The Open Market Blog

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/26/2008

Chrysler annouced that it will begin offering an optional wireless internet service in its vehicles for about $500, plus $29 a month. The network…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/26/2008

The Washington Post reports on a voluntary agreement between Microsoft, Google, WebMD, the Consumers’ Union, and others regarding electronic health record privacy. Fear of…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/26/2008

The Supreme Court voted 5-to-4 to strike down Washington, D.C.’s municipal ban on handguns, ruling that the ban violated the Second Amendment, as…

• By: Lene Johansen
• 06/26/2008

I seem to remember from statistics class that anything less than 95 percent probability is junk science. This is an editorial from the most recent…

• By: Fran Smith
• 06/26/2008

American Express will be $4 billion richer, thanks to the U.S. Department of Justice and a 2004 antitrust suit against Visa and MasterCard. According…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/25/2008

The Wall Street Journal explains how federal and state regulations block competition with the rating agencies that fueled the mortgage crisis by giving ridiculously rosey ratings…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/25/2008

For a while now, the UK has had a fairly extensive network of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras recording its citizens’ movements in the…

• By: Fran Smith
• 06/25/2008

Environmentalists are ecstatic over the state of Florida’s announced purchase from United States Sugar of a vast tract of land —…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/25/2008

Major ISP Charter Communications is indefinitely suspending its use of NebuAd, a tool that would use customers’ browsing habits to send them better-targeted…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/25/2008

The Supreme Court today struck down Louisiana’s law allowing courts to sentence convicted child-rapists to death.  The facts of the case are horrific: the…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/25/2008

A DC law firm just published a report claiming that the US is falling behind other countries in broadband deployment. The report, like…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/25/2008

Ars reports that New York is very close to passing a video game law that would require video game companies to do what they’re…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/25/2008

The Supreme Court cut, but did not eliminate, the punitive damage award against Exxon in the Exxon Valdez oil spill case, as I…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/24/2008

Ars reports on a Congressional hearing called to address the failings of the Universal Service Fund, which is supposed to provide telephone access to…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/24/2008

Ars reports that the FCC has today banned Verizon’s practice of trying to woo back customers who are in the process of switching their…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/24/2008

The Senate voted by a lopsided 83-to-9 vote to expedite passage of a bloated, pork-filled mortgage bailout bill.  The president has threatened to veto it, although…

• By: Ryan Young
• 06/24/2008

Who knew bananas could be controversial? The U.S. and the EU are locked in a heated dispute over banana tariffs. Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras,…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/24/2008

Private lenders, chastened by the mortgage crisis, have stopped issuing risky mortgage loans requiring little or no downpayment from subprime borrowers.  But the federal…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/24/2008

NASA’s James Hansen, Al Gore’s shrill advisor, is advocating the prosecution of people in the energy industry who disagree with him about the scope, cause, or existence of global warming. …

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/24/2008

Alex Harris notes that hypocrisy can affect obscenity prosecutions, at the expense of free expression.  He quotes a lawyer who observes that  “Time and time again you’ll have…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/24/2008

The New York Times has an interesting – and somewhat amusing – article today about a novel defense being tried in an online…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/24/2008

Responding to calls from special interest groups, the FCC will begin an investigation of product placements in TV shows, the Wall Street Journal…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/23/2008

CNET reports that a new generation of advertising companies are set to create “social ads,” targeted to those who have the greatest influence over…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/23/2008

CNET reports that “a group including Equifax, Google, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, and PayPal, plus nine leaders in the technology community announced on Monday the…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/23/2008

Ars reports that the FCC has started a public comment cycle on Chairman Martin’s plan to turn 25 MHz of the prized 2.1GHz band…

• By: Richard Morrison
• 06/23/2008

From our good friends at FreedomWorks comes a video alerting viewers to a proposal from Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) that would create a new…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/23/2008

CEI has just put out a media release mourning the death of the great comedian George Carlin. As Cord Blomquist’s statement says: Like Bruce…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/23/2008

The MPAA has sent two network printers take-down notices for supposedly sharing copyrighted movie files. This came about because “researchers at the University of Washington…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/23/2008

The Google-Yahoo ad deal has come under a lot of scrutiny recently. As I reported earlier, in the wake of Microsoft’s failure to acquire…

• By: Christine Hall
• 06/23/2008

Ever wonder when online advertising will become more useful than annoying? Or, more useful than irrelevant? Imagine my surprise to discover an ad targeted to…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/23/2008

A big tax increase is likely during the next administration, with self-employed people in many areas facing marginal tax rates of “60% or higher”…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 06/23/2008

Wired, reports that a credit card company has come under fire and FTC investigation for “behavioral scoring”: reducing credit limits for people who use…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/23/2008

We reported earlier on the New York Attorney General’s successful attempt to coerce ISPs into censoring their content. Later that day,…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/23/2008

In today’s Wall Street Journal, CEI’s John Berlau explains how the mortgage bailout bill contains ominous provisions that would create a vast fingerprint database.  The bill also contains…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/22/2008

Congress’s mortgage bailout bill perversely rewards the irresponsible federal agencies and politically-connected companies that caused the mortgage crisis, as the Wall Street Journal explains in an…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 06/22/2008

Travel used to be great.  It was regulated and high-priced, so most people didn’t travel that much.  With regulated prices, airlines competed based on service. …

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/20/2008

Teenagers in the UK are using Google Earth to find backyard swimming pools, then using Facebook to organize flashmobs at said pools. The…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/20/2008

“He’s reliable. He’s considerate. He’s like your exact opposite.” “So he’s Bizarro Jerry.” “Bizarro Jerry?” “Yeah, like Bizarro Superman, Superman’s exact…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/20/2008

Verizon announced a new, zippy broadband plan for all markets through its FiOS fiber optic service. Customers will be able to download at 50mbps…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/20/2008

The House has overwhelmingly passed, by a vote of 293-to-129, a FISA reform bill that would kill multibillion dollar lawsuits brought by the ACLU and…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/20/2008

Ars predicts that a new war over net neutrality has begun in Canada. The ISP Bell Canada was discovered to have reduced the speed…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/20/2008

The FCC just granted Sprint Nextel permission to stay in the 800MHz band the company had been using to provide service to 16 million…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/20/2008

Congressional leaders have apparently struck a deal that “would strengthen the ability of intelligence officials to eavesdrop on foreign targets.”  Such eavesdropping to fight terrorism has…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/19/2008

CNET reveals that AT&T will be paying Apple $325 to $425 (depending on where the phone was purchased) per iPhone sold – much more…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/19/2008

Congress has banned drilling for oil in much of America, even barren, desolate Arctic land, cutting our domestic oil supply.  The ban harms the environment…

• By: Alex Harris
• 06/19/2008

YouTube has just launched a new area, called the Screening Room, for independent shorts. According to Ars, the Screening Room “will feature…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 06/19/2008

What to do when busybody neighbors try to tell you what you can and cannot do on your own property — and seek local government’s…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/19/2008

A Richmond businessman lost 86 pounds eating only at McDonald’s.  Former CEI adjunct scholar Soso Whaley lost 18 pounds over the course of 60 days…

• By: Hans Bader
• 06/19/2008

The Supreme Court ruled today that federal labor law bars a state from curbing the rights of employers to speak out about union organizing by…