Quick poll: If you could suggest one tech policy proposal for the Presidential candidates to adopt, what would it be?
Later today, I am speaking on a panel at the Personal Democracy Forum about national tech policy. In the poll below, I’ve listed some general policy proposals that are important to the tech community dealing with Net neutrality, patent reform, H1B Visas, copyright, renewable energy, open-source adoption, and appointments to the FCC.
Please vote and let me know which one you care about the most.
I’ve already started asking some people in the tech community for their ideas, some of which are reflected in the poll. Marc Andreessen says:
I would advocate unlimited H1B’s for anyone college educated (”brain drain the world”) and eliminating software and business method patents.
Also a huge government push to use free and open source software.
Dave Burstein, the editor of DSL Prime has a suggestion for the candidates:
Make sure some of your appointments to the FCC and other agencies have technical competence.
Not one of the 5 FCC Commissioners has a technical background, nor do most of their aides and bureau chiefs. Nearly every rumored candidate for these jobs is a lawyer. One of the best possible choices tells me he has no chance, because he “isn’t a politician.” Far too often decisions simply don’t make sense, possibly because no one senior realizes when the lobbyists are lying. Lawyers and history professors can also have a place, but some of the people at the top should also know the subject in depth
Suggest your own national tech policy proposal in comments. (This is quick and dirty, but we’ll be refining our thinking on this over time with your feedback. A good place to bone up on these and other tech policy issues, and where Barack Obama and John McCain stand on them is at our Tech Primaries site).
Update: Chris Sacca weighs in with these ideas:
Net neutraility: While I believe that uniform throttling when done transparently and equally for all applications, including the ISP’s own, can be justified in some cases, we are heading for a major conflict between the delivery of iTunes/Netflix/YT/Hulu content versus the licensed content of the MSOs and Telcos. This will come to a head in the next 18 months.
Spectrum - Three main issues here:
1) Ratification of the TV White Spaces use. Spectrum between broadcaster channels should be reserved for the public good. WiFi has been an amazing public benefit and there is no reason a similar commons cannot be created in the White Spaces (also now being called WiFi 2.0 by some). If the National Association of Broadcaster just decided to cooperate, all alleged interference problems would be easily solvable.
2) ATC (ancillary terrestrial component) spectrum. The FCC granted satellite guys ability to also use their spectrum on a terrestrial basis. However, there is some fogginess around the definitions and this has prevented major buildouts. A new administration could make very clear the utility of this spectrum and it would inspire competitive plays and thus consumers win big.
3) Restrict future spectrum auctions to new entrants. The D block auction failed for a number of reasons, but the rest of the 700MHz auction showed us that yet again the player with the most money will further consolidate spectrum ownership. The public is the big loser when all the airwaves are controlled by one or two players. The FCC should ban incumbents from the reauction of the D block and inspire some real competition for the benefit of all.
Censorship – We should impose sanctions on any nations that censor or otherwise interrupt the free flow of information on the Web. It is becoming downright ridiculous under certain regimes. At a minimum, we should forbid US hardware companies from supplying repressive governments with the tools necessary to filter and restrict access to content. This is no different than monitoring the sale of arms and related technology.
Net Neutrality for sure.
nothing to say.
I just hope the next prez can at least run things correctly.
John McCain 2008
http://www.crunchnow.com
why does it have to be only one? Why does the tech community need to be insignificant to only ask for them to throw us a bone?
But if I had to choose, I’d say we absolutely need a different set of patent laws for the web(can’t have a 50 year old woman in a patent office who only uses email, deciding if a “Buy” button deserves a patent that lasts decades.)
Invest in ‘Internet 2.0′ full force
Echoing Andrew, I don’t think it is only one thing. Policymakers must develop a coherent understanding of what drives tech/net progress. At a very high level, tech policy should be built around broad principles that emphasize access (free muni wi-fi, rural broadband), openness (net neutrality), and innovation (H1B, funding for I 2.0). Without a clear sense of high level principles, policymakers will consistently fail to be consistent on tech policy.
