By now we’ve talked at length about the hot mess that has been the Biden administration’s attempt to properly staff the FCC. After an inexplicable 8 month delay, the Biden administration picked popular consumer advocate Gigi Sohn for the spot. But a relentless, often homophobic, multi-year smear campaign by telecom/media giants and their GOP allies […]
Most of us wouldn’t argue that private companies can’t run their businesses the way they prefer. The gold standard has been the right to refuse service to anyone — something that covers everything from refusing paper checks from certain customers to booting people off social media services for refusing to stop behaving like inveterate assholes. […]
Well, well, the “Taco Tuesday” battle appears to be heating up quickly. After years of holding and policing its trademark for “Taco Tuesday,” chain Taco John’s has found itself in a battle with Taco Bell, which is petitioning the trademark office to rescind its rival’s mark due to it becoming generic. I noted in that […]
In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement officers need a warrant if they want to search people’s cell phones. Since that day nearly nine years ago, no federal court has managed to make that ruling stick at our nation’s borders, which have been declared Not-Quite-the-United-States when it comes to our rights. The “Constitution-free […]
Over the last few years, there’s been a lot of fretting among the media, politicians, and others about how “deep fakes” would have a major impact on events, with faked imagery, audio, and video creating havoc on news events and political campaigns. Back in 2019, we had published a story suggesting that people calm down […]
Coming up soon, the government faces an expiration data for its Section 702 surveillance powers. Section 702 allows the NSA to gather content and communications from “upstream” providers. This means the NSA can camp out on international cables to gather every international communications rolling through (often) underwater internet cables. Far be it from me to […]
Scrivener is the go-to app for writers of all kinds, used every day by best-selling novelists, screenwriters, non-fiction writers, students, academics, lawyers, journalists, translators, and more. Scrivener won’t tell you how to write—it simply provides everything you need to start writing and keep writing. Scrivener makes it easy to structure ideas, write a first draft, […]
To recap: due to unsubstantiated fear-mongering about TikTok, the lack of a real federal privacy law, and a weird obsession with China, Montana passed a blatantly unconstitutional law banning TikTok in the state. Last week, governor Greg Gianforte signed the bill into law and we predicted his doing so would cost Montana taxpayers a ton […]
The EU is currently proposing a plan to tax Big Tech companies, and throw that money at Big Telecom companies. For no coherent reason. The proposal is part of the EU’s efforts to craft digital policies for the next few decades. While this is purportedly for “broadband expansion,” it’s not… really. Both EU and U.S. telecoms […]
For years, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has had a gang problem. And for just as many years, sheriff after elected sheriff have refused to address this problem. It’s not simply a matter of taking a hands-off approach to discipline. It’s been a matter of flat-out denial from sheriffs that deputies are forming gangs seemingly […]
While U.S. consumer protection is generally a hot mess, one promising bright spot continues to be the bipartisan traction seen on right to repair issues. For decades, tech giants across numerous sectors have attempted to monopolize repair, making it harder and more expensive to repair things you own due to repair center consolidation, annoying DRM, […]
Cops keep letting us know who they really are. They can’t seem to help themselves. They demand to be viewed as good guys, but far too often, they align themselves with fascists, racists, and opportunistic politicians who align themselves with fascists and racists. When the latest presidential election delivered a loss to Donald Trump, his […]
There are, certainly, all sorts of questions about what is generally referred to today as AI, and what it will do, and if it needs to be regulated, but it would help if we had law makers who had the slightest clue what they were talking about. Senator Rand Paul is upset about AI and […]
For as long as the FBI has had access to NSA collections under its Section 702 authority, the FBI has abused this access. Section 702 allows the NSA to collect content and communications via “upstream” channels. It’s a powerful dragnet and one that is supposed to be foreign-facing, so as not to violate the rights […]
xTiles is the simplest way to visualize your workflows, projects, and ideas. Visual search and real-time collaboration enable you to make your work life more efficient. xTiles allows you to collaborate and build off ideas by sharing notes, links, and media in a second. Whether you’re brainstorming your work and personal projects or just trying […]
It’s no secret that Twitter isn’t paying many of its bills, including the rent for its headquarters. That was rumored last fall, but became much more clear when the landlords sued the company in January. Now a new lawsuit, filed last week by six former employees, provides a lot more details on Elon’s view of, […]
Despite years of cable industry executives claiming that cord cutting (ditching traditional cable TV) was either a fiction or a fad, that wound up being… not true. Executive claims that cord cutting was finally slowing down and would soon effectively stop? Also, surprisingly, not true. When I’d write about the cord cutting trend I’d get […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone (who has a lot of wins this week) responding to the argument that Elon Musk’s attacks on George Soros are not anti-semitic: It is anti-Semitic, however, to posit that George Soros is part of, or the mastermind behind, a decades-long multi-national […]
Normally on Saturday we have our “this week in history” posts, highlighting Techdirt stories from many years ago. But this week I wanted to highlight a story that didn’t happen on Techdirt, but turned into a Techdirt thing. Twenty years ago today, actress/singer Barbra Streisand sued photographer Kenneth Adelman for daring to photograph her coastal […]
I don’t often highlight the things that cops do right. That’s for several reasons. First, I don’t think it’s worth applauding officers for managing to do their jobs without violating anyone’s rights. Second, I don’t think it’s cute when cops pull over people to give them Thanksgiving turkeys or aid and abet marriage proposals. That’s […]
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