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
News Release
Market-based Reforms Needed to Correct Failures of Universal Service Subsidies, Congress Urged to Act
A new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) highlights the pervasive failures of the Universal Service Fund (USF) subsidies and calls on Congress…
Blog
Good things happen when spectrum is allocated to the marketplace
There has been recent legislative activity on spectrum allocation, so it is a good time to remind ourselves why moving as much spectrum as…
Blog
For the sake of user privacy, keep Google search remedies narrow and germane
The movement in the Biden and Trump administrations of antitrust officials away from consumer welfare and towards a federal judiciary of active regulation is on…
Search Posts
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…
News Release
Jack Kemp Named Distinguished Fellow At Competitive Enterprise Institute
Washington, DC, April 29, 1999 – The Competitive Enterprise Institute is pleased to announce that the Honorable Jack Kemp has been named CEI’s first…
News Release
The Case Against The Case Against Microsoft: New Study Criticizes DOJ Case
Washington, DC, April 27, 1999 – Are Microsoft’s current business practices hurting consumers? A new study by Barry Fagin, Senior Fellow in Technology Policy…
Energy Central
CEI Analyst Says Scrap Open Access Legislation
Energy Central
Is More Privacy a Good Idea? (Letter to the Editor)
To the Editor: Amitai Etzioni (“Privacy. Isn’t Dead Yet,” Op-Ed, April 6) vastly understates the availability of technologies that provide “cyberspace anonymity.” His worries about…
Study
The Case Against The Case Against Microsoft
Full Document Available in PDF The current antitrust case against Microsoft has…
Op-Eds
The New Trustbusters
Joel Klein is a famous man. The head of the Antitrust Division at the U.S. Department of Justice usually toils in anonymity, known only…
Study
A Defective Product: Consumer Groups’ Study of Microsoft In Need of Recall
View Full Document as PDF Consumer groups are supposed to be on the side of consumers. But three such groups – the…
Energy Central
Customers Granted Microsoft its 90 Percent Market Share
Op-Eds
Mandatory Open Access for Electricity: Is there a better way?
“Mandatory open access to the power grid is the wrong paradigm for restructuring. Although open access is advocated by virtually all of today’s reformers, it…
Op-Eds
Government Research Funding And Economic Distortion
Full Chapter Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Science and technology are good things. Still, there are many good…
Study
Why Robert Bork Is Wrong:
Is there a clear legal precedent for the successful prosecution of Microsoft? Robert H. Bork seems to think so. He has stated emphatically…
Study
Computers and Competition: A Primer for Congress
With a new Microsoft hearing in the Senate on Thursday, legislators should keep in mind some crucial facts that argue against interference in…
Products
Derivatives Regulation: Problems and Prospects
Derivatives regulation in the United States is a jumble of legal fields, including banking, securities, commodities, and bankruptcy law. And any time multiple areas…
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