Forgot a biggie:
* Make all government/paid by government data accessible by APIs.
No offense, but the next President and all politicians could care less about technology. They are interested in getting more money/power for themselves and old-school ways of doing business — I would bet most of them have no idea how to use a computer.
You might as well be talking to wall when it come sto anything tech-related.
Telephone number portability is still sometimes difficult to navigate. A site that is simple to understand what the rules are, and how oversight is provided would help.
Not a tech issue, but highly relevant is the continued accumulation of newspaper, tv, and radio properties into fewer hands. It must stop.
Americans are now spending over a trillion dollars on energy (oil). Any economically feasible (i.e. without government support) alternative to our current energy sources could encourage more economic change then all of the other options combined. What we in the tech world fail to realize is that our lives depend not on Net Neutrality or whatever the current Web 2.0 buzzword is, but on the energy that drives our everyday lives. What would happen if there were an alternative:
1) The price of doing business globally decreases dramatically.
2) The energy market would finally be competitive and lead to lower oil prices.
3) Millions of new jobs are created which means millions of new or economically enriched customers for tech businesses.
4) Customers will have more money to spend on other things such as our products.
5) Maybe if someone can change the energy world, it will force us in technology to really innovative and not just release endless (but, nicely repackaged) versions of the exact same product.
If you take a quick look at history those who control the raw materials usually cause (or stop) change. Not those who consume.
http://www.celius.us
The best option wasn’t there:
NOTHING, FORGET WE EXIST PLEASE.
8 out of 9 of those are problems created by government involvement in tech issues. Renewable energy will be created by private industry.
Why would anyone want them getting involved? Taking credit for everything and responsibility for nothing.
Most of those would just get better by government withdrawing from the scene.
6 out of 7 rather. Maybe number 8 should be numerical literacy programs.
Make higher education more accessible to everyone: grants, scholarships, tax deductions. Whatever the means are. We need more educated people and better educated people. Increasing H1B visa quotas is good, but why not start at home?
I have a question. But I know it will not be asked. But what the hey?
Which one of you will have the guts to stand up and say “Enough of this BS attack on American small business, and population in general called ‘Man Made Global Warming?”
The Europeans are finally starting to realize that after signing the dotted line on the Kyoto protocol that they’re actually paying for nothing. Can you help prevent us for paying for nothing?
……. Then listen closely for a pin to drop, hear a couple of confused mumbles and then move on to the Vanilla stuff..
Make it impossible for legacy media/tech businesses to threaten start-up founders with personal bankruptcy via spurious copyright / patent / trademark (etc) suits by federally mandating liability for any such suit as limited to the assets of the business.
It’s far too easy for legacy businesses to roll out their lawyers and assets to threaten smaller competitors in this way, and it’s inimical to real development of new tech and business models.
Abolish Congress.
@libra
I second that!
Promote Renewable Energy – your a joke America.
And it’s not a funny one.
We should make it easier for talented tech students from other countries to enter the United States for study, and to stay here after they complete their advanced degrees. Current policies discourage them from coming here, and they are going in record numbers to other countries. Current policies also force them to return to their native countries, rather than putting their knowledge to work here. Before the current policies were instituted, we saw a sizeable percentage of startups being founded by immigrants. It’s much harder now, and we can expect to see future leading companies in China, India, Russia, and Brasil started by people who received their advanced education in the US.
Hmmm…all these sound great.
How about a little “cyber-defense” as well? Given the recent deluge of hacks from China?
Since we are talking about the change – how about change in a role politicians are allowed to play? They should only be allowed to formulate and propose new laws in a format that would allow people to decide whether accept them or not. And no bullshit advertising of political causes is allowed, so the content and the wording are the only merit for people to vote on. The process is hijacked!
