The 463: Inside Tech Policy

Arnold's New Tech Advocate

California media are having a field day today with the news that a Democrat who used to work for Gray Davis will be Governor Schwarzenegger's next chief of staff.  They (naturally) love the intrigue and the back-biting between the left and right on the hire. See the Capitol Weekly piece for one of the better reports.

Still, there are two truths that have been barely reported.  First, the outgoing chief of staff Pat Cleary was on her way out, regardless.  She had planned to leave by the first of the year long ago.  Cleary is a class act and was greatly respected in both the Wilson and Schwarzenegger administrations.  The other is that, while the incoming Susan Kennedy is a Democrat with a history of socially liberal ideals, she also is a tireless advocate for smart business interests that will advance innovation and California competitiveness.  Proof comes in Kennedy's most recent role as PUC commissioner -- where she may have been one of the top pro-technology PUC commissioners in the entire country.

Consider... 

Saving Celine

Poor Celine Dion.  As the youngest of 14 children, buying Christmas gifts for all her siblings must be a daunting prospect.  If I were her, I might make a mixed CD of recent favorite works to keep the family updated on how the kid-sister is doing.  Trouble is, this year, Celine would only be able to grace three of her brothers or sisters with tracks from her most recent album "On ne Change Pas.”  There could be a lot of unhappy faces around Dion Christmas tree.

Why?  Because in efforts to minimize piracy, Celine’s record company Sony BMG released the album with technical restrictions on it that limits the owner of the disc to sharing its tracks more than three times.  The restrictions also prevent Celine and anyone else who bought the album from putting the tracks on their iPod (there go those that iPod Nano gift idea).  And, if that weren’t enough, the CDs contain what some have called spyware that could track computer usage and open up users to security threats.

Very recently, the public outcry about these antipiracy disc finally built to a point where Sony recalled the discs.  (“On ne Change Pas” means “We Don’t’ Change.”  Never say never, Celine.)  Yet, the damage has been done.  Just today it was reported that NY AG Eliot Spitzer is investigating Sony, and the AG from Texas has already filed a lawsuit based on the Lone Star state's spyware law.  There have been much more legal and PR fallout to this.

The Sony skirmish is just another day in the Internet-Age digital rights management (DRM) wars that have been fought ever since Napster burst on the scene in 1999.  The difference is....

TechNet CEOs Call for Maintaining America's Edge

TechNet's CEO's this week held their second annual "Innovation Summit" in Silicon Valley on the campus of eBay.  Moderating the event was TV personality Charlie Rose.  The first interview was with former Secretary of State Colin Powell and he was extremely candid in his views on technology, innovation and his role in running foreign policy for the Administration.  To the question of when he's writing a book, he said "history is best written cold."

TechNet also had a bevy of CEOs and top execs participate, including Cisco's John Chambers, eBay's Bill Cobb, Yahoo's Jerry Yang, VeriSign's Stratton Sclavos, Sun's Jonathan Schwartz, Netflix's Reed Hastings, Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff, and Stanford's John Hennessy.

Stories appeared in BusinessWeek, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Dan Farber's great CNET blog and others.  They all focused on the steps necessary for America to remain the innovation leader -- including burdensome federal regulations, reforming our public education system and immigration policies....

One Small Step for WSIS; One Big Leap for the Internet

Calmer heads prevailed at this week’s international meetings on control over the Internet. The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) meetings in Tunis are coming to an end after a compromise was reached about control over the Internet infrastructure. ICANN currently coordinates the technical foundation of the Internet, with the United States playing a mostly hands-off role as the legal backstop.

Some more “hands-on” countries (China and Syra, for example) were cheerleading an EU effort to insert governments into the role of overseeing the Internet. The stalemate was more about businesses vs. government control than US. vs. The World angle in the papers, but hey the media needs controversy and that’s a sexy if oversimplified story....

To Regulate or Not to Regulate?

In less than two weeks, nations of the world will gather at the U.N.'s World Summit on the Information Society (known as WSIS) in Tunisia. The WSIS process started two years ago, and during most of that time UN and government reps insisted that this wasn’t about taking control over the Internet. Until three weeks ago, when the EU said it was.

Now the United States is pitted against the EU and UN. The media typically paints it as a “US vs. The World” stand-off, but that’s oversimplifying it. It’s much more a question of businesses vs. governments....

SBC to Internet Cos: Don't Bogart My Pipes

 What could wake The 463 up from a temporary work-induced slumber?  How 'bout fighting words like:

"They don't have any fiber out there. They don't have any wires. They don't have anything," he argues. "They use my lines for free -- and that's bull. For a Google or a Yahoo! or a Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts!"

All this courtesy of SBC CEO Ed Whitacre in a recent BusinessWeek interview. 

So, three cheers to Whitacre for so eloquently kicking the previously esoteric "Net Neutrality" debate into the sphere of the interesting  And, indeed, hyperbole or not, it will only get more interesting as battle lines are drawn and the fight is played out.

Of course, Whitacre wasn't just talking pretty to impress visiting journalists in September.  He was hoping to influence the FCC as they reviewed his pending merger with AT&T.  And, just last week the FCC said that...