The Open Market Blog

• By: Alex Harris
• 08/05/2008

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals just handed a victory to Cablevision, a provider of remote DVRs. Unlike regular DVRs, which store your recordings…

• By: Alex Harris
• 08/04/2008

It's time for another Philosopher's Corner, an exploration of libertarian issues from a perspective of justice, not consequences. Libertarian political philosophers agree about…

• By: Alex Harris
• 08/04/2008

Bad news today for lovers of liberty and lovers of video games. Thailand has just banned Grand Theft Auto IV, following an incident…

• By: Alex Harris
• 08/04/2008

A new use for TV cables has got some consumer groups up in arms. Yes, you read that right: a new use for…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/04/2008

Dickie Scruggs is reporting to prison to begin a 5-year sentence for trying to bribe a judge.  He’s the rich trial lawyer who brought…

• By: Alex Harris
• 08/04/2008

A while back, the FTC proposed voluntary rules governing behavioral advertising. The Commission sought comments on its rules, and many organizations…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/03/2008

In a letter today in the Washington Post, Maryland food stamp bureaucrat Kevin McGuire tried to justify more spending on food stamps (and his own job) by making misleading claims.

• By: Doug Bandow
• 08/02/2008

It’s terrible.  The Europeans, who routinely claim to be morally superior to the greedy American species, are now yelping about the cost of climate change legislation.  The…

• By: Alex Harris
• 08/01/2008

I just reported on a big case of an administrative agency and Congress opposing each other in their regulatory decisions. Now, there’s another. Though…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/01/2008

When Domino’s, a private company, decided not to deliver pizza and other fast food to certain dangerous parts of Washington, D.C., based on geographic region, not race,…

• By: Alex Harris
• 08/01/2008

The U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission finally rewrote their rules governing how businesses must disclose information to the public to allow businesses to post…

• By: Alex Harris
• 08/01/2008

I reported last month on a remarkable Ninth Circuit ruling holding that border police can search citizens’ laptops without cause. Now, the Department of…

• By: Alex Harris
• 08/01/2008

Anyone waking up at noon today and looking into net neutrality issues would have found two ironically juxtaposed headlines facing them. First, the big…

• By: Al Canata
• 08/01/2008

The New York Times reports that California’s Governor just signed a state-wide transfats ban into law.  This makes perfect sense.  California is facing its…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/01/2008

In the Wall Street Journal, former Bush advisor Lawrence Lindsey today criticizes the mortgage bailout bill Bush foolishly signed, noting that if any other country…

• By: Alex Harris
• 08/01/2008

CNET's Marguerite Reardon reports: A judge in California has ruled that Sprint Nextel's early termination fees are illegal and said the wireless operator…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/01/2008

In the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer explains how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, by blocking a vote to lift the ban on drilling in Alaska’s ANWR and off the U.S.

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/01/2008

In “The Harry Reid Protection Racket,” the Washington Examiner yesterday explained how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid flouted Senate rules to get the bloated mortgage bailout…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 08/01/2008

One reason trade is said to be a bad thing is because jobs are “outsourced” overseas.  Never mind that more new jobs have been created…

• By: Ryan Young
• 07/31/2008

The New York Times ominously reports that “G.D.P. Grows at Tepid 1.9% Pace Despite Stimulus” A more accurate wording would be “G.D.P. Grows at…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 07/31/2008

Last night I attended a preview of the new film Swing Vote, which is being released tomorrow. It revolves around one man, Bud Johnson…

• By: Ryan Young
• 07/31/2008

Number of farms in the U.S. — about 2.1 million. Cost of the 2008 farm bill — $300 billion over…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/31/2008

Last month, Google slightly improved the relevancy of the ads it displays when you search for something. In addition to taking your last…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/31/2008

I reported here earlier on public safety agencies holding up spectrum owed to Sprint-Nextel. I also reported on repeated demands for even…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/30/2008

Bush signed into law an enormously costly mortgage bailout today, turning a deaf ear to financial experts who warned about the bill’s dangers and…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/30/2008

In addition to massive federal probes of the deal, the nonexclusive Google-Yahoo ad pact is facing scrutiny from states as well. The California…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 07/30/2008

I love California, but the fruits and nuts truly have taken control.  The city of Los Angeles has initiated a moratorium on fast food restaurants–but…

• By: Fran Smith
• 07/29/2008

Today, as Ryan Young noted in his post, negotiations collapsed in the ninth day of talks to resuscitate the World Trade Organization’s…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/29/2008

