OpenMarket

On October 31, 2018, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Frank v. Gaos. The petitioners are class members challenging a class action settlement resulting from alleged privacy violations by Google’s search engine. Out of the $8.5 million fund created by the settlement, it paid nothing to class members. Instead, it paid $2.1 million to the lawyers, $1.1 to named plaintiffs and administrative costs, and $5.3 million in cy pres payments to a handful of unaffiliated third-party organizations, including class counsel’s alma maters and groups Google already supported through donations.

The fall 2018 Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions just appeared today. Notably, this is the first time the fall edition has arrived on schedule in October since 2005. Here’s an administration overview of the new edition.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on October 6^th released a “Special Report (SR15) on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees C.”  The report considers the impacts of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures compared to 2 degrees and the policies that will be necessary to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. Each key finding is given with a level of confidence of low, medium, or high. Most assertions and conclusions are held with high confidence. 

We are sad to note the death of our good friend and strong ally, David Henderson, on September 30^th in London.  After a career as an academic economist and top economist at international institutions, including as head of economics at the OECD, David became a public defender of free markets and classical liberal economics and a most perceptive critic of corporate social responsibility.    

The Competitive Enterprise Institute views most market failure rationales for government intervention as wrong, overstated, or unproven (or all of the above). The Competitive Enterprise Institute views most market failure rationales for government intervention as wrong, overstated, or unproven (or all of the above). That belief is very difficult to test, however, because government has seized control of the relevant resources and blocks the market discovery process. 

On September 30, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law SB-822, a set of regulations on Internet service providers that’s slated to go into effect at the beginning of 2019. Often referred to as a “net neutrality” bill, SB-822 aims to impose on Internet providers several sweeping mandates derived from a regulation issued by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015.

In a Columbus Day-shortened work week, agencies issued more than 50 new regulations from deregulated TVs in TV commercials to POSTNET.

A Dutch appeals court last week upheld a lower court’s June 2015 decision requiring the government to cut Holland’s carbon dioxide emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. A rough English translation of the court’s decision is available here.

This week the State Policy Network is holding its legendary annual meeting, this time in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah. With hundreds of delegates from dozens of organizations and more sessions and events than any single person could take in, the annual meeting offers an overwhelming plentitude of smart ideas on public policy. If you're in town, you'll definitely want to set aside time tomorrow afternoon for the panel sponsored by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, How to Launch a Digital Campaign with Limited Budget and Resources.

Over at Morning Consult, Iain Murray and I have an op-ed explaining why tariffs are ill-suited to achieving the Trump administration’s economic and foreign policy goals: We often talk about trade between nations as if it is done through the medium of government. But “Mexico” does not trade with “America.”