Tough call between net neutrality and the patent system. I guess net neutrality should be #1 since without it the internet would be worthless. But the patent system is just dreadful these days. You should not be able to patent software, and you should not be able to patent an idea for a product you do not actively produce. I get so pissed when I read about all these companies who file patents on all these ideas they come up with but have no plans of producing them, for the sole purpose of demanding royalties when a real company comes along and makes such a product. Fucking 100% bullshit.
Easy access to the talent pool of international students that come here to study. Eliminate unnecessary bureaucracies for international students to obtain visa to work and live in the states. John Kao in his book says that America is losing its innovation edge. With the rest of the world storming ahead, we need to brush up and get ready.
- Copyright
- Patents
- H1B
@Morgan
Spare the libertarian bullcrap.
Net Neutrality, copyrights and patents all go hand in hand with keeping the playing field level while promoting and preserving innovation. The remaining issues, including energy, take care of themselves as long as innovation remains alive.
I’m pleased with the voting as it seems to reflect this point.
@Asha: Summed it up best.
Energy dependence and alternative solutions are the biggest factor at play here. Everything is connected to this issue; address the energy issues first.
Mandating Net Neutrality, patent reform and the like are ultimately are useless if the energy/infrastructure that serves us/them all fails to find stability and sustainability.
It’s a H1B, not HiB
its like comparing apple vs oranges. Is it possible to survive only on either apple or oranges?
You’re asking the wrong questions. I for one think Net Neutrality will have a big impact, but that it’ll be negative. Increasing the number of H1Bs is the wrong solution to a serious problem with qualified immigration. Andreesen has some good ideas, but they’re rather simplistic.
Honestly, I think the biggest tech problem is the many barriers to immigrant entrepreneurship.
the govt is like broken software.. you keep patching something and patching it , and eventually it may work like intended.. but if you try to rewrite something.. or completely rewrite a new feature.. its like starting from square one again. I wouldn’t suggest anything.. no matter what they try to fix.. they will f it up somehow. I would vote clean up the govt from lobbyists, and corruption. then we can start fixing other things
A preposterous vote! one only has a choice of government intervention policies — do you honestly think none of techcrunch’s readers want an option of leave the Free Market Internet alone?
Keep the suggestions coming. I’m about to go on stage.
Only reason I asked for one is because the polling software we use only allows one vote per person.
Asha and Jedi Wright
What the fuck are you talking about?
The Federal Communications Commission is going to do what about energy?
Um…yeah.
Require anyone moving or managing bits to screen content for permissions. Require an enforceable option for people who chose NOT to use a creative commons license. Enough handwringing about the problem with copyright law while encouraging innovations that make it irrelevant. There needs to be a rebalancing of the freedom to innovate, so that content creation is not completely stifled as a business in the forward rush of technology innovation as a business.
And, anyone talking about “Free Market Internet”, it may sound intelligent until you realize that government subsidies, tax benefits, and awarded monopolies have already been given out. You can’t go back now.
The public owns the airwaves, these companies just rent them.
Get rid of “hired to invent.” It should be obvious that no incentive leads to strangulation of innovation. Japan has mandatory compensation for employed inventors, and of course is starting to pull ahead in many areas, such as autos, electronics, robotics, etc.
“Hired to invent” is the equivalent of communism for inventors. A fixed salary is a disincentive, as one maximizes return on work by doing the least amount of work. For ex., if you make 2 G’s/week and fuck off for 39 hours, then you make 2 G’s/man-hour of work; but if you work 40 hours, then your return on work is only $50/man-hour of work. This logical analysis guides most scientists, who are very logical.
Without new industries protected by patent and the nearly 20 year headstart afforded by patent protection, static, uninnovative businesses are forced to compete on the basis of labor costs alone, and the US loses in this competition, which has led to the present policy of inundating the US with legal and illegal immigrants to drive down wages for global competition.
