Tech Policy Summit blog

Net Safety In The News

The fight to make the Internet a safer place for kids and teens made headlines this week.

First, the European Union announced on Wednesday that it plans to spend over $83 million on Internet safety programs between 2009 and 2013, extending a program it began several years ago. The money will be spent on a variety of research and educational projects designed to keep kids in the EU safe from cyber bullying and illegal content.

Stateside, the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society launched its Internet Safety Technical Task Force, which includes experts from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, Center for Democracy & Technology, Progress & Freedom Foundation and other organizations.

Together, they will evaulate technology-based solutions to the online safety challenge, including age-verification and authentication tools. For more info, check out this post by PFF's Adam Thierer. CDT's Leslie Harris also wrote an ABC News editorial about the privacy implications of online age verification. Both will be among the speakers at next month's Tech Policy Summit.

New Group's Mission is Clear: End Software Patents

As its name suggests, the End Software Patents (ESP) project is not a fan of patenting software. The coalition, which formally launched today, hopes to do away with the practice altogether by advocating new legislation that would exempt software and business methods from patent law and by helping companies fight such patents in the courts and at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

According to a statement by ESP's executive director Ben Klemens, "Software patents endanger both software developers and businesses, ironically stifling the very innovation that the U.S. patent system was intended to foster." ESP tried to drive that point home by publishing a report on the economic impact of software patents, estimating that U.S. businesses spend $11.4 billion in litigation each year.

The group, whose backers include the Free Software Foundation and the Software Freedom Law Center, is also offering a $10K prize for the best paper on "the effects of the patentability of software and business methods under U.S. law." The call for papers is open now; initial replies are due by April 7th.

Senate's New Anti-Phishing Bill Raises Privacy Concerns

Citing data from Gartner that about 3.5 million computer users were tricked by phishing scams between 2006 and 2007, resulting in a financial loss of over $3 billion, Senators Bill Nelson (D-FL), Olympia Snowe (R-WA) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) introduced a bill earlier this week called the Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008 (APCPA).

APCPA is designed to crack down on online fraud and identity theft by creating "multiple enforcement mechanisms" and instituting strong civil and criminal penalties. Not everyone is convinced that the bill is a step in the right direction though.

According to The Iconoclast writer Declan McCullagh, who will be among the speakers at next month's Tech Policy Summit, there are plenty of anti-phishing laws already on the books and APCPA "appears to serve no useful purpose."

Declan writes: "If their bill merely duplicated existing criminal laws, it would be more redundant than worrisome. Except that one section is actively harmful to the privacy of Americans who own domain names and want to protect their privacy."

He's referring to provisions that would make it illegal for an individual to use false or misleading information when registering a domain name in a WHOIS database if that domain is used for commercial purposes, as well as a rule that would require domain name registrars who use proxy services to keep registrant.data private to make that info public if they receive notice that the domain name was used for phishing purposes.

You can read the full text of the bill here.

Google's Unity Project

Google continues to expand its portfolio and its reach, confirming today that it is one of six companies involved in building an undersea broadband cable between Japan and the United States. Dubbed "Unity," the $300 million project will boost Trans-Pacific Internet capacity by about 20 percent and give Google direct access to its own cable.

NEC and Tyco Telecommunications, which won the contract to build the system, will begin work on the project immediately in order to have it ready by early 2010.

Google's manager of network acquisitions Francois Sterin explained the decision on the company's official blog, trying to quell speculation that Google will be going on a cable buying spree.

Here's an excerpt from Francois' post:

If you're wondering whether we're going into the undersea cable business, the answer is no. We're not competing with telecom providers, but the volume of data we need to move around the world has grown to the point where in some cases we've exceeded the ability traditional players can offer. Our partnership with these companies is just another step in ensuring that we're delivering the best possible experience to people around the world.

Tech Policy Summit Goes Hollywood

There's just over a month to go until our 2nd annual Tech Policy Summit heads to Hollywood, March 26th through 28th.

The 2008 Summit will be held at the Renaissance Hollywood hotel, a few steps away from the legendary Walk of Fame, Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Kodak Theatre where last night's Oscars Ceremony* took place. In honor of that, we've decided to debut our first video, a brief homage to the Summit's host city. It may not win any awards but we hope you'll enjoy this look at the local surroundings.

You can also learn more about the conference progam on TechPolicySummit.com where the agenda is updated every few days as new speakers are announced.

*In case you missed it, Tech Policy Summit advisor Jim Fallows appeared in a clip that aired during the Academy Awards show; he was in a documentary called No End in Sight that was nominated for an Oscar.

