Technology and the Public Interest

Books, essays, and commentary from John Palfrey

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Commentary from John Palfrey

  • Wireless Philadelphia wiki!

    This week in class, four students argued whether the Philadelphia wireless policy was a sensible model for municipalities around the world.  They did a remarkable job.  Their work is set down for others to see, here, on a class wiki that includes each of their arguments for and against the policy as a model for…

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  • Dan Gillmor, We the Media

    I’ve assigned a substantial portion of Dan Gillmor’s We the Media for class this coming Monday in Internet, Law and Politics at Harvard Law School.  Turns out that the book is sold-out of most of the Harvard Square bookstores, checked out of the libraries, etc. (Not to worry; we’ve ordered some more.)  What is so cool…

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  • "You'd be crazy to rely on Global Voices alone for your world news"

    Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon, the founders of Global Voices, are the guests for today’s class at Harvard Law School in Internet, Law and Politics.  – Ethan’s made clear that GV is a complement to mainstream media, and not a substitute.  “You’d be crazy,” he said, “to rely on Global Voices alone for your world…

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  • Statement Regarding the RSS 2.0 Specification

    We’ve heard from a number of people about an uneasy (and unfounded) sense that something is happening with respect to the RSS 2.0 spec.  Just by way of clarification, nothing has changed from the perspective of Harvard, which is the owner and trustee of the RSS 2.0 spec.  To review the bidding, a few years…

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  • Written Testimony for US House IR Committee Hearing on China and Internet

    The report of the hearing, for which I’ve submitted written testimony for the record today, in the United States House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations and Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, is here.

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  • Debate: Did the Dean Campaign change campaigning forever?

    Today in “Internet, Law and Politics,” a course at HLS, students are debating whether or not the Howard Dean Campaign’s online campaigning activities changed campaigning for ever.  The basic question: has a new frontier been opened in American politics — that a campaign must have a digital strategy in order to succeed? One side has posted here and…

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  • February 15 Hearing Notice Posted on China and Internet

    JOINT SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING NOTICE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515 SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS and SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC Christopher H. Smith, New Jersey, Chairman James A. Leach, Iowa, Chairman February 8, 2006 TO:  MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS You are…

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  • Written remarks at Congressional Human Rights Caucus hearing regarding China today

    Mister Chairman, Distinguished Members of the Caucus:   My name is John Palfrey.  Thank you for the leadership of this Caucus in drawing attention to the relationship between the Internet and human rights in China and for the opportunity to speak with you today.  I am here today as a member of a team of…

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  • Microsoft's new policy on blogging, censorship, and surveillance

    I’m at the Berkman Center feverishly trying to finish testimony for the Congressional Human Rights Caucus hearing tomorow in DC.  I’m just starting to consider Microsoft’s announcement of its new policy on blogging, censorship and surveillance.  At a minimum, I am pleased to see the transparency of their decision-making, the commitment to a process internally…

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  • Want to see what Google is blocking in China?

    We at the OpenNet Initiative have built a search-compare tool to show what results you get on google.cn as compared to google.com. Be sure to try out “human rights” and some of the other sample searches we’ve got up there. (Special credits to Nart Villeneuve and Boris Anthony.)

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  • MacArthur Foundation grant supports extension of filtering study

      We are enormously grateful to our friends at the MacArthur Foundation for their support, in the form of a $3 million grant, of our next four years on the OpenNet Initiative in its study of filtering and surveillance online.

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  • Making International Organizations More Democratic

      Alois Stutzer and Bruno S. Frey (University of Zurich) have a new paper out in the Review of Law & Economics called “Making International Organizations More Democratic.”  Likely of interest to the watchers of ICANN, WSIS, and related institutions in the Internet space (what I think of as the NetDialogue crowd!). The abstract: “World…

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