Tag Archives: public policy

AP phone records, al Qaeda and civil liberties: thinking a couple moves ahead

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Antone Johnson • 0 Comments

I’d like to avoid more senseless slaughter of civilians by terrorist organizations and more invasive laws passed in response to such atrocities—whether they involve obtaining library checkout records, monitoring data packets transmitted over the Internet, or what have you. If that means throwing the privacy of AP reporters’ phone records for these two months under the bus, so be it.… Continue Reading

Filed Under: law, public policy

Copywrong: Brilliantly Disruptive Startups from Napster to Pinterest

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Antone Johnson • 0 Comments

The law simply hasn’t kept pace with the largest upheaval in the distribution and consumption of content in human history, which has taken place in less than two decades since the consumer Internet was born in 1994. To a large extent, members of the general public have little idea what copyright is, how it works, or how it applies online, if at all.… Continue Reading

Filed Under: digital media, entrepreneurship, law, social media, startups, Web 2.0

Crowdfunding Back On Track — As Milk Train, Not TGV

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Antone Johnson • 0 Comments

The version of the JOBS Act initially approved by a bipartisan majority in the House was a bold experiment in targeted radical deregulation of financial markets that would have come on the heels of one of the worst economic disasters in American history — itself attributable to deregulation with inadequate oversight — while the asthmatic U.S. economic recovery continues to wheeze and stumble through the smoldering wreckage of once-mighty financial institutions.… Continue Reading

Filed Under: angel investing, economics, entrepreneurship, law, public policy, startups

Plenty of Fish in the Sea, But Please Don’t Fugu Me

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Antone Johnson • 0 Comments

California Attorney General Kamala Harris recently announced an agreement with three of the largest online dating sites: eHarmony, Match.com and Spark Networks (parent company of JDate and ChristianMingle, among others). In much the same way Facebook reached an agreement regarding child safety with AG’s nationwide in 2008, it appears the dating sites agreed to some voluntary… Continue Reading

Filed Under: law, public policy, social media

The Great Crowdfunding Train Wreck of 2013

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Antone Johnson • 6 Comments

What sort of business operators can we predict will be disproportionately drawn to using a funding mechanism that is designed from the ground up to leverage a large number of middle-class individual investors with minimal bargaining power under circumstances involving minimal disclosure, toothless corporate governance and little-to-no liability to shareholders?… Continue Reading

Filed Under: angel investing, law, public policy, startups, venture capital

Web 2.0 Summit 2010 – Thought Leaders Ponder the “Battelle” for the Network Economy

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Antone Johnson • 1 Comment

This week, industry leaders, pundits, journalists and assorted hangers-on are gathering in San Francisco for the annual Web 2.0 Summit, one of the online industry’s most influential events. John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly moderate conversations with a long list of Web luminaries, including Eric Schmidt, Carol Bartz, Marc Benioff, Reed Hastings, Peter Chernin, Tony Hsieh, Evan Williams, Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Pincus, Ron Conway, John Doerr, and Fred Wilson.… Continue Reading