The Open Market Blog

• 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…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/16/2008

Cable companies are fighting the impending FCC ruling against Comcast for violating net neutrality principles. They seek the freedom to try out different…

• By: Fran Smith
• 07/16/2008

Another nail in the coffin for biofuels and government support. A new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) released…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/16/2008

As I've mentioned in previous posts, my academic background is in political philosophy and I tend to approach policy issues from a rights-based perspective.

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/16/2008

The Library of Congress is having problems with digital preservation, due to copyright laws. Though the Librarian of Congress gets to carve out exceptions…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 07/15/2008

For all the talk of a “rescue plan” for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, I think that there’s a much better solution: let them…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/15/2008

Today, a network administrator for the city of San Francisco was arrested for “taking control of the city’s computer network and locking administrators out,”…

• By: Ryan Young
• 07/15/2008

The Washington Post has a story today about the difficulty young people are having finding summer jobs. Their unemployment rate is over 18%, compared…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/15/2008

The talk surrounding global warming has mostly been about regulation: carbon taxes, cap-and-trade schemes, or - worse - outright mandates. But technology can offer solutions…

• By: Fran Smith
• 07/15/2008

Lots of good material in the World Trade Organization’s annual World Trade Report 2008. Released today, the report, “Trade in a Globalizing World,”…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/15/2008

Pretty much everyone has gotten into the Google-Yahoo thicket. First, it was the companies themselves, by intentionally leaving time for regulators to kill the…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/15/2008

Senator Charles Schumer recently triggered a massive bank failure by publicizing a letter claiming IndyMac Bank was on the verge of collapse.  That caused a run on…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/15/2008

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is now pushing a multibillion dollar bailout of the government-sponsored mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  But as the…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/15/2008

There's an interesting discussion on the Technology Liberation Front, a popular blog for those interested in liberating technology from the hands of government, about…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/15/2008

Viacom has just agreed to let Google anonymize the data it will be handing over to Viacom as part of the copyright infringement lawsuit…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/14/2008

Both the House and Senate have passed similar mortgage bailout bills by lopsided margins, although Bush has threatened to veto them.   But the American…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/14/2008

On Friday, the FCC rejected complaints from public interest groups whining that some Chicago and Milwaukee stations did not give a lot of coverage…

• By: John Berlau
• 07/14/2008

The near-collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have taken the markets and the financial media by surprise, but is something that CEI schlolars…

• By: Ryan Young
• 07/14/2008

The UK has quietly become one of the most-surveilled societies on earth. The isle sports an eye-popping one surveillance camera for every fourteen people.

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/14/2008

The NFL Network (NFLN) has been quite aggressive in its demands for cable providers to include it in their lineups. Back in 2006, Adam Thierer…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/14/2008

According to tech news site ArsTechnica, Companies looking for a competitive edge over their rivals have in recent years been making use of a…

• By: Cord Blomquist
• 07/14/2008

The rights of homeowners to form associations is under attack in Maryland, where some residents believe that the state should forbid homeowners associations HOAs from…

• By: Marlo Lewis, Jr.
• 07/14/2008

The White House announced today that President Bush will lift the executive ban on oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf. This action in…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/14/2008

I reported earlier on the failings of the Universal Service Fund. Now, the convoluted transfer scheme has a new critic: the GAO. The…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/14/2008

Following in the wake of Friday’s massive bank failure, and the Senate’s passage of an economically destructive and pork-filled mortgage bailout bill that…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/14/2008

The Washington Examiner today pointed out on page 17 that thanks to advances in drilling technology, it’s now far safer to drill for oil off…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 07/14/2008

On of the most charming aspects of the European Union is its willingness to prosecute people for the most minor offenses, such as satisfying their…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/12/2008

IndyMac Bank was seized Friday by federal regulators after the “second largest US bank failure in history.”  (The bank had $32 billion in assets).  But rather than…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/11/2008

The Senate has passed the bloated mortgage bailout bill by a 63-to-5 vote, over objections from Senators like Jim DeMint (R-SC) who say it will rip…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/11/2008

Senators Ron Wyden and Olympia Snowe are proposing a bill that would ban state and local governments from raising taxes on cell phones any…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/11/2008

As everyone who has read The Wisdom of the Crowds knows, prediction markets are excellent predictors of future events like elections. In fact,…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/11/2008

The FCC is set to begin testing white space broadcasts for interference with current technology, such as wireless microphones. The NFL and ESPN –…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/11/2008

The libertarian CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, called out Bill Gates in a speech on the virtues of capitalism. Gates’ view is that…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/11/2008

Get ready for a horrible new net neutrality precedent. Chairman Martin has publicly stated that he wants the FCC to rule against Comcast in…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/10/2008

Ars reports that Verizon has just settled a case claiming that the company violated California law by imposing early termination fees on the customers…

• By: Ryan Young
• 07/10/2008

Dairy farmers in the EU are upset that milk prices are lower than they prefer. Production quotas were raised by two percent in…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/10/2008

Last month, I posted about the rollout of Europe’s first WiMax network in Amsterdam. Just after my post, Sprint announced that it will…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/10/2008

