We gave a run down on the CNET News.com "Silicon Money" series here. Declan McCullough kicked it off with a historical (however short) overview on the flow of money to Washington from Silicon Valley and how things have quickly changed since the dawn of the Web era.
The piece's perspective:
In the last few years, technology firms have not just opened
lobbying shops, but they've also begun to use their growing political
muscle for offense. Instead of merely fending off new regulations and
taxes, many companies have begun to join in the classic Washington game
of pushing for them--as long as someone else is the target.
While this may be true someday, we don't really see a perceptible trend towards this yet.
Continue reading "Tech Industry on the DC Offensive?" »
CNET's News.com is running a series that is described...
Reversing long-held philosophies, the industry has doubled its
spending on lobbying in six years, according to CNET News.com research.
This special report chronicles the causes of the strategic change while
highlighting the big spenders.
The series is halfway done. This is what is live:
Continue reading "CNET Silicon Money Series" »
Last week the the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Google hired a big name lobbyist and paid the firm $40,000 for roughly a six-month period last year. And, we had some friendly fun with what we thought was a non-story in a world where $40,000 on lobbying is easily spent in a day by many big companies ($40,000 X 365 = $1,460,000). We also thought all the Google-goes-to-Washington stuff was a bit played out.
The New York Times disagreed. Today's paper features a story that says:
(Google) has begun ramping up its lobbying and legislative operations after
largely ignoring Washington for years, in a scramble to match bases
long established here by competitors like Yahoo and Microsoft, as well
as the deeply entrenched telecommunication companies.
In the piece, Esther Dyson is quoted saying:
Continue reading "OK, We Give Up -- It's News" »
Cheers to Dan Caprio for shortening his title to something that fits on a business card.
Caprio is currently the Chief Privacy Officer and Acting Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy at the U.S. Department of Commerce. He's joining the Progress & Freedom Foundation as executive vice president. (PFF press release).
Caprio is not only savvy in the ways of Washington but also brings a palatable enthusiasm for learning about new technologies that contrasts to prevailing late-adopter inside-the-Beltway circles. PFF is lucky to have him come on board.
Now the question turns to the Department of Commerce...
Continue reading "Caprio to Join PFF" »
Creative Commons proponent, EFF board member and Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig has this to say about Sun Microsystems Open Media Commons project on his blog...
"Sun has made recent announcements about their openDRM project. In my view, they’ve made some commitments
that are important for any DRM project. E.g., as I’ve seen it
described, it would be implemented to allow individuals to assert “fair
use,” and unlock DRM’d content, with a tag to trace misuse. And they’ve
described a platform upon which authors keep the freedom to turn the
DRM off, and more the content from the secured platform.
"These are good things. But some confuse praise for better DRM with
praise for DRM. So let me be as clear as possible here (though saying
the same thing I’ve always said): We should be building a DRM-free
world. We should have laws that encouraged a DRM-free world. We should
demonstrate practices that make compelling a DRM-free world. All of
that should, I thought, be clear. But just as one can hate the Sonny
Bono Act, but think, if there’s a Sonny Bono Act, there should also be
a Public Domain Enhancement Act, so too can one hate DRM, but think
that if there’s DRM, it should be at least as Sun is saying it should
be."
Continue reading "Lessig Enters the DRM Gray Area" »
California will likely be the site of what could be an important, seminal election battle over promoting clean energy at the expense of the oil industry (literally). The initiative campaign is being led by Sun Microsystems co-founder and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. The Economist writes this week:
(Khosla's) eyes have now turned towards a new target—the oil industry. He and
Stephen Bing, a flamboyant Hollywood producer, are financing a campaign
to get Californians to endorse clean energy in a state-wide vote next
November. “Californians for Clean Energy” will need to get more than
500,000 signatures just to make it onto the ballot. If it were then
passed, its effect would be to increase taxes on Californian oil
production by up to $380m a year, eventually raising billions of
dollars for investments in clean energy. The plan is to help California
cut its oil use by one-quarter within a decade, thereby setting a
powerful example for the rest of the world.
The story continues:
Continue reading "California: Clean Tech Battleground" »