Tech at Night

Have you heard about The Weather Channel trying to force Dish Network to buy its programming? Yes, they actually want the Obama administration to force that to happen. They claim it’s a public service, except ratings are falling and they don’t even do exclusively weather anymore. Guys, it’s 2014: People get the weather on the Internet and on their phones. Nobody needs to watch cable TV for weather anymore. We must not use government to subsidize this buggy whip manufacturer.

Bitcoin continues to be used for crime, and leading Bitcoin groups are clouded by scams, so it’s no wonder Joe Manchin wants to ban the whole thing.

I can’t really blame him. I can’t support it – we already have money laundering laws – but I understand it.

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Tech at Night

How do we know that the NSA stuff is being driven by anti-Americanism? So much outrage about NSA and American allies, but so little about Russia, China, and American rivals. Heck, I’m not even seeing a peep about a Chicom firm Lenovo buying Google Motorola.

Now here’s a major reform idea I could get behind: merging FCC and FTC. By removing one entity, we reduce the added burden on business when two different regulators come after them for the same stuff. Getting rid of DoJ’s antitrust division would help, too. Because now even SEC is grabbing new tech powers.

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Tech at Night

Here at RedState this week, Fred Campbell compared Retransmission Consent with Net Neutrality. Some may think the Steve Scalise bill (on an idea backed by Jim DeMint when he was in the Senate) doesn’t go far enough, but it’s a step, and it’s a lot better than the heavy headed, high-regulatory approach promoted by Anna Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren, Democrats both.

The Obama administration may be terrible on phone unlocking, but they managed to get something done with industry after all.

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Tech at Night

How desperate do you have to be? The radicals at Public Knowledge are trying to take credit for Republican initiatives. To claim a lefty was the ‘thought leader’ behind phone unlocking is ridiculous. That was Derek Khanna. Even Washington Post says so.

AT&T is wishing for a modern FCC so that they can innovate with the IP revolution. Instead FCC is threatening the economy by stalling, and for the basest of reasons: to try a power grab.

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Tech at Night

There’s not a whole lot going on right now. Right now I’m seeing a few efforts here and there to push different policies, some good, some bad, but we do need to keep an eye on them in case any one of them takes off.

Let’s start with a bit of a laugh from California. Democrats there are desperately trying to regulate the Internet, but at the same time it’s clear that party in California, now totally hijacked by extremists, has no clue how the Internet actually works. How else would the pass a bill creating a right to delete information from the Internet? Imagine the jokes if Republicans passed such a bill.

The Google effort to push for reasonable FISA transparency continues to gain allies, this time Dropbox, as that firm is now getting criticisms in that area.

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Tech at Night

Sorry for missing Tech at Night on Friday. After that near-miss with a cold, I decided to start the weekend a little early that night. But we’re back. So with five days of news to catch up on, let’s see what we have here.

Here’s a reminder of why Net Neutrality was a terrible idea. Making people pay for what they use creates opportunities for innovation. If ESPN wants to negotiate bulk rates for wireless data, let them!

And yet that John McCain would add more regulations. We need less micromanagement of cable, not more.

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Nima Jooyandeh facts.