The mortgage bailout bill sailing through Congress gets weirder and weirder.  It turns out that in order to circumvent the Constitution, which says that tax…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/10/2008

Ted Frank explains in the Wall Street Journal just how feeble courts are at reining in excessive punitive damages awards, contrary to what…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/10/2008

The Virginia House of Delegates rejected a Democratic plan to raise several taxes to pay for transportion.  The proposal was the same as one earlier…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/09/2008

The Religious Left and liberal groups are currently defending the “Red Lion” doctrine, under which judges allow the government to restrict speech on the radio because of the…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/09/2008

The Senate has passed the FISA reform bill by a 69-to-28 vote, providing the phone companies with immunity from the multibillion dollar lawsuits against them…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/09/2008

Ars reports on the hysteria surrounding rising prices of some precious metals needed for electronics. The notion is that we’re quickly running out…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/09/2008

I reported earlier about the FCC’s attempt to end local franchising, since such arrangements have been stifling cable competition for years. Now, a…

• By: Fran Smith
• 07/09/2008

Well, it’s about time. According to Reuters, the progressive Democratic Leadership Council today called upon the next president to focus on the multilateral trading…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/09/2008

ACORN is a radical left-wing group with ties to liberal politicians that will receive taxpayer subsidies through the Congressional mortgage bailout legislation nearing passage.  (Bush has expressed…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/09/2008

Congress is poised to enact the ADA Restoration Act.  That law is based on the unfounded notion that the federal courts have too narrowly interpreted…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/09/2008

Public Knowledge just dug up some dirt on Comcast. Comcast has been fighting charges of violating net neutrality principles at the FCC by claiming…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/09/2008

My colleague Ryan Radia has a great post at the Technology Liberation Front about the Google-Viacom suit. Ryan points out that the discovery…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/09/2008

I reported earlier on the FCC’s plan to nationalize the failures of all municipal wireless projects by auctioning off a big block of spectrum…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/08/2008

Even longtime ACLU leader Morton Halperin is endorsing the FISA bill, which authorizes and regulates federal antiterror surveillance programs.  Halperin says that the “bill…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 07/08/2008

The UK National Children’s Bureau recently issued a 366-page guide on how to spot and discourage racist behavior in children. Three-hundred and sixty-six pages…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/08/2008

Congressional mortgage bailout legislation would create a costly “affordable housing trust” that would spawn new slums at taxpayer expense, and enrich the politically-connected developers…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/08/2008

Apparently, the FISA bill is much worse than many commentators have made it seem. The bill goes way beyond telecom immunity. As Ars…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/08/2008

Tech news source ArsTechnica reported last night that more than 200 civil rights groups are panicking about the transition to digital TV and asking…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/07/2008

Since ethanol mandates cause deforestation and skyrocketing food prices, the European Union is now reconsidering its biofuel mandates.  Ethanol subsidies have many bad effects. …

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/07/2008

Washington, D.C. recently tried to put cheap private buses out of business, by preventing them from picking up passengers anywhere but the inconvenient, forbidding location…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/07/2008

An “excess profits” tax on oil companies — which liberal Congressional leaders support — may well harm you by taking money out of your retirement fund,…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/07/2008

Google decided to give into demands from California legislators and post a link to its privacy center on its homepage. Jim Harper…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 07/07/2008

A British hospital says no.  But a suspicious number of foreign liver transplants have been done at one hospital.  Reports the BBC:…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/06/2008

A global food crisis has resulted in skyrocketing food prices, riots, and starvation in many poor countries like Afghanistan, Haiti, Egypt, and…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 07/05/2008

It’s long been obvious that you don’t want to get cancer in Great Britain.  (Obviously, you don’t want to get it anywhere, but especially in…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/04/2008

The Washington Post cites Colombia’s dramatic rescue of American hostages to endorse passage of the free trade agreement between Colombia and the U.S.   (The…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/04/2008

Researchers are discovering that Vitamin D cuts deaths from a host of illnesses.  Exposure to the sun provides crucial Vitamin D, especially for lactose-intolerant people.  Yet…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 07/03/2008

The story of the Colombian army’s daring, flawlessly executed, rescue of hostages held by the FARC terrorist group has an interesting detail: The stunning…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/03/2008

Today, a bunch of telcos got together to form a consortium to create standards for developing mobile-friendly websites – an important task as more…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/03/2008

Fairfax County, Virginia, is going to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to try to prop up the housing bubble a little longer.  They’re planning to buy…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/03/2008

A law called NEPA requires costly and expensive environmental assessments before the government does a lot of things — even if what the government is…

• By: Fran Smith
• 07/03/2008

The Financial Times noted today that the OECD’s recently released report on employment prospects in the developed world showed an uptick in unemployment…

• By: Alex Harris
• 07/03/2008

The ACLU and EFF are filing a Freedom of Information Act request to find out how the government decides when to use…

• By: Hans Bader
• 07/03/2008

The Washington Examiner argues that recent proposals to increase federal tax rates to 55 percent on households making over $250,000 per year would result…