Archive for the 'Policy' Category

Lobbying 2.0

Published March 22, 2010 Policy 2 Comments
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The grief that people give the term “lobbyist” is justly deserved. Too often companies use lobbyists and other political action committees to threaten politicians and undermine democracy. They try to win influence by using the power of their cash rather than the power of their ideas.

But “lobbying” doesn’t have to be this way. In recent months, I’ve gotten to know the incredibly bright people in Google’s Washington DC office. Though Google certainly engages in some traditional lobbying activities, what makes their public policy team impressive is that they are re-imagining what it means for a technology company to influence government.

Google’s Policy Innovations

Rather than just hosting swanky dinners and donating strategically to select politicians, Google actively engages in collaborative projects that help the government function better. These pro-bono activities draw upon Google’s talents. For example, here are a few creative projects that Google has done to assist the government:

  • Polling Station Finder. Unfortunately, the databases that contain information about where citizens should go to vote are extremely fragmented. So Google helped unify these databases into a single tool that makes it easy for anybody in the country to find their appropriate polling station.
  • Agency Website Search. If you’ve ever visited a federal website, you know that their search functionality is often a disaster. Google is working with agencies to make their websites more easily searchable. Furthermore, by (anonymously) sharing government-related search trends from Google’s own website, Google is helping agencies redesign their sites to better match what people are actually looking for.
  • Public Health Monitoring. Google claims that it can predict flu outbreaks more quickly than the government. The idea is that people often search for “flu symptoms” on Google several days before going to a doctor. Therefore, Google can know of flu outbreaks days, if not weeks, prior to the CDC’s hospital-based monitoring systems. By sharing these flu trends publicly, Google helps the CDC better mobilize a public health response.

Projects like these are a win-win-win for citizens, the government, and for Google. Citizens get a better functioning government. The government gets more efficient and more knowledgeable about technology. And Google builds ties with key people in the government. The next time there is some contentious policy issue to settle, you can be sure that Google will have friends in government who will look out for them.

Lessons for Other Tech Heavyweights

Right now, Google seems to be the sole pioneer in employing this “Lobbying 2.0″ approach. Most other technology companies (such as HP) just hire old-school lobbyists to influence the government, or old-school salespeople to sell their wares to the government. I want to see this change. Every technology company out there could learn from Google’s example.

Facebook: why aren’t you working with every single member of Congress to create better Fan pages? How awesome would it be if every member of Congress posted all their floor speeches, committee questions, and voting records to their Facebook feed. It would be a 21st century replacement for CSPAN. It would truly be a killer app for representative democracy.

Or Microsoft: why weren’t you the one to create something as groundbreaking as Sunlight Labs? You still make some of the best tools out there for software development, so why not give some of them away to developers who are helping to make government more transparent? It would help open up the government, and expose people to your innovative platforms.

So if you are a technology company, I have some simple advice. First, fire half your lobbyists. Then put those funds towards Lobbying 2.0 projects. Not only will it help your bottom line, but it will reinvigorate our democracy.

Privacy Protection Via Misinformation

Published March 17, 2010 Policy Leave a Comment
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The New York Times has a very informative (and scary) article giving an overview of how statistical data mining of information from social networks can compromise people’s private information.

The basic idea is this: an attacker collects information from the public internet (e.g., Facebook updates, Amazon wishlists, Flickr photos, etc.) and then trains various data mining algorithms to de-anonymize the information and estimate sensitive information. Researchers have shown, in principle, how these techniques can be used to estimate birthdays, social security numbers, and pretty much anything else you’d need to compromise people’s most sensitive accounts.

As someone who has long been concerned about the protection of personal information in the digital age, I was trying to think of an antidote to these privacy-violating data mining techniques. My idea is this: Spread as much misinformation as possible about yourself on the internet. That way, when would-be attackers try to infer your sensitive information, they are more likely to get the wrong answer.

So without further adieu, here is my most personal information, which may or may not be accurate:

  • Full Name: Samidh Mohan Chakrabarti
  • Place of Birth: Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Date of Birth: March 18, 1979
  • Social Security Number: xxx-xx-3820
  • Mother’s Maiden Name: Gupta
  • Current Zip Code: 10021

Of course, if this is to be the only instance of this information on the web, it will be easy for a statistical algorithm to know this data is spurious. Therefore, I shall try to consistently sprinkle it across the web periodically.

You can help me in this effort. Tomorrow, be sure to wish me a happy birthday!

Endnote: My friend Anand Sarwate, who is a brilliant electrical engineering postdoc at UCSD, now focuses his research on privacy. (You can think of privacy as a very complex signal processing problem.) He writes regularly on this topic, so be sure to check out his excellent blog.

Apple Exercises the Patent “Nuclear Option”

Published March 2, 2010 Policy 1 Comment
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In the war between the iPhone and Android, Apple exercised the “nuclear option” today by suing HTC, the maker of the Google Nexus One. After my old blackberry died a couple of months back, I bought an iPhone and never looked back. I think it is the most polished, powerful, and innovative handset out there. It has quite literally change the way I work and play. But Apple’s behavior today leaves me dismayed.

