Whether it is lifting net neutrality regulations, allowing AI to reach its full potential to benefit mankind, educating policy makers about content moderation, clearing legacy regulations at the Federal Communications Commission, advocating for greater spectrum efficiency, or defending business practices that benefit consumers but are disliked by antitrust enforcers, CEI punches above its weight. Coalition activity, relationships with tech and telecom journalists, media appearances, policy events, Capitol Hill outreach, op-eds, and in-depth studies combine to make CEI influential in the tech and telecom policy area.
Tech and Telecom Issue Areas
Featured Posts
Blog
Antitrust abuse threatens America’s AI dominance
On July 14, 2025, Jensen Huang, CEO of Santa Clara-based NVIDIA, and President Donald Trump agreed to allow NVIDIA to resume its exports to…
News Release
Supreme Court ruling on social media age verification isn’t the final word: CEI analysis
The Supreme Court today in an emergency ruling declined to block Mississippi from enforcing an age-verification law imposed on nine social media platforms. The trade group…
Blog
Closing the window on public media funding
A door has closed, but windows remain open. Recently, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced that it would discontinue operations in light of…
Search Posts
News Release
Gattuso/Singleton Letter to Rep. Tauzin on Reciprocal Compensation
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> September 11, 2000…
Products
Prohibition, Privacy & Protection: The Real Online Gamble
From the August/September 2000 issue of CEI UpDate. On August 10, Jay Cohen was sentenced to 21 months in prison and a $5,000 fine. His…
Products
Fannie and Freddie: Fiscal Frauds
From the August/September 2000 issue of CEI UpDate Those who fear that undue accumulations of power are destabilizing the American economy always…
Products
An Instant Message to AOL’s Competitors
From the August/September 2000 issue of CEI UpDate In late July, the Federal Communiations Commission held a hearing on issues…
Study
Publicity Value of Having Someone Do a Take-Off on Your Commercial: Priceless
Last week, MasterCard filed a $5 million law suit against Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign for piggybacking on its “Priceless” ad series. …
Op-Eds
Privacy Precepts Learned the Hard Way: Melugin Op-Ed in Washington Times
For recently bankrupt Toysmart.com, trying to liquidate its customer information database has been more like playing with matches than children’s toys. Last week’s…
Op-Eds
Swap New For Old: Congress Shouldn’t Impose Tired Rules On OTC Derivatives — Sheehan in IBD
Published in Investor’s Business Daily Published in Investor’s Business Daily August 9, 2000 America's continued financial leadership…
Op-Eds
Double-Click For Consumers: Melugin Op-Ed in Washington Times
Published in The Washington Times<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> August 1, 2000 “We…
Op-Eds
Child Online Protection Act Won’t Protect Our Children: Alban Op-Ed in Idaho Statesman
Published in The Idaho Statesman July 20, 2000 <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Who could be…
Op-Eds
Protecting Privacy on the Internet: Melugin Op-Ed in Washington Times
Published in the Washington Times<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> July 5, 2000 The…
Products
Politics & Privacy
New developments in the online-privacy debate are threatening to push federal and state bureaucrats’ desire for regulatory control to critical mass. Not only…
Products
Kemp — Real Tax Reform First: Don’t Tackle Net Taxation until We Overhaul the System
More than 100 million American adults now use the Internet, up from 65 million in mid-1998 and 84 million at the end of 1998. …
News Release
CEI Statement on the Microsoft Case
Washington, DC, June 7, 2000 – Today’s Microsoft verdict represents an unjustified assault on the information revolution and the welfare of consumers, in favor…
Op-Eds
James Gattuso Reviews “Winners, Losers and Microsoft”
Artemus Ward once remarked that the problem with the world isn’t what we don’t know: “It’s the things we know that just ain’t…
Products
Empowering Consumers on the Internet
The Federal Trade Commission’s latest online privacy report, released last month, calls for federal regulation of the way Internet companies collect and use…
Study
Empowering Consumers on the Internet: How Privacy-Protecting Technologies Have Rendered Regulation Unnecessary
The Federal Trade Commission’s latest online privacy report, released earlier this week, calls for federal regulation of the way Internet companies collect and…
Study
Internet Taxation: Why Wyden Won’t Wash
View Full Document as PDF After only three weeks of what apparently passes for congressional deliberation these days, the Internet tax…
Study
Internet Taxation: Controversy Likely to Continue
Less than a month after the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce (ACEC) delivered its report to Congress, the House Judiciary Committee has passed a…
Study
End the “Bank Anti-Secrecy” Assault on Financial Privacy
View Full Document as PDF Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers recently announced plans to ask Congress to greatly expand the powers of the…
Products
Judge Greene of the 21st Century?
