Author Archives: Dan Gillmor

The annual Vortex conference, held in southern California, brings together some major players in the telecommunications field. In the top picture, FCC Chairman William Kennard is chatting with Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Kholsa. Below, 3Com CEO Eric Benhamou watches … Continue reading →

Shades of Stanley Sporkin. He comes to mind in the wake of U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s actions today in a Washington courtroom, where Jackson — who replaced Sporkin as the judge overseeing Microsoft antitrust matters — all but … Continue reading →

Our esteemed lawmakers are at it again, in the process of passing laws that severely curtail fundamental freedoms. This time they’re going after what’s left of the Fourth Amendment, with a proposal to drastically expand government powers to conduct secret … Continue reading →

Microsoft is trying to force the Slashdot site to remove postings regarding Microsoft’s attempted co-opting of the Kerberos security standard. Here’s Slashdot’s reply. Digital Millennium Copyright Enforcement The first of two days of hearings on the onerous Digital Millennium Copyright … Continue reading →

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Justice Department’s antitrust staff has raised serious objections to the proposed MCI WorldCom merger with Sprint. That’s excellent news, provided the antitrust chief, Joel Klein, follows the reported recommendations. This merger has been … Continue reading →

The federal Copyright Office is holding hearings tomorrow and Friday at Stanford University on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s onerous provision banning the use of any technology that can be used to circumvent copy protections on digital materials. The intellectual-property … Continue reading →

The Mercury News’ quarterly venture capital survey, Money Tree, showed the usual incredible growth. Notice the proximity of the words “usual” and “incredible” — words that don’t belong together. Call me old-fashioned, but I still think risk matters. And I … Continue reading →

Meet Randy Linden, founder and chief technology officer at Bleem Inc., a Los Angeles company that has done some incredibly creative things technically. In the process it has become the object of Sony’s wrath — and when multinational control freak … Continue reading →

Sony’s PlayStation2 is the obvious hit at the E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) show in Los Angeles. The Sony booth is mammoth, of course, but lots of companies are showing off their new titles that run on this powerful computer. I … Continue reading →

This week it’s Microsoft’s turn to suggest remedies in the antitrust trial. Last week I suggested what the company might propose. After a weekend leak-a-thon, there’s lots of media coverage of the possibilities. Examples: