William Kovacic’s latest paper discusses the role of the Federal Trade Commission and the development of Internet policy. He portrays the FTC as an organization with a long role and storied role in directing Internet development, with an emphasis on consumer protection, among other areas.

Randolph J. May writes that the health care public option and what he calls the “Internet public option” share similar threads.

The Free State Foundation
Annual Winter Telecom Policy Conference
Panel: The FCC’s Broadband Plan: The Good, The Bad, and the Just So-So?
January 29, 2010
Moderator Deborah Taylor Tate, an adjunct senior fellow at the foundation and a former FCC commissioner, joined several panelists to discuss the upcoming FCC broadband plan, which is due to be released March 17. The panel included:
Stuart Benjamin and Paul de Sa of the FCC;

Jeffrey Campbell, the senior director of technology and trade policy for Cisco Systems; “The thing about the National Broadband Plan that is really important for …

The American Consumer Institute
Center for Citizen Research
Innovation and National Broadband Policies: Facts, Fiction and Unanswered Questions
March 2, 2010
Larry F. Darby
Joeseph P. Fuhr

Two sources, here and here, have now confirmed some blurbs seen on Twitter the last few days that March’s upcoming Broadband Plan will include the proposition of a website called Video.gov.

The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation
Going Mobile: Technology and Policy Issues in the Mobile Internet
Richard Bennett
March 2, 2010

Digital Nation: 21st Century America’s Progress Toward Universal Broadband Internet Access
An National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) Research Preview
February 2010

It appears that our friends to the north are getting a little added attention on Twitter, not for the Olympics but focused rather on the telecom sector. Back in the spotlight is the infamous Berkman report describing how Canada is falling behind the rest of the world in broadband connectivity.

Demystifying Net Neutrality
Webinar Presented by The Diffusion Group and VideoNuze
Will Richmond, VideoNuze; Collin Dixon, The Diffusion Group; Barbara Esbin, Progress & Freedom Foundation; Chris Riley, Free Press
February 4, 2010

In the last few years, to protect copyright and prevent piracy, game publishers have had to start moving toward some rather extreme forms of protection. Of course gamers today never had the experience I had growing up where I had to plug a security circuit into the I/O port to play some Sierra games on my Apple IIGS Woz Edition. Video game DRM (Digital Rights Management) used to prevent piracy and the software winding up on all the top torrent sites is a big issue these days. But some of the most egregious forms of DRM have simply been smashed by the hacking and torrenting community.