Time Warner Cable Is Ready For A 'Conversation' About Rising Costs, But Not...
It's no secret that lots of internet users hate the idea of metered broadband. It adds serious mental transaction costs in using the internet ("will watching this movie actually cost me lots of money...
View ArticleNew Patent Reform Bill Defines Software Patents; Targets Trolls
We've discussed the "America Invents Act," a patent reform bill that passed last year after years of Congressional fighting. As we (and plenty of others) noted at the time, for all the hyperbole...
View ArticleYes, It Would Be Prohibitively Costly For Google To Offer Google Fiber...
A bunch of folks have been sending over Business Insider's coverage of a Goldman Sachs Report concerning Google Fiber, and how much it would cost to roll it out nationwide. The estimate from BI, which...
View ArticleVerizon Charging You More, As Bandwidth Costs Them Less
As we just recently discussed, broadband providers appear to finally be willing to give up their pretend need for data caps due to the pretend costs of delivering service. The story they told...
View ArticleHow Far Does The National Snooping Dollar Stretch?
The surveillance dragnet in the US is undeniably large. As such, lots of money (your money) goes into financing the collection of "relevant" data (your data). We've already seen the generous $100...
View ArticlePublic Service Commission Orders Verizon To Cough Up Cost Data On Its New...
At the tail end of October, we brought you the story of Verizon's attempt to subvert New York's Freedom of Information Law by releasing hundreds of fully-redacted pages. Information on costs related...
View ArticleFlorida State Attorney's Office Demands $180,000 To Release Records...
With the advent of freedom of information laws came a series of guidelines meant to encourage government agencies to follow not just the letter, but the spirit of the law. There's always been a gap...
View ArticleReport Says Backlash From NSA's Surveillance Programs Will Cost Private...
The Open Technology Institute has put together a thorough paper detailing the many adverse effects the NSA disclosures have had, both on American businesses inside and outside of the tech sector, as...
View ArticleResearch Shows Mass Surveillance Fails 'Drastically' In Striking Balance...
One of the many problems with the debate on mass surveillance is that it is largely driven by emotions, on both sides. Facts are few and far between -- much is secret, for obvious reasons -- which...
View ArticleClik here to view.
100 Million Pennies For Your Thoughts? DEA Hands MuckRock A $1.4 Million...
The EFF recently kicked off a contest for the "most outrageous response to a Freedom of Information Act request" and we already have a frontrunner for the first inaugural "Foilie." MuckRock's loose...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Senator John McCain Weighs In On 'Going Dark' Debate -- Insists That He...
Who knew that Senator John McCain understood encryption better than actual cryptographers? Late last week, he wrote an op-ed for Bloomberg View, in which he trots out all the usual talking points on...
View ArticleThree Strikes System In Australia 'Too Costly' For Industry; Seems Piracy Not...
It was evident when the "three strikes" or "graduated response" was first proposed in France back in 2009 that it was a really bad idea. After all, in its crudest form, it cuts people off from what...
View ArticleVerizon Insists Higher Phone Upgrades Are Being Used To Enhance The Network...
Within Karl Bode's post about Verizon's insistence that all of the people who continue to use grandfathered unlimited data plans don't actually exist was a brief note about the company's decision to...
View ArticleAre IT Failures Costing $6.2 Trillion Per Year?
I'm always quite skeptical about huge numbers that come out of studies, such as the "losses" claimed by the entertainment industry due to piracy. So I was pretty skeptical of a story (found via...
View ArticleAT&T Accidentally Reveals That It Doesn't Need T-Mobile At All
One of the key talking points from AT&T in support of the T-Mobile merger is that it "needs" T-Mobile's spectrum in order to expand its planned 4G/LTE networks to cover 97% of the population. And,...
View ArticleVerizon Charging You More, As Bandwidth Costs Them Less
As we just recently discussed, broadband providers appear to finally be willing to give up their pretend need for data caps due to the pretend costs of delivering service. The story they told...
View ArticleWireless Carriers Won't Comment On 5G's Most Important Question: How Much...
We've noted a few times that while fifth-generation wireless (5G) will certainly improve the speed, reliability, and latency of existing networks, it's being pretty painfully overhyped by hardware...
View ArticleVerizon Confirms That Yes, 5G Will Cost You Extra
By now we've established that while fifth-generation (5G) wireless will result in faster, more resilient networks, the technology has been over-hyped to an almost nauseating degree. Yes, faster, lower...
View ArticleWeaponizing The GDPR: Gamers Want To Use It To Flood Blizzard With Requests...
We live in such fascinating times. We've had some posts concerning people getting (rightly) angry about Blizzard banning a top player who supported the protests in Hong Kong. In order to make the...
View ArticleGood News: Academics Can Make Their Articles Published In Top Journal Nature...
Two years ago, Techdirt wrote about Plan S, an initiative from top research funders that requires all work they support to be published as open access. It's one of the most important moves to get...
View Article