Published at The Hill — Congress Blog, available here. October 28, 2010, 2:53 pm A post-election job for Congress: Resolve the net neutrality fight By Stephen Pociask At times, the political battle over net neutrality regulation recalls the tragic mythological tale of Sisyphus, who could never quite push that rock all the way to the [...]

FTC Drops Privacy Inquiry against Google: A Statement by Steve Pociask, American Consumer Institute October 28, 2010 America’s consumers should be extremely disturbed that the Federal Trade Commission has chosen to let Google off lightly on the serious charge of collecting sensitive personal information from consumers, potentially names, addresses, emails, passwords and usernames. Thirty-eight state [...]

On October 18, 2010, Professor Fuhr presented at CBI’S 5th Summit on Biosimilars and Follow-On Biologics in Washington, DC.  His talk was entitled ”Follow the Money—How Capital will Shape the Challenges and Opportunities for the U.S. Biosimilars Market.”

In today’s special commentary for the Ft. Worth Star Telegram, Pociask fact-checks the current political rhetoric on Texas insurance price regulation.  He finds that the facts don’t support today’s policy and their directions, and these pricing policies appear to be making consumers worse off.  How is it that price regulation leads to the second highest rates in the country?  [...]

A must read article by Juliana Gruenwald of Tech Daily Dose — “Canada Finds Google Violated Privacy Laws” — available here.  The article explains that, in its efforts to collect information on Wi-Fi spots, Google collected personal consumer information, including names, addresses, emails, passwords, usernames and telephone numbers.  The article mentions that other sensitive information was also collected from consumer [...]

Fox TV’s decision to blackout its programming from some Cablevision subscribers is affecting consumers in parts of New York, Philadelphia and nearby areas.  While the latest blackout stems from a breakdown in broadcast retransmission negotiations and the refusal of broadcasters use arbitration, the real losers here are consumers.  In 1992, lawmakers passed legislation designed to protect broadcasters against what [...]

Daniel Castro of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation wrote an interesting piece that outlines how consumers would be better off with more aggressive law enforcement against online piracy.  The piece discusses the newly introduced Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act that looks to add protections covering software, video games, movies, music, books, photos and other [...]

In today’s filing, ACI wrote:  “The Commission has indicated its intent to focus on facts and reasoned analyses to determine whether imposing new Internet regulations would produce more benefits for society than costs.  We continue to find no factual or analytical support that identifies specific market failures that warrant ex ante regulations, and we have [...]

Stephen B. Pociask The razor and razor blade business model is alive and well. The name derives from the practice of the inventor of disposable razor blades, King C. Gillette, who commenced more than a century ago, the marketing practice of selling the permanent platform (razors) at or below cost and the consumable complement to [...]

The South Florida Sun-Sentenel reports that regulatory changes are setting rules on when insurance companies can give consumers discounts.  The results will lead to fewer discounts for consumers.  Article ”Changes to State Laws Reduce or Erase Many Homeonwer Insurance Discount” written by Jule Patel and published on October 8th is just another example of how regulations [...]