We owed much of our 20th century primacy to great inventors like Thomas Edison, and it is shameful that we treat scientists and engineers as a cheap commodity, bringing in hordes of cheap (and useless) third worlders to ruin job markets.
Well the question is a bit strange. Reading your post, it would seem that you’re asking which is more important, but the question is about economic impact. Those two have very different answers.
In any case, they’re all important, but the copyright thing is getting out of hand. Yesterday The Consumerist reported that the MPAA is now claiming that they shouldn’t need to proof to sue you. Who do these people think they are?! They must believe that they’re God or something.
That attitude made me want to make a few copies just for spite. I’ve never done it, but I’m willing to just for the principle of the matter.
The article is here:
http://consumer...roof-to-sue-you
Luther,
Cheap Useless third worlders ..hmmm.. That is a very strong word. I bet one or two gens back , your DNA also originated from one of those useless third worlds .
And if you do not know, here also there is absolutely amazing contributions for inventors. Invent something yourself and you can find that out. Or do a Google which alas is also sprung from the minds of some third worlder(s)
Maybe time to invest in a better polling software for this site but seriously adopting open source in govt would be a good idea.
Why nibble at the edges? Push for proportional representation so the interests of the entire country actually get represented.
The problem is not politics per se. Its the fact that the money is deciding things.
This will not change until you can actually specify who you want to represent you. And then actually getting your interests represented by your choice.
We need to rethink this system. Technology is just one area where we are missing the opportunities and/or ignoring serious threats to our future.
Just imagine, if these people voting for “renewable energy” were to actually have spent the last twenty years INVESTING in their breakthrough wind and solar generating ideas, rather than continuing on and on romanticizing about funding them with taxpayer money, perhaps their breakthgouh photovoltaic paint with billions of tinsy winsy little nanoscale windmills embedded in it would actually be on the shelf at Lowes at this very moment!
Well, if the question is literally which if that limited number would have the most impact, I’d have to say increasing the numbers of H-1B visas would have the biggest negative impact. Cutting the numbers of student and guest-work visas and bringing in something resembling market prices for visas of all kinds — restricting them to the truly best and brightest — would have the biggest positive impact.
There should be at least one non-academic, non-executive engineer on the FCC, and at DoL, DHS, DoJ, DoD… but I doubt they’d have much impact.
There should be more competition in telecomm, and less regulated/protected monopoly in utilities of all kinds. This would open up the way for increased band-width all across the country.
So, largely, I’m agreeing with Morgan. These are all problems created by past and current government meddling, so the correction is to reduce the government meddling, get them out of these areas in such a way as to increase REAL competition, and leave US citizens alone to work them out the rest of the way.
You spoke at a “Personal DEMOCRACY Forum”…
I hope “Error-proof voting machines” came up.
@Luther I think the reason people are suggesting patent reform is because patents as they stand do just as much to hinder new businesses/technologies as they do to help them. Reforming them (not abolishing them) could help.
“Marc Andreessen says: I would advocate unlimited H1B’s for anyone college educated (”brain drain the world”)”
My view of Mr. Andreessen has seriously gone down, does he really think that the Great USA should take all the educated people, especially from the poor countries, so that the rich can get richer and the poor get poorer?
I thought Mr. Andreessen, given his background and assumed intelligence, had a global view rather than this ‘us and them’ backwards view he seems to have let slip.
I think that this list misses the item that could have the biggest economic impact – fiber everywhere. Ubiquitous fiber would relieve traffic on roads, would provide a platform that would make at-home learning from video an everyday phenomenon for anyone that cared to engage in it, and would open up so many other economically beneficial possibilities.
Make the federal R&D tax credit permanent. Now. The pols have been dickering on this too long.
Also, increase the NSF and NIH budgets for basic research.
Cut social security benefits for everyone under 50 now, raise the retirement age a couple years and levy the ss tax on higher incomes (over $250k/yr). Yes, I know not a tech issue but ss and medicare need serious reform before the boomers bankrupt the system.