Rather than trying to fight individual violators of copyright, the MPAA is creating a website with links to legitimate movie sources, like local movie…

• By: Ryan Young
• 07/29/2008

Disagreements over farm subsidies have caused the current round of WTO negotiations to collapse.  Developing countries are upset that subsidized farmers from rich countries…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/29/2008

Ars has a good discussion of the US Patent and Trademark Office’s recent switch in policy towards software patents. Before, the USPTO would issue…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/29/2008

Last year, AT&T submitted to the FCC a petition for forbearance from some old reporting requirements that were designed back in the days of…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/29/2008

I reported last Thursday that the FCC was set to approve the long-ignored XM-Sirius merger. Yesterday, it finally came through… but hampered by…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/29/2008

A year and 90 days ago, Qwest gave the FCC a request for forbearance from complying with some outdated price controls. The FCC had a…

• By: Fran Smith
• 07/28/2008

With a lot of attention focused on the unintended consequences of ethanol policy in raising the costs of food, here’s another example of those…

• By: Fran Smith
• 07/28/2008

A just-released working paper from the World Bank, “A Note on Rising Food Prices,” points out that the increased production of biofuels has…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/28/2008

Politicians rail against “Washington” as if they were outsiders, but sometimes, Washington is their true home, and they only go to their “home” state when it…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/28/2008

The White House capitulated on the mortgage bailout bill, which now will become law, thanks to the “gullible” Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, who got Bush to…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 07/28/2008

Remember stories about the horrors of the American medical system?  Operations performed on the wrong leg and such?  Guess what:  it’s also a problem in…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 07/26/2008

The Law of the Sea Treaty just won’t go away.  Ronald Reagan attempted to kill it a quarter century ago.  But it’s still with us. …

• By: Doug Bandow
• 07/26/2008

Do you like Peking Duck?  Well, don’t count on getting it in Europe.  Restaurants are being shut down for failing to meet European Union rules,…

• By: John Berlau
• 07/26/2008

The new book America’s Health Care Crisis Solved has been praised as providing a detailed, free-market solution for healthcare’s future. This it does, but…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 07/26/2008

No one ever wants to get cancer, but if you do get it, America is the place to get treated.  As Sen. Ted Kennedy doubtless…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 07/25/2008

David Evans, who spent six years working for the Australian government on climate change issues, started out a believer in global warming but finds the case…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/25/2008

On Tuesday, a federal appeals court struck down the latest version of the Child Online Protection Act, an internet censorship bill. AmLaw Daily…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/25/2008

Even the Washington Post admits that the housing bill that would bail out Fannie Mae is “structurally unsound” and would cost enormous sums that cannot…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/24/2008

Courtney and I have been working for weeks on creating libertarian versions of the popular hilariously-captioned kitty pictures known as “lolcats.” Bureaucrash…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/24/2008

We have previously discussed how government often mandates online privacy violations through data retention mandates and tracking requirements. Now, Congress has tucked…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/24/2008

CNET News reports: A group of researchers from the University of Colorado and University of Washington could face both civil and criminal penalties for…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/24/2008

An enormously costly mortgage bailout bill passed the House 272-to-152, with strong support from liberal lawmakers.  It will soon pass the Senate by an…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/24/2008

An interesting little tidbit: A small town in Minnesota is trying to borrow $25 million in bonds to install a fiber-optic network. But now…

• By: John Berlau
• 07/24/2008

Of all the unintended consequences of the housing bill that passed the House yesterday — of which there will likely be many — one of…

• By: Ryan Young
• 07/23/2008

On Thursday, the federal minimum wage will increase to $6.55 per hour. Next July it is scheduled to go up to $7.25 per hour. CNN…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/23/2008

The White House is now backing away from its threat to veto the pork-filled bills that would bail out government-backed mortgage giants…

• By: Fran Smith
• 07/23/2008

As the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round negotiations continue, India has raised the immigration issue with the U.S. and the EU. This is…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 07/23/2008

Today’s Wall Street Journal features a truly ridiculous letter by Mary Beth Maxwell, who heads the far-Left pro-organized labor group American Rights at…

• By: William Yeatman
• 07/23/2008

Public transportation is often wearisome. Today, for example, I missed my metro train from Northern Virginia to Washington,…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/23/2008

A $25 billion bailout of government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae is now planned.  But Fannie Mae has such political power that its crooked managers will…

