The proponents of Net neutrality say that government regulation is necessary for a free and open Internet, but history doesn’t support that argument. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, for example, was supposed to bolster competition. Instead, by compelling companies to share their infrastructures, the government’s rules reduced incentives for improvement. In the long run, it [...]

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America’s winemakers have won a victory for online wine sales in Kansas, but the legislative battle demonstrates the challenges that e-commerce, a key force for economic recovery, still faces from outdated thinking and entrenched political institutions. Signed into law in April, 2009, Kansas Senate Bill 212 allows direct-to-consumer (DTC) wine shipments over the Web for [...]

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The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased print publication this week to focus solely on the Web, a transition that frightened some in the publishing business, coming so shortly after the Rocky Mountain News shut down. However, as many in the tech industry are aware, this is simply a form of “creative destruction” that should boost both choice [...]

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In an effort to tackle New York’s nearly US$15 billion budget deficit, Governor David Paterson has proposed taxing downloads of software, music and other content, including pornography. This proposal comes at a time when the economy is in freefall and the so-called “stimulus” package is going to cost taxpayers much more than they expect. Gov. [...]

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This week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee released a report accusing Kevin Martin, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, of being deceptive and opaque in his management of the agency’s affairs. That a politician would pull such moves is no surprise, but the report should send a strong signal to the incoming Obama [...]

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Last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) came under fire for making a ruling that many consider outside its authority. Without levying a fine, it charged that Comcast violated federal policy when it interfered with a file-sharing application used by consumers. This new plot twist in the Net neutrality story should remind everyone that when [...]

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What do liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Christian Coalition have in common? No, it’s not a penchant for government-funded jet rides — it’s a misguided belief about net neutrality, proposed rules that could affect the future of Internet management. The net neutrality debate is basically a question of whether or not broadband service [...]

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Over at ZDNet, Ed Burnette asks an interesting question. He wonders if Microsoft has just as many troubles with patents as everyone thinks Linux does. His answer is that they must be in the same boat, but he’s missing a key distinction that stems from the fact that Linux is open source and MS’s code [...]

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I almost choked on my morning coffee when I saw the headline last week that Novell and Microsoft announced a deal to make their software work together. As someone who once employed VMware to use Word on a machine running Linux OS, I have to say that I was both surprised and thrilled. And, as [...]

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