Chinese Sites "Volunteer" to Self-Censor

According to Reuters, China has asked Web site owners to voluntarily pledge to censor their content as part of its ongoing effort to regulate online video and audio. Eight Chinese media organizations including the Xinhua news agency and The People's Daily have already signed on to the pact to remove pornography and violent material from their sites.

Which begs the following question: If the Chinese goverment asks you to sign a "voluntary pact," is it really voluntary?

While you contemplate that koan, here is an excerpt from the announcement by China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television:

The signatories should actively disseminate healthy, beneficial audio-visual programs meeting socialist moral norms...Decadent, backward thoughts and culture must be boycotted by all.

Also, if you haven't already seen it, check out this in-depth article by Atlantic correspondent (and Tech Policy Summit advisor) James Fallows about how the Chinese government controls Internet activity within its borders. Fallows has been reporting from China for over a year now and offers an interesting perspective on the topic.

MSFT's Interoperability Principles

Microsoft pulled out the big guns today for its open source announcement, but that hasn't stopped some skeptics from trying to shoot it down.

Flanked by general counsel Brad Smith and chief software architect Ray Ozzie, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer introduced the company's new interoperability principles at a morning press conference where he described the decision to open up the APIs for Windows Vista, Office, SQL Server and other products as "consistent with the new world in which we live."

He added that "Microsoft's long-term success depends on [its] ability to deliver a software and services platform that is open, flexible, and provides customers and developers with choice."

That seems especially true in the European Union where antitrust regulators that continue to target the software maker reacted with this cautious response: The Commission would welcome any move towards genuine interoperability. Nonetheless, the Commission notes that today's announcement follows at least four similar statements by Microsoft in the past on the importance of interoperability.

Read this rest of this post at our Tech Policy Central site.

Pilot Testing Google Health

The news broke this morning that Google is launching a pilot project with a group of volunteers at the Cleveland Medical Center to test its Google Health service, which will allow patients to access their personal health records (PHRs) and related medical information online. It's been in development for well over a year and the announcement of the six-to-eight week pilot is an important milestone, though the service still isn't ready for prime time.

The Associated Press reports that Google's interest in managing PHRs is seen by the company as "a logical extension" because Internet users already turn to Google to research information about their health. According to this Media Vault video by Google, 65% of people have used the Internet to answer a health-related question and 66% of consumers looking for medical information online start by going to a search engine like Google.

But are those consumers ready to make the leap from searching for health info online to sharing their own medical histories?

Privacy advocates have raised concerns about protecting such sensitive data; the World Privacy Forum published a policy analysis and a consumer advisory yesterday warning the public to think twice before authorizing PHRs. Though not directly related to the Google Health project, the organization's reports point out the many privacy and security questions that will need to be answered by Google, Microsoft and others as they move further into the digital health business.

Survey Says: U.S. Morally Opposed to Nanotech

Even though the U.S. is a global leader in nanotech research and development, a recently released survey by Arizona State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that Americans are much more likely than Europeans to oppose nanotechnology on moral grounds.

In fact, the 2007 study of 1,015 U.S. adults found that only 29.5 percent of American respondents agreed that nanontechnology was "morally acceptable", compared with 54.1 of British adults, 62.7 percent of Germans and 72.1 percent of French respondents in similar surveys.

Why the concern over nanotechnologies at a time when the President's FY2009 budget calls for increasing funding for the federal National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) to $1.5 billion?

According to one of the survey researchers, the differences can be attributed to Americans' religious beliefs and a perception "that nanotechnology, biotechnology and stem cell research are lumped together as means to enhance human qualities."

Efforts to change that perception have been underway, and will likely increase since the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act, which authorized appropriations for nanotech funding over the last several years, is up for renewal.

Update on Sciencedebate 2008

It's been a month since we first wrote about our support for Sciencedebate 2008, the grassroots campaign to hold a presidential debate focused on science and technology issues.

Since then, the organizers have set a date and location (April 18th at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia), invited the candidates (no takers yet) and picked up key endorsements by the Council on Competitiveness, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and others.

The momentum is there. But will that be enough to convince the candidates to face off in a science and technology-focused debate?

Over the weekend, AAAS hosted what might be considered a dry run when it invited the candidates' science and technology advisors to debate each other at the organization's annual meeting in Boston. None of the Republican candidates' campaigns accepted the invite, which left two surrogates for Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama.

Clinton advisor Thomas Kalil, once President Bill Clinton's deputy assisitant for technology and economic policy, and Alec Ross, vice president of external affairs for One Economy Corporation and an advisor to Sen. Obama outlined their candidates' positions on digital health, funding for research and cleantech but were "noncommittal" about the April debate. (Note: Mr. Ross will be among the speakers at Tech Policy Summit next month).