What is the likely outcome of Apple’s lawsuits? To put it simply, customers lose. Google and/or HTC are likely to file a countersuit alleging Apple infringes some of their patents. Given the prolific nature of patenting these days, it’s shouldn’t be hard to find some infringed patents. Eventually, all parties involved will settle with modest cross-licensing fees and not much will change.

But at what interim cost? The lawsuits will just add to the cost of the handsets. And more damagingly, the lawsuits will add a ton of uncertainty to the handset ecosystem. Designers won’t know which features they can and can’t build into their systems. All of this could have a chilling effect on handset innovation, not just at Google and HTC, but also at Apple. That will be bad for all of us.

The most frustrating part of this is that Apple has no need to engage in these heavy-handed tactics. They already enjoy incredible advantages when it comes to protecting their products. Their best-in-class App Store is a marketplace with natural barriers to entry. Their best-in-class brand keeps copycats at bay. And their best-in-class design and engineering continues to attract all of the top talent, enabling them to further their lead.

For the sake of innovation, let’s hope Apple’s lawsuit today is just posturing. By not forcing full litigation, they will serve their customers best.

Business Method Patents

Published February 26, 2010 Policy Leave a Comment
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While we’re on the topic of patents today, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to share my dissertation that I wrote at Cambridge for my graduate degree in policy. During my time there, I became deeply interested in the topic of innovation policy, so I chose to write my dissertation on Business Method Patents, which were very contentious at the time (and still are). Going in to this investigation, I was neutral towards these instruments. But after my research, I came out against them because I deemed them to be an unnecessary encumbrance to innovation. Here is the abstract:

This dissertation asks the question, “If business method patents were forbidden, would there be less innovation in developing new business processes?” We ask this question because if business method patents can’t pass this utilitarian test, then there is no reasonable justification for this patent regime. To understand the original rationale behind business method patents, we start our investigation by summarizing their legal history. Then, using economic theory, we try to predict which firms would be most harmed if business method patents didn’t exist. Finally, we bring this theory into the realm of reality by conducting a case study on the competitive landscape of firms in the online auction industry. Based on this evidence, we discover that the only firms that clearly benefit from business method patents are ‘patent factories’—firms that patent business processes for the sole purpose of licensing them to other companies. Most other types of firms see business method patents as an encumbrance. Given this skewed balance, it appears that these patents fail the utilitarian test. Without them, there might actually be greater innovation in the competitive arts.

A lot has happened in the world of business method patents since I wrote my dissertation. At the time, they were permissible under US Law. But then in 2008 the Federal Circuit, in the famous Bilski decision, struck down the patenting of business methods that cannot be instantiated as a machine. Currently, the Supreme Court is grappling with the issue and has yet to make a ruling. Hopefully by making my dissertation public, I can do my little part to help in this debate.

If you are interested in this topic, please read the dissertation in its entirety: Business Method Patents: A Faustian Bargain With Fosbury Flops. I am making it available under the following Creative Commons license. Let me know what you think!

On a side note, I realize that I have a ton of old papers that others may find interesting but that I was too busy to publish. I will try to periodically release them via this blog so that they may be of some good to somebody.

Facebook’s Newsfeed Patent as Peace-Keeper

Published February 26, 2010 Policy 1 Comment
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The cognoscenti are up in arms over Facebook’s recent patent on social network newsfeeds. Some say this is proof that Facebook is evil and doesn’t care about internet users. As a keen student of patent strategy over the last several years, I have a different opinion: Given the current legal landscape of patent law, Facebook is simply operating as a rational actor.

The most likely explanation is that Facebook applied for the patent only as a defensive measure. What this means is that they want to use this patent as leverage against other companies that in turn might sue Facebook for emulating features that those other companies have patented. In the lingo of patent law, Facebook is buying themselves “freedom to operate” by ensuring they can incorporate features from other networks which add value to Facebook. That can’t be bad for users.

But, for fun, let us assume a world where Facebook is indeed malevolent. Once they’ve locked up patents on newsfeeds, they go around suing every other social network that has incorporated this feature. In reality, that would be profoundly unwise because those competitors are likely to hold patents that Facebook infringes. The resulting lawsuits, countersuits, and counter-countersuits would produce no winners. Just a waste of time and money. Everybody knows that would be the outcome so it is unlikely to happen.

Sure, software patents may be bad for innovation. Sure, this specific patent may not be valid. But the fact is that Facebook has to run their company under today’s policy regime. From a patent perspective, it’s a dangerous world out there. Facebook needed this newsfeed patent to protect themselves. It will be a potent “peace-keeper” that will deter other companies from engaging in frivolous litigation, no matter if Facebook is benevolent or malevolent.

Facebook, please don’t prove me wrong.

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Welcome to the blog of Samidh Chakrabarti, which revolves around the topic of innovation (from technology to entrepreneurship to policy), sprinkled with ample doses of et cetera.

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