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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Sunlight Foundation event on MLK, Jr., Day at HLS
The Sunlight Foundation has kindly chosen the Berkman Center at HLS as the venue for an all-day session today, “Political Information in an Internet Era.” We’re grateful to a dedicated group of civic activists who join us today on their holiday. The frame for the event, as Zephyr Teachout and her team put it, is…
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Participate in a survey on Digital Media by Harvard undergrads
Five talented students in my Freshman Seminar at Harvard College have created a survey on digital media usage. They could use your help if you are currently an undergrad at a US college. Here’s the announcement, in their words: “Do you condone stealing? “Internet piracy is a prevalent issue on college campuses from coast to…
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Go Placeblogger!
Lisa Williams is off and running with Placeblogger. It’s a wonderful idea and will no doubt be a terrific service. And she’s started with a Top10 list of Placeblogs.
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More patenting in the RSS space
As a follow-up to earlier posts on this topic: Microsoft has filed a large-scale patent application related to RSS. (A news story here and Dave Winer’s post on it here.) Microsoft’s patent application, (published on December 21, 2006, filed on June 21, 2005 — though those may not be the most relevant facts in terms…
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Happy Birthday, Creative Commons!
The Berkman Center crowd gathered for a team photo to wish Larry Lessig and our cousins at Creative Commons a very happy 4th birthday! Also, check out the iCommons collage. (Photo credit to Erica George on Doc Searls’s camera.)
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Silke Ernst, Urs Gasser on the EUCD
A long-awaited paper from Prof. Dr. Urs Gasser and his colleague, Silke Ernst, on best practices for implementing the EUCD has been published. From their intro: “Today, years after intense struggles and tussles, almost all EU Member States have transposed the EU-Copyright Directive (EUCD) into national law. However,the continuing controversies surrounding the EUCD itself and…
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Tonight: Event on Technology and Legal Education at HLS
If you are free from 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. EST tonight, (Thursday, December 7, 2007), whether or not in Cambridge, MA, please consider joining us for a discussion of the future of legal education, with an emphasis on the role of information technologies. The event will take place in Austin West on the HLS…
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StopBadware, CDT Complaint to US FTC
Today, we at StopBadware, along with our friends at the Center for Democracy and Technology, are filing our first complaint to the FTC about a badware application, called FastMP3Search Plugin. As Christina Olson put it on the SBW blog, we are highlighting “FastMP3Search.com.ar for distributing badware to unsupecting Internet users. FastMP3Search.com.ar is a site that…
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Summer Doctoral Programme 2007 Application Period Open
One of my favorite parts of the year is the Oxford Internet Institute’s Summer Doctoral Programme that takes place in the seond half of July. For the past several years, the Berkman Center has partnered with OII on this programme. We’ve sent faculty and students every year. The especially cool part for this year is…
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Psiphon Released!
Congratulations to Professor Ron Deibert (a/k/a “profd”) and his entire Citizen Lab team on today’s release of their new application, psiphon. The festivities here in Toronto include lectures at noon, as part of Protect the Net – Toronto, and then the world-wide release of the application from 3 – 7 p.m., all at the Munk…
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Derek Slater on Digital Natives and Email
Derek Slater notices, as others have, that Digital Natives only use email for “formal” activities, liking corresponding with adults and turning in homework. Informal interaction is through internal communications mechanisms in Facebook or MySpace or on IM. I wonder if it’s push (e-mail is less useful than it once was, plagued by spam and so…
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When Academics Write Fiction
Those who write academic articles and books for a living are not always good at writing fiction. I’m reading a novel that, for me, breaks the mold: Stephen L. Carter‘s The Emperor of Ocean Park. As usual, I’m about 4 years after everyone else. Prof. Carter, a prolific scholar and the William Nelson Cromwell Professor…