For a More Open Society, Keep the Internet Neutral

Metering Traffic or Filtering Speech Would Throttle Democracy and Innovation

Why would someone who spent much of his career working for a multinational telecommunications company care so much about preserving “net neutrality?”

That someone would be me. I worked for Vodafone, the British telecom giant that serves Asia, Africa, Europe and Oceania, while living in both London and The Hague. I went on to work with young technology companies, then at the U.S. State Department, and eventually to teach at UCLA Anderson School of Management.

At the State Department, I held a role as U.S. ambassador negotiating the 2012 telecom and …

Is A/B Product Testing Turning Us into Silicon Valley’s Lab Rats?

The Tech Industry Says It's Helping Us Shape the Future, But Our Clicks Could Entrap Us

A:
Test me all night, baby.

No, really. Sign me up to be the subject of A/B testing. I’d even be willing to sign a blanket consent form, right now, …

When Pac-Man Started a National “Media Panic”

Video Games Revived a Perpetual Debate Over the Virtues and Vices of Technology for Kids

In the early 1980s, spurred by the incredible popularity of Atari, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man, everyone seemed to be talking about video games, if not obsessively playing them. A …

An Overconfident Public Learns the Limits of Predictive Technology

In Chaotic Times, We Rely Too Much on Big Data to Forecast the Future

It’s dark outside and you’re bleary-eyed. You search for your phone and it reads 3:17 a.m. Your mind starts to wander: Why does my boss want to meet with me …

How Democracy, in the Kremlin’s Crosshairs, Can Fight Back

Russian Cyber Meddling Turns Free Speech and Technology Against Open Societies

The most dramatic development of France’s recent Presidential election was last Friday’s announcement by the Emmanuel Macron campaign that their email and account records had been the target of a …

To Understand the Future of Cyber Power, Look to the Past of Air Power

When Technological Fantasy Becomes Reality, Every Civilian Is a Target

Approximately 75 years ago, a new technology was married to warfare on a mass scale, and its impact spilled across continents, shaping the fighting of wars and international politics while raising a new set …