The Justice Department’s plan was simple. Just break up the company into separate firms, based upon product lines. The parts with monopoly or bottleneck…
Products
Drop the Limits! Limits on Foreign Technology Workers Hurt America
The technology sector accounts for close to one-third of the productivity growth in today’s economy, but the pool of qualified American tech workers…
Citation
Government Wants Control of MS
News Release
Bust Up Microsoft? CEI Weighs In
Statement of James L. Gattuso, Vice President, and Clyde Wayne Crews, Director, Competition and Regulation Policy, April 28, 2000 “The extreme plan…
Op-Eds
Break up Microsoft? (Letter to the Editor)
To the Editor: Of course Paul Krugman is right, that, along with the loss of a uniform standard that allows many kinds of software to…
Op-Eds
Anti-Trust Law For Dummies
There's a secret to anti-trust law, but learning it isn't likely to reassure a high tech investor pondering the implications of the Microsoft verdict. The…
Op-Eds
The US versus Microsoft: Winners and Losers — Melugin Op-Ed in Ft. Worth Star-Telegram
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Let Consumers – Not the Government – Play Favorites…
News Release
Microsoft Stands Up for Consumers and Innovation
Washington, DC, April 3, 2000 – Consumers and the Competitive Enterprise Institute today praised Microsoft for refusing to sell out consumers’ interests by settling…
Products
California, Here They Come
Last month, I briefly visited the San Francisco Bay area. I’ve been in the region numerous times during the past few years, and each…
Study
Internet Sales Taxation: Beyond the Moratorium
The Internet sales tax debate has been between the National Governors Association’s proposal to grant states the power of remote taxation and the…
Study
Antitrust Not On Internet Time: Microsoft Remedies Discount Serious Competitive Threats
Many have come to believe that the technology industry requires strict governmental policing of allegedly anti-competitive behavior. But today’s software and Internet companies…
Study
Privacy Disclosure Requirements: Boon or Bane?
View Full Document as PDF Après Reg P: Le Deluge–You’ve Got (Lots of) Mail The booming US economy demonstrates the…
Op-Eds
Rocket Fuel for Tech Stocks
Delong Op-Ed in Tech Central Station Last week, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair harrumphed about ownership rights in human genetic research, and biotech…
News Release
Institute Proposes ‘Golden Rule’ of E-Commerce
Washington, DC, March 20, 2000 – “I urge the Advisory Commission of Electronic Commerce to do the right thing this week and oppose taxation…
Products
Keep Internet Privacy Privatized
The Federal Trade Commission announced to some fanfare recently it would be investigating various health care Web sites, along with Internet advertising agency DoubleClick,…
Op-Eds
Don’t Tax the Net: Fred Smith in Economic Affairs
Published in Economic Affairs, the journal of the Institute of Economic Affairs<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Edited…
News Release
High Tech Expert Joins CEI
Washington, DC, February 2, 2000 – The Competitive Enterprise Institute announced today that Jessica Melugin has joined the staff as a Policy Analyst. Prior…
Products
AOL Time Warner? Not Big Enough for Tomorrow’s Internet
The America Online-Time Warner alliance is important not just for its size nor for the synergy it may create. It demonstrates in the real…
Study
Windows and the “Applications Barrier to Entry”: Fact or Fantasy?
View Full Document as PDF Very soon, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson is expected to issue his conclusions of law…
Study
The Future of Financial Privacy
Chapters Now Available In PDF Format In The Future of Financial Privacy, a new book from the Competitive Enterprise Institute,…
News Release
CEI to Commission: Don’t Shackle E-Commerce with Taxes
Washington, DC, December 14, 1999 – Internet taxes would cause irreparable harm to the New Economy, millions of Internet consumers, and the cause of…
Study
Privacy and Human Rights: Comparing the United States to Europe
One premise shaping the debate about privacy law in the United States is that the European Data Protection Directive is a more advanced…
Products
In the Dark at Sun
Products
Method to Telecom Merger Madness
The telecommunications world was rocked in October with news of the merger between MCI-WorldCom and Sprint–in dollar terms the largest merger in US history.
Products
Rush to Tax Could Produce Net Loss
In the great Kurosawa Akira movie, The Seven Samurai, a bandit gang rides to a hillside and looks down on a small village. One…
Comment
Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce
Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce September 14-15, 1999 New York, New York Executive Summary Statement of Frances B. Smith Executive Director, Consumer Alert September 9,…
Op-Eds
New Pricing Plans Are Good
This isn’t your father’s telecommunications market. Long-distance pricing was once onesize-fits-all, with high, distance-sensitive rates cast in stone by regulators. Now that is changing, as…
Study
Microsoft Trial: The Heat is On
View Full Document as PDF This summer, the heat is on Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson even more than the rest of…
Study
The Data Access Law: Promoting Accountability and Privacy
With the passage of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1966, our society decided to promote government transparency: what is done in government’s name…
Op-Eds
Closing Electronic Frontiers?
On May 6, the world of telecommunications was rocked by the announcement of AT&T’s $54 billion acquisition of MediaOne, the nation’s fourth-largest cable television company.
Op-Eds
Enemies Of The Stasis
Full Article Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Virginia Postrel's excellent book “The Future and Its Enemies” details the…
Staff & Scholars
Jessica Melugin
Director of the Center for Technology & Innovation
- Antitrust
- Innovation
- Media, Speech and Internet Freedoms
Clyde Wayne Crews
Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies
- Business and Government
- Consumer Freedom
- Deregulation
Fred L. Smith, Jr.
Founder; Chairman Emeritus
- Automobiles and Roads
- Aviation
- Business and Government