• By: John Berlau
• 07/23/2008

While pretty steep, $25 billion of our tax dollars isn’t the only thing many Americans could lose in the just-unveiled GSE bailout bill likely…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/22/2008

“The proposed government rescue of the nation’s two mortgage finance giants will appear on the federal budget as a $25 billion cost to taxpayers, the independent…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/22/2008

My colleague Ryan Radia has an excellent post at TLF about Comcast’s decision to resist New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s attempts to…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/22/2008

Ars reports that the movie industry has gathered together a task force to create standards for making 3D movies available in the home. Now…

• By: Ryan Young
• 07/22/2008

The U.S. government transfers about $17 billion from taxpayers to farmers in an average year. Every man, woman, and child in the country gives more…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/22/2008

Cord Blomquist has an interesting post at TLF about the Google-Viacom lawsuit. He points out that forcing YouTube to take down infringing…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/22/2008

A stealth assault is being mounted on the Constitution’s state-action doctrine in a case pending before the Supreme Court, Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee. The Supreme…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/22/2008

TiVo, the popular DVR company, is partnering with Amazon.com to allow TV viewers to buy products while watching their recorded TV shows. This is…

• By: Fran Smith
• 07/22/2008

The Financial Times has terrific reviews of opera — witty, trenchant, and caustic when reviewing some of the avant-garde European productions.

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/22/2008

Last week, I introduced a new feature called the Philosopher's Corner, where I will examine libertarian issues from the point of view of justice,…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 07/22/2008

The Associated Press was shocked to discover that, gasp!, the oil companies actually pay back their investors.  A new AP story is headlined:  “AP…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 07/21/2008

This afternoon, the Senate Republican Conference held a hearing on an ongoing attempt to undermine the secret ballot process in union organizing elections. Specifically…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/21/2008

Ars reports on a novel use of in-car GPS technology: getting you out of undeserved speeding tickets. Apparently, a teenager was erroneously ticketed…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/21/2008

A Dutch court ruled today that a group of researchers who figured out how to break into RFID tags used in smartcards around the…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/21/2008

Two down, one to go. Two commissioners are now on board with approving the XM-Sirius merger, which has already been held up for…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/21/2008

Ars reports that Intel is lobbying the FCC to require all cable boxes to contain ethernet ports. Ostensibly to support device openness, Intel’s…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/19/2008

Franklin Raines, a liberal power-broker, mismanaged government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae so badly that a federal bailout of it is now planned.  He received…

• By: Al Canata
• 07/18/2008

To add to Alex Harris’ posting on ISP’s standing up for themselves…. Maybe the ISPs ought to use a pocketbook issue…

• By: John Berlau
• 07/18/2008

It is in times of national emergencies that measures infringing on privacy and civil liberties are advocated — and sometimes rushed through without even being…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/18/2008

Historically, jurisdictions with judicial elections tended to be somewhat more anti-business than those that didn’t have judicial elections.  But in recent years, voters in some moderate and conservative…

• By: Myron Ebell
• 07/17/2008

11: 46 AM – Approaching Constitution Hall, where Gore will be speaking, the first brochure handed to me from a vegan group, then another from…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/17/2008

Over a year ago, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson refused to push for reforms of fraud-ridden government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae, even though colleagues in the Bush Administration had…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/17/2008

U.S. immigration law is full of contradictions.  On the one hand, U.S. immigration laws keep out skilled immigrants who would help our economy,…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/17/2008

Australia’s government is requiring the country’s websites to include ratings of age-appropriateness similar to those used for movies and games. Further, websites deemed only…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/17/2008

Google revealed a little more today about how the company’s mysterious search algorithm works. In order to keep improving search – and making sure…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/16/2008

You might remember the controversial Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which in 1998 retroactively extended copyrights that were set to expire (to life…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/16/2008

A lawyer is suing Google because his ads didn’t generate any business for him. The attorney, Hal Levitte, placed ads with Google and paid…

• By: Fran Smith
• 07/16/2008

In a posting on Discover Magazine’s blog today, it was reported that this summer the largest “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/16/2008

MSNBC has an interesting piece on New York's new food-labelling law. New York is the first city in the country to require restaurants to put…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/16/2008

In the Wall Street Journal, Holman Jenkins says we should get rid of the shaky, fraud-ridden government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae in its current…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/16/2008

Congress is at it again, and once again the victim is NebuAd. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce is sending threatening letters to…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/16/2008

Professor Ilya Somin explains how New York City taxpayers are being fleeced to pay for a new Yankee Stadium.  And the Washington Examiner describes…