Technology and the Public Interest

Books, essays, and commentary from John Palfrey

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Commentary from John Palfrey

  • A few new firsts at the Berkman Center

    Charlie Nesson and his daughter Rebecca Nesson are hosting the Tuesday lunchtime session at the Berkman Center today. – One first is that this is the first video webcast lunch event. We’ve regularly webcast these lunches audio-only. This week, with the help of Indigo Tabor, we are offering a live feed with video as well…

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  • The Internet Governance Forum

    A week or so ago, we at the Berkman Center joined our friends and colleagues at the Oxford Internet Institute in hosting an academic pre-briefing related to the Internet Governance Forum. The IGF, announced in July by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, is the process and institution that has grown out of the two…

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  • 9/11/2006

    I flew this morning from BOS – YUL. It was a full flight. It took off on-time and landed on time. THANK YOU to the brave souls at every airline who got up this morning to make it so for me and for many others.

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  • Bracken on the Limits of Online Life

    John Bracken at Media SITREP says “we are liberated but in the dark.” It’s a fun post: he admits that “our interactive media world isn’t all peaches and cream,” reviews a forthcoming book, and cites the policy proposals of a candidate for AG of New York State. Impressive range.

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  • Good companies sometimes release bad applications

    A few days ago, at StopBadware.org, we released a report on AOL 9.0, the free software on offer from one of the giants of the Internet industry. The back-story on this matter is that we wrestled hard with the right way to release this report. We followed our research process rigorously, following tips and leads…

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  • Jim Moore on Apple, patents, and Creative

    Jim has another must-read post in his series of thought-provoking mini-essays on the patent system, innovation, and the web 2.0 space.

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  • Bloglines, RSS privacy problem

    A call to action: the security infrastructure for RSS is not where it needs to be for the mainstreaming of this technology to work and to be adequately protective of user privacy. I was resetting my Bloglines account this morning, adding some new feeds, taking out some that I don’t read, and so forth. I…

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  • Cool intersection of MSM/blogginess/reporting

    The Boston Herald‘s Kimberly Atkins is promising to take questions from citizens for the three candidates for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Massachusetts. So, if you have something you want to know about Tom Reilly, Deval Patrick, or Chris Gabrieli, please get in touch with her via her blog.

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  • DesignPublic

    I just saw that my friend-since-childhood, Andrew Sanocki, has a fabulous new design-related site called DesignPublic.com. It’s a very hip place in cyberspace. I don’t know much about fashion or design but it seems very cool to me. They have a blog, too, called Hatch.

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  • Hatch-Leahy Patent Reform Proposal

    Just before summer recess, some prominents senators have revived patent reform legislation (more or less) that had been proposed in the House last year. It’s interesting to witness the politics between the Professional Inventors Alliance (which dislikes these proposals) and the Big TechCos (which are full-bore behind it, it appears).

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  • Lessig on Interoperability at Wikimania 2006

    Lawrence Lessig is giving a rousing lecture right now to a standing-room-only crowd in Ames Courtroom at Harvard Law School. It’s a plenary session of Wikimania 2006. He is in his element. It’s amazing to feel the energy in this room — unconveyable by blog or any other Internet-borne medium, but very very real. Interoperability,…

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  • What should Web 2.0 entrepreneurs do about software patents?

    I should start off by saying that I am not a fan of the patent system as a means of establishing IP rights in software. My critique of the system is (at least) five-fold: 1) there is widespread evidence that the system of granting claims in the United States, at least, is deeply flawed (see…

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