• Free Our Phones

    Josh Levy
    March 6, 2013

    UPDATE, MARCH 6: The push to legalize cellphone unlocking is gaining momentum. 

    In the last couple of days, bipartisan members of Congress have promised to fix the issue. Sen. Ron Wyden has already introduced a bill to legalize unlocking, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Jason Chaffetz have promised to introduce similar legislation. 

  • Midnight Train to Dial-Up

    Josh Levy
    March 5, 2013
    An awful bill in Georgia could prevent communities from building their own high-speed Internet networks. We may have less than a week to stop it.

  • Al Gore Digs Net Neutrality

    Josh Levy
    February 28, 2013
    Here’s something you don’t see every day: A former U.S. vice president talking at length about Net Neutrality and Internet freedom.

  • Meet the New CISPA. Same as the Old CISPA.

    Josh Levy
    February 15, 2013
    Last year, thanks to a public outcry, the effort to pass overreaching cybersecurity legislation stalled in the Senate. Now supporters have reintroduced the House version of that legislation — the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). The “new” version is in fact identical to the original CISPA — and poses the same threat to our digital civil liberties and our freedom to connect online.

  • (Not So) Free Wi-Fi

    Josh Levy
    February 4, 2013
    Having failed to garner sufficient congressional support for SOPA, the powerful content industry (big Hollywood studios, the Recording Industry of America, etc.) has now partnered with equally powerful Internet service providers to hatch a “Six Strikes” plan that may threaten the availability of free public Wi-Fi.

  • What AT&T's Latest Scheme Would Mean for American Consumers

    Josh Levy
    S. Derek Turner
    January 31, 2013

    In January, a German court ruled that the Internet is an “essential” part of life.

    "The Internet plays a very important role today and affects the private life of an individual in very decisive ways,” said a court spokeswoman. “Therefore loss of use of the Internet is comparable to the loss of use of a car."

  • Genachowski's Gigabit Gambit

    Josh Levy
    January 23, 2013

    Last week, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski extolled the virtues of “gigabit” broadband:

    Making sure the U.S. has super-fast, high-capacity, ubiquitous broadband networks delivering speeds measured in gigabits, not megabits, isn’t just a matter of consumer convenience, as important as that is. It’s essential to economic growth, job creation and U.S. competitiveness.

  • AT&T: More Barriers. In More Devices.

    Josh Levy
    January 18, 2013

    AT&T is caving. Sort of.

    When the iPhone 5 launched last year, Apple announced that FaceTime, its video calling application, would now work over mobile networks.

    This was great news, especially for people who depend on video calling to communicate. But then AT&T blocked its customers from using FaceTime over its network.

  • Lifting the Curtain at the Consumer Electronics Show

    Josh Levy
    January 15, 2013

    Last week at Las Vegas’ Consumer Electronics Show — better known as CES — tech engineers, journalists, bloggers and fanboys did their usual thing, i.e., they fixated on new toys and gadgets.

    Meanwhile, the men behind the curtain — including the chief executives at AT&T and Verizon — were busy making plans for the future of the Internet.

  • Remembering Aaron Swartz

    Josh Levy
    January 14, 2013

    This weekend, the Internet lost one of its biggest champions.

    Aaron Swartz, age 26, died on Friday. The cause was suicide. The loss to his friends, colleagues, fellow activists and the Internet at large is enormous.

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