European Law and Regulation of Mobile Net Neutrality

Mobile is a rapidly growing and potentially major element of the future Internet, and its environment cannot be sensibly considered in isolation from fixed networks [2]. A note on terminology: Europe uses the term Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) while the United States uses 'wireless' Internet Service Providers (ISPs) [3]. 'Wireless' is somewhat more open in the United States. In Europe, mobile has always made special pleading for forms of self-regulation, as we will see. The article introduces mobile broadband, then considers net neutrality in the fixed environment including the new laws passed in November 2009 in the European Parliament, before considering the mobile net neutrality debate, the degree of price control regulation exerted on European mobiles and the MNOs' vigorous rear-guard anti-regulation defence. Finally, I look at the effects of this regulatory asymmetry and whether MNO calls for mobile to be treated differently from other ISPs can be justified. I conclude by examining what the effect of price and content control on mobile is likely to be for incentives for fixed ISPs and produce a result that I describe as the 'fixed' strategy

The Economics of Internet Search

This lecture provides an introduction to the economics of Internet search engines. After a brief review of the historical development of the technology and the industry, I describe some of the economic features of the auction system used for displaying ads. It turns out that some relatively simple economic models provide significant insight into the operation of these auctions. In particular, the classical theory of two-sided matching markets turns out to be very useful in this context.

The consumer Internet in South Korea : an American's perspective

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, June 2008.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 33-36).This thesis will explore the consumer internet industry in South Korea from the perspective of an American with Western values and sensibilities. South Korea is widely considered to be one of the most connected and internet-savvy countries on Earth, with roughly 90% of the population having high-speed broadband access and the average Korean spending 31.2 hours viewing 4,546 web pages per month compared to 25.2 hours viewing 2,519 pages for the average user globally. Moreover, South Korean portals such as Daum and Naver are two of the most trafficked destinations on the web despite the fact that their content is only available in Korean. Consequently, South Korea has become a valuable testing ground for internet technologies and an important market that can serve as a springboard to the rest of Asia. Yet the consumer internet in South Korean retains a distinct local flavor. For better or for worse, the consumer internet industry in South Korea has been deeply influenced by Confucian principles and Korean culture. The path to success for internet firms in South Korea is often quite different than it is in the West, and foreign firms looking to establish a Korean presence need to adjust their strategies accordingly.by Jeffrey Byun.M.B.A

Brand New Deal: The Branding Effect of Corporate Deal Structures

Consider the unusual legal structures of the following four deals: When Google went public in 2004, it used an Internet auction to sell its stock to shareholders. When Ben & Jerry\u27s went public in 1984, it sold its stock only to Vermont residents. Steve Jobs\u27s contract with Apple entitles him to an annual cash salary of exactly one dollar. Stanley Works, a Connecticut toolmaker, considered reincorporating in Bermuda to reduce its tax liability. Under public pressure, it changed its mind and remains legally incorporated in Connecticut. What do these deals have in common? In each case, the legal infrastructure of the deal had a branding effect: the design of the deal altered the brand image of the company. The structure of each of the first three deals is difficult to understand using the traditional tools of corporate finance alone. The deals appear to be inefficient, at least if one thinks about efficiency in the usual way. But if one also considers the impact of the deal on brand image, the Google, Ben & Jerry\u27s, and Apple deals are success stories. The Stanley Works deal was a failure. But it did not fail because of some flaw in its financial design, such as a miscalculation of the tax savings or difficulty in communicating the tax benefits to its shareholders. The deal failed because its managers failed to predict the negative impact that its legal infrastructure would have on its brand image

CHORUS Deliverable 2.1: State of the Art on Multimedia Search Engines

Based on the information provided by European projects and national initiatives related to multimedia search as well as domains experts that participated in the CHORUS Think-thanks and workshops, this document reports on the state of the art related to multimedia content search from, a technical, and socio-economic perspective. The technical perspective includes an up to date view on content based indexing and retrieval technologies, multimedia search in the context of mobile devices and peer-to-peer networks, and an overview of current evaluation and benchmark inititiatives to measure the performance of multimedia search engines. From a socio-economic perspective we inventorize the impact and legal consequences of these technical advances and point out future directions of research

