Now that the dust has settled from Chinese President Hu Jintao’s recent visit to Washington, it is worth pausing to take stock of the latest round of developments on the thorny issue of software legalization, long a source of frustration in US-China economic relations. Recall that the issue topped the agenda in December’s ministerial
The Year “Cloud” Drops Its Quotation Marks
Remember when the word Internet was entering the popular lexicon? It was the mid-1990s. The implications of the new technology were becoming clear, and the word was starting to appear frequently in the news. But it often appeared in quotation marks (as in, “the global system of interconnected computer networks known as the ‘Internet’”), because … Read More >>
Why Technology Neutrality Matters
The US government spends nearly $80 billion a year on computers, software, networking equipment and related services, making it the world’s largest customer for information technology, by far. This gives it enormous heft in the marketplace. The choices it makes have wide ramifications. So imagine for a minute that it decided to favor certain technologies … Read More >>
Software Issues Top the Agenda for US-China Trade
If there was any doubt about the relative importance of software issues in the economic relationship between the United States and China, it was dispelled in the ministerial sessions of the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) that were held December 14–15 in Washington. The official statement and fact sheet that US negotiators issued … Read More >>
Privacy and IP Top Last Week’s Tech Policy Agenda in Brussels
The last week was a busy one for BSA in Brussels with several high profile events taking place on data protection and intellectual property. On Tuesday, my colleague Thomas Boue joined the dais, along with BSA members Symantec, Microsoft and Intel, for the inaugural European Data Protection and Privacy Conference held in the European Parliament. The event … Read More >>