Should taxpayers finance government entry into an increasingly competitive, but technologically volatile, business market? The city of Philadelphia has just released a blueprint to provide a taxpayer-backed city-wide wi-fi service, under the rationale that broadband should be treated as a vital...

Satellite radio competitors XM and Sirius recently announced their intention to merge their companies in a $13 billion deal. Recent financial statements show this merger is necessary. Although both stocks grew steadily through October of 2004, they hit a plateau after that and then began a...

Congress and the FCC should free over the air broadcast radio from regulations that are not imposed on its competitors to allow it to compete with satellite radio and other media. Furthermore, the playing field is best leveled by deregulating down, rather than regulating up with new restrictions...

Since the fall of 2008, a debate has raged in Washington over "targeted online advertising," shorthand for the customization of Internet ads to match the interests of users. Not only are these ads more relevant and therefore less annoying to Internet users than untargeted ads, they are more...

The Federal Trade Commission should avoid laying the groundwork for more onerous regulation of the online advertising marketplace, which could become the equivalent of a disastrous industrial policy for the Internet and choke resources needed to fuel e-commerce and online free speech going...

This article argues that benefit-cost analysis ("BCA") is extremely challenging in online child safety and digital privacy debates, yet it remains essential that analysts and policymakers attempt to conduct such reviews. While we will never be able to perfectly determine either the benefits or...

Debates continue to rage about how to shield kids from the potential negative effects of various types of media or communications technologies. Is government intervention and regulation really needed to quell concerns, or do parents have access to constructive tools to control what their child...

Filing of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University to the Federal Trade Commission for the FTC's June 9, 2015 workshop on "The “Sharing” Economy: Issues Facing Platforms, Participants, and Regulators." The Mercatus Center at George Mason University is dedicated to advancing knowledge...

This paper argues that the sharing economy — through the use of the Internet and real time reputational feedback mechanisms — is providing a solution to the “lemons problem” that many regulations, and regulators, have spent decades attempting to overcome. Section I provides an overview...

The rise of the sharing economy has changed how many Americans commute, shop, vacation, and borrow. It has also disrupted long-established industries, from taxis to hotels, and has confounded policymakers. In particular, regulators are trying to determine how to apply many of the traditional...