Death-Knell Quotes
I am working on my presentation for this week’s Personal Democracy Forum, which is looking to be a great event. My talk is entitled: “Powered by Us: Architecting Policy for a Connected World”, and I’m going to be talking about the policy implications of peer networks on the web. We can think of “th...
- Schumer Taking a Whack at Patent Trolls
Today I’ve got a post up on the USV blog about Senator Chuck Schumer’s Patent Quality Improvement Act, and the problem of software patents and patent trolls in general. The PQIA would make it easier and cheaper to defend against frivolous patent infringement suits. This isn’t everything we need to ...
- Antilockdown
Matthew Yglesias has a good piece up this morning on the immigration debate in the wake of the Boston bombings. He points out that historically, as we’ve tightened our border lockdown, we’ve not decreased illegal immigration, we’ve just made the coyote industry more lucrative. In my favorite line...
- Leading with Policy: Uber’s Ridesharing Strategy
Over the weekend, Christina pointed me to Uber’s new policy white paper on ridesharing. In a nutshell, Uber has decided to compete (with Lyft, Sidecar and others) in the ridesharing space, and will use a framework for deciding how and where to do that, based on the perceived regulatory friendliness...
- Google Fiber and Competition
It’s been pretty awesome to watch the roll out of Google Fiber. For those who haven’t been following, Google is piloting a program to deliver gigabit internet service (symmetrical — equal speeds for uploads and download), starting with Kansas City and coming soon to Austin, TX. This is important and...
- Fixing the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is a law that intends to protect computer systems from intruders and criminals. For those that haven’t been following, this is also the law that Aaron Swartz was prosecuted under for downloading too many academic papers at MIT. Right now, Congress is considering up...
- The Freedom to Tinker
One of my favorite advocates for “open innovation” is Ed Felten. Today, Ed has a post up that looks at some of the positive recent developments in the “freedom to tinker” movement — from advances in cell phone unlocking, to the response to Aaron Swartz’ passing, to the Kiartsaeng case (which affirms...
- Connected Governance
This week saw the publication of two very thoughtful articles on the impact that networks are having on society, and what that means for the future of governance. The first was Catherine Bracy and Jim Pugh’s What’s Progressive About ‘Peer Progressives’? and the second was Om Malik’s Uber, Data Darw...