FTC

The future of American semiconductor innovation—and the price of future smartphones—may hinge on what is happening in a San Jose courtroom. In the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, companies including Apple, Blackberry, Ericsson, Intel, LG, MediaTek, Huawei and Samsung have testified on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission’s application of traditional anti-trust concepts to rein in practices by Qualcomm that harm consumers, competition and innovation.

Today’s decision by the European Court of Justice on safe harbor – Maximillian Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner, ably summarized by Lawfare’s Alex Loomis – ignores some very inconvenient truths about surveillance and privacy on both sides of the Atlantic. In this post, I explain what the ECJ ignores.

Last week, the Court of Justice for the European Union’s Advocate General published an opinion that casts doubt on the future of the so-called United States-European Union “safe harbor framework”—a legal arrangement which enables much of the U.S. tech community’s European operations. The advocate general’s opinion is not binding.

Bitcoin and the blockchain – how do they work and what do they mean for financial and government services and for consumers? And who holds massive stores of bitcoin that can’t be spent without solving one of the great financial mysteries of our time? Our guest for episode 75 is Michael Casey, former senior columnist for the Wall Street Journal and – as of last week – senior advisor at the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative.