Is the U.S. Dancing to a Different Drummer?

Is the United States in full retreat from internationally recognized regulatory best practice? Or is it instead headed toward some different destination – "dancing to the beat of a different drummer"? Where is this likely to lead?broadband; regulation; competition; VoIP

The electronic communications policy of the European Union

This book has endeavoured to analyse how the European Union's Electronic Communications Policy has evolved over more than thirty years, since the first proposals were put forward in 1977 to the present time, when the second review launched in 2005 has been finalised. During the last three decades, electronic communications have become increasingly more important for the economic and social development of the European Union, which justifies and explains the enthusiasm with which the Community Institutions have set about developing this Policy. Leaving aside the shortcomings and inadequacies of the liberalisation process experienced in the European Union-e.g., the absence of a true Electronic Communications Policy of the European Union to provide rigour to what are now twenty-seven different national policies or the constant confrontation between Member states sovereignty and EU supranationality, among other deficiencies that the authors point out in their conclusions-the fact is that the constant evolution of the sector, in the wake of powerful technological and economic changes, greatly hampers-and maybe even calls into question-the achievement of the objectives that were set at the time and that the new Digital Agenda renews and expands today. These goals-among which, the creation of a single internal market, stimulating investment in infrastructure and increasing competition-are in a sense contradictory, which makes it difficult the design and implementation of appropriate regulatory policies in an environment that is also subject to constant change.Alabau Muñoz, AB.; Guijarro Coloma, LA. (2011). The electronic communications policy of the European Union. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/932

Setting Standards for Fair Information Practice in the U.S. Private Sector

The confluence of plans for an Information Superhighway, actual industry self-regulatory practices, and international pressure dictate renewed consideration of standard setting for fair information practices in the U.S. private sector. The legal rules, industry norms, and business practices that regulate the treatment of personal information in the United States are organized in a wide and dispersed manner. This Article analyzes how these standards are established in the U.S. private sector. Part I argues that the U.S. standards derive from the influence of American political philosophy on legal rule making and a preference for dispersed sources of information standards. Part II examines the aggregation of legal rules, industry norms, and business practice from these various decentralized sources. Part III ties the deficiencies back to the underlying U.S. philosophy and argues that the adherence to targeted standards has frustrated the very purposes of the narrow, ad hoc regulatory approach to setting private sector standards. Part IV addresses the irony that European pressure should force the United States to revisit the setting of standards for the private sector

Governance-technology co-evolution and misalignment in the electricity industry

This paper explores some reasons why the alignment between governance and technology in infrastructures may be unstable or not easy to achieve. Focusing on the electricity industry, we claim that the decentralization of governance – an essential step towards a decentralized technical coordination - may be hampered by if deregulation magnifies behavioural uncertainties and asset specificities; and that in a technically decentralized system, political demand for centralized coordination may arise if the players are able to collude and lobby, and if such practices lead to higher electricity rates and lower efficiency. Our claims are supported by insights coming from approaches as diverse as transaction cost economics, the competence-based view of the firm, and political economy.Governance; Technology; Coherence; Competence; Transaction costs; Regulation.

When Mobile Phones are RFID-Equipped - Finding E.U.-U.S. Solutions to Protect Consumer Privacy and Facilitate Mobile Commerce

New mobile phones have been designed to include delivery of mobile advertising and other useful location-based services, but have they also been designed to protect consumers\u27 privacy? One of the key enabling technologies for these new types of phones and new mobile services is Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), a wireless communication technology that enables the unique identification of tagged objects. In the case of RFID-enabled mobile phones, the personal nature of the devices makes it very likely that, by locating a phone, businesses will also be able to locate its owner. Consumers are currently testing new RFID-enabled phones around the globe, but the phones are not yet in general use by consumers in the United States and Europe. The incorporation of RFID into cell phones in order to deliver mobile advertising and other location-based services raises a host of important privacy questions that urgently need to be addressed before the phones become widely available. Analyzing the risks to consumer privacy in this new context, this paper offers a comparative law analysis of the applicable regulatory frameworks and recent policy developments in the European Union and the United States and concludes that there are many privacy concerns not presently addressed by E.U. and U.S. laws. This article also offers specific ideas to protect consumers\u27 privacy through applications of fair information practices and privacy-enhancing technologies. When mobile phones are RFID-equipped, consumers will need new privacy protections in order to understand the risks and make knowledgeable decisions about their privacy