While cities understandably want oversight over some aspects of installing this infrastructure, such as digging up neighborhood streets, there is no economic rationale for local franchising of video services. The need to obtain a franchise represents little more than a barrier to entry....

In recent years, federal policymakers, state legislators, and state Attorneys General have all shown renewed interest in regulating commercial advertising and marketing. Several new regulatory initiatives are being proposed, or are already underway, that could severely curtail or restrict...

This paper will examine the FCC’s March, 2015 Open Internet Order with an eye to assessing whether and how the Commission can successfully defend its decision in an appellate court. On two prior occasions, the FCC failed to convince a reviewing court that proposed regulatory safeguards do not...

Matthew Lasar asks the $64,000 question on Ars Technica: "Did Congress really give the FCC power to protect the Net? The jurisdictional question, as Lasar notes, lies at the heart of the viability of the FCC's proposed net neutrality rules. The answer depends on one's view of what regulatory...

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cohen v. U.S. (No. 08-5088) rebuffed an attempt by the IRS to treat as a general statement of policy a Notice by which it both conceded its refund obligation for certain improperly collected telephone excise taxes and established a binding and exclusive...

Public policy debates about online child safety have raged since the earliest days of the Internet. Concerns about underage access to objectionable content (specifically pornography) drove early "Web 1.0" efforts to regulate the Internet, and it continues to be the topic of much discussion...

The FCC Procedural Reform for Openness and Clarity Encouraging Sensible Solutions Act (FCC PROCESS Act) is a commendable effort to improve decision making at the Commission, and upon analysis it is evident the proposed reforms would do much in improving both transparency and timeliness in the...

The Federal Communications Commission should refrain from regulating technical standards in the cable industry. Among two competing proposals currently before the FCC concerning ways the FCC can facilitate development of two-way cable services, such as pay-per-view and video-on-demand, one...