I’m sure it was purely coincidence–both Declan McCullagh and Kathy Kristof cited to Ayn Rand in their criticism of the FTC subpoena for Google in the most recent antitrust investigation of the company.  Both writers linked to the other’s story on the crackdown, but did not quote or cite each other.  Yet both mentioned Ayn Rand […]

The Google Amen Chorus has already started the Blame Microsoft narrative.  I’m not quite sure yet how that’s going to break–Google is not as bad as Microsoft was/is or Google should be treated no worse than Microsoft was in its antitrust investigation. I really don’t think comparisons to Microsoft will help Google much, at least not […]

Google has officially acknowledged receipt of FTC subpoenas: “On June 23, 2011, Google Inc. received a subpoena and a notice of civil investigative demand from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) relating to a review by the FTC of Google’s business practices, including search and advertising.  Google is fighting the FTC tooth and nail until the […]

An insightful comment to Chris’s piece on the report of the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur’s report comes from the Swedish Netopia.se blog (in Swedish but we used a translator–guess which one we didn’t use).  Per Strömbäck observes in his post: “Castle points out that La Rue limited itself to take into account article 19 […]

“Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.” Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead According to numerous news outlets and apologists, Google is about to be served (one hesitates to say “hit”) with […]

Right on cue, the Amen Chorus in the anti-copyright  blogosphere grabbed on to a thin lifeline from the New York Times (“Internet Piracy and How to Stop It”) and the Los  Angeles Times (“Policing  the Internet”), both of which were independently inspired to publish major  editorials about the “Protect IP Act” (S. 968)  within hours […]

Your tax dollars at work, no doubt.  Relax and enjoy it, the singularity is nigh.  Now you should also know the good news that these little cuties can be made cheaply enough to swarm in the 1,000s.  How innovative!  I can’t decide if these kilobots were inspired by Leaderless Jihad or Megaupload. PS “Behaivors” does not […]

I was on a panel recently with a member of Congress who took the position that rogue sites are like crackhouses–remember, he came up with that all by himself.  ICE seizures of domain names was like having a crackhouse in your neighborhood and hiding the street name and number in that block.  This sounds like something […]