Brand New Deal: The Branding Effect of Corporate Deal Structures

Consider the unusual legal structures of the following four deals: When Google went public in 2004, it used an Internet auction to sell its stock to shareholders. When Ben & Jerry\u27s went public in 1984, it sold its stock only to Vermont residents. Steve Jobs\u27s contract with Apple entitles him to an annual cash salary of exactly one dollar. Stanley Works, a Connecticut toolmaker, considered reincorporating in Bermuda to reduce its tax liability. Under public pressure, it changed its mind and remains legally incorporated in Connecticut. What do these deals have in common? In each case, the legal infrastructure of the deal had a branding effect: the design of the deal altered the brand image of the company. The structure of each of the first three deals is difficult to understand using the traditional tools of corporate finance alone. The deals appear to be inefficient, at least if one thinks about efficiency in the usual way. But if one also considers the impact of the deal on brand image, the Google, Ben & Jerry\u27s, and Apple deals are success stories. The Stanley Works deal was a failure. But it did not fail because of some flaw in its financial design, such as a miscalculation of the tax savings or difficulty in communicating the tax benefits to its shareholders. The deal failed because its managers failed to predict the negative impact that its legal infrastructure would have on its brand image

Search Engine Advertising: Pricing Ads to Context

Each search term put into a search engine produces a separate set of results. Correspondingly, each of the sets of ads displayed alongside the results is priced using a separate auction. We investigate how bids for these context-based ads depends on the difficulty of making a match. This contrasts with the existing literature that focuses on the effect of match quality. We examine advertising prices paid by lawyers for 139 Google search terms in 195 locations. Other things being equal, the fewer searches there are on a term, the higher the price. To identify a causal relationship between match-difficulty and prices paid, we exploit a natural experiment in 'ambulance-chaser' regulations across states. When lawyers cannot contact a client by mail and matching becomes more difficult, the relative price per ad click is $0.93 higher. We check the robustness of this result by performing a falsification test using a different ambulance-chaser regulation. Our results suggest that prices are higher for context-based ads when the difficulty of both online and off-line matching increases. This highlights that a major reason why search advertising is profitable is because its use of context can monetize the 'long tail' by reducing friction in the matching process

Intellectual property : strategy and policy

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 70-73).The thesis that follows is an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of intellectual property from a policy as well as a strategic perspective. While the discussion that follows is applicable to intellectual property in general, the focus of this thesis is on a particular aspect of intellectual property i.e patents. Policy and strategic perspectives are covered in section I and 11 respectively. The section on policy explores the origin and evolution of intellectual property related policies by discussing key legislation and court cases. The two questions that were most relevant when exploring the policy side of the patent system were: -- Is the intellectual property system hindering or encouraging innovation? -- What changes, if any, are required to make the system more effective? The section on strategy looks at IP strategies (or lack thereof) of three leading companies, Apple, Google and Microsoft. These three companies were selected because of their apparently differing strategies and this cursory judgement was confirmed when the strategies of the companies were put under a microscope. The question that were central while exploring the strategic aspects of intellectual property were: -- How are these three companies coping with the patent system as it exists today? -- What changes can make the strategies employed more effective? The summary section at the end tries to reconcile these two different ways of looking at the intellectual property system into a coherent whole.by Rishi Ahuja.S.M.in Engineering and Managemen

Orange Value Fund Research Reports and Valuations

Academic finance courses teach the underlying principles of portfolio management. Diversify your portfolio to eliminate idiosyncratic risk, match your portfolio beta to the risk appetite of your investors, invest in companies exhibiting earnings per share growth, and your fund will beat the market. More or less, this is the mindset of the herd, but following the herd never gets you ahead. Warren Buffet “attempts to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.” True investors ignore the movements in the market, and focus their energies on discovering unrecognized intrinsic value. As such, value investing hinges on the belief that markets are inefficient because inefficient markets result in short term prices unrepresentative of intrinsic value, thus presenting investment opportunities. I was introduced to the principles of value investing through my participation in the Orange Value Fund, a value investing hedge fund administered through the Whitman School of Management. Fernando Diz, an associate professor at the business school, is the managing director of the fund. The fund models its investment approach after Martin J. Whitman’s investment philosophy. The philosophy is simple: buy “safe” and “cheap” investments, but the practice is difficult. To be considered “safe,” a company must pass a rigorous examination of its industry, competition, top management, directors, and capital structure. To be considered “cheap,” the security must be trading at a significant discount to its estimated intrinsic value. My Capstone Project is a compilation of five research reports on the following companies: the Bristow Group, EnCana Corporation (now EnCana and Cenovus Energy), Ship Finance International Limited, Google, and GameStop Corporation