Technology and the Public Interest
Books, essays, and commentary from John Palfrey
Essays
Notes from AI Action Summit in Delhi, India, February 2026
Reflections on AI, governance, and the public interest from the AI Action Summit in Delhi.
Read essayConcord Free Public Library 150th Anniversary Celebration
Remarks on libraries, civic institutions, and the enduring importance of public knowledge.
Read essayInvesting in the Arts—in Chicago and Beyond
Thoughts on philanthropy, culture, and why investing in the arts matters for public life.
Read essayCommentary from John Palfrey
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Brad Smith, Microsoft's General Counsel, at Berkman and HLS today
Microsoft’s General Counsel Brad Smith returns to Harvard Law School to speak with students, staff, and faculty, hosted by the Berkman Center.
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Extensions for sharing
Scripting News’ Dave Winer and Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie have today co-announced what promises to be a huge innovation in the RSS and OPML space, called SSE. Here is Ray Ozzie’s introduction to the announcement. In his blog-post, he describes a calendaring problem that certainly resonates. The spec is here. To my lawyer’s mind, best of…
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Fortune on tech companies and censorship
A generally good, clear piece by Fortune senior writer Marc Gunther tackling the important question of the ethics of companies and their involvement in the world’s most repressive regimes from an informational policy standpoint. There are many subtleties between the types of involvement of the companies named in the article, though. We need a reliable…
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Wash. U. School of Law in St. Louis for 1st A conference
I’m sitting between Jack Balkin and Mark McKenna, and across from Jonathan Zittrain’s face on a television screen, at a beautifully-organized conference at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. The topic is the First Amendment and the Rehnquist Court. JZ is giving a cool variant of his generativity story. If you haven’t…
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Expression under Repression at WSIS
A breaking report from on the ground in Tunisia on the filtering topic at the World Summit on the Information Society: the Expression under Repression session and a phalanx of secret police who showed up. In case you missed it, here is the freshly-released, extensive ONI report on Internet filtering in Tunisia. The short form…
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On being filtered in Tunisia, or, What WSIS Should Really Focus On
I am here in Hammamet, Tunisia for the World Summit on the Information Society. On many levels, it’s lovely to be here — beautiful, temperate, a gathering of all manner of interesting, public-spirited people from around the world who care about information and communications technologies. Inside the enormous function hall where the world’s telecomms/technology regulators have gathered…
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State Department piece on UAE
The US Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor released its International Religious Freedom 2005 report.
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82 Comments about the new Somerville Ward 6 Alderperson
The post about Rebekah Gewirtz‘s upset victory over the incumbent of 22 years in the race for Ward 6 Alderman in Somerville, MA, on a local website has garnered 82 comments. Wild.
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Voting in Somerville tomorrow
Ward 6 of Somerville, Massachusetts, has been a hot-bed of political activism this Fall. Election day tomorrow involves tough choices. I thought I’d vote out loud, or at least weigh the options out loud. * A young, progressive woman, Rebekah Gewirtz, with a background in community activism, is challenging 22-year incumbent Jack Connolly for Ward…
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Make Open Wi-Fi illegal in Westchester County?
Oh my. David Isenberg points to the legislative bad-idea-of-the-week. The best/worst part: unless this law is passed, “… somebody parked in the street or sitting in a neighboring building could hack into the network and steal your most confidential data,” Westchester County Executive Andy Spano said in a statement.
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Monday lunch on patents, software, innovation with Kenn Cukier of The Economist
In case you are around 02138 and do not have lunch-plans on Monday, the Berkman Center is hosting an informal, brown-bag (i.e., B-Y-O this time, only because of my last-minute-ness on this score; apologies!) lunch with Kenn Cukier, a former fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and well-respected author and journalist, on the topic…
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This week in Internet governance
The unstoppable Wendy Seltzer has a post on the week in Internet & governance. In particular, she contextualizes two recent hearings related to open standards online.