Tag Archives: Politics

Press regulation in the U.K.: Royal Charter Applies to Internet

BBC News – Press regulation: How royal charter applies to internet.

In this article, I find it extremely interesting, and I see both sides of the coin.  On one side, we have a regulated press, where approved concepts and ideas are allowed to be expressed, even by the common blogger.  In the U.K. you need a license for a T.V., however, some of the rationale for this may be specifically for news or stories that are accurate comes back from a long history at the Associated Press, where news needed to be confirmed by three sources.  In addition, the history of the Assiociated Press is an interesting one.  If there was a ship from England entering the bay, people would take row boats out, and compete to get the news from the ship, so it was agreed to send one ship and share the news.

In essence, regulated news, maybe for political reasons, maybe to not ensure a panic to maintain a society in case of an emergency, after all, a thought, a single idea, as they say on the Internet can be believed to be true if articulated well, and go ‘virual’ as they say, and pass for believable, and something that was not true, may cause societal breakdown, to the extreme.  One case of this is the broadcast in the United States that caused a mild panic, because people thought it was a plausable story, it was 1938, and it was the War of the Worlds, appropriately coined a few years before world war.

An argument can be made to the contrary, which is one person may report a factual story, but yet, without government sanction, the story would have legal precident to be blocked, recended, and the person may be fined or jailed, depending on the story.  Is this good, is this a removal of such liberties as the United States has the freedom of speech, which this country was founded upon?  Is this now an archaic principle?  Only time will tell.

Is the Apple and Samsung Battle Really about Android verse iOS?

Is this just a question of Samsung verse Apple, or iOS verse Android, but Apple is not battling the U.S. company, Google, and Google is not defending it’s partner because it has its own internally acquired hardware vendor, Motorola Mobility?

Since Samsung is a foreign company, should it be protected under United States Antitrust regulations, and if so, do they apply?  If by taking Samsung out of the U.S. marketplace, would Apple monopolize the marketplace?  Is it a grey area, the current number of mobile hardware manufacturers, relative to their share in the market, and how much control Apple would have shaping the U.S. marketplace if Samsung was removed?  Are the mobile hardware and/or OS manufactures an Oligopoly or a Monopoly?  As an example article, here is a brief statement on Monopolies and Oligopolies, and examples of Oligopolies. U.S Antitrust Laws could apply, but this decision should at least be presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, and possibly in a different context.  Is this a hardware manufacturer issue, or a mobile Operating System issue?

I continually see news articles like, Apple wants ban on Samsung products, even more damages.  Here is a solid paper from a Law student at Fordham regarding Oligopolies and Antitrust Law.  It started to make me think, along with another article from CNN Money, Android races past Apple in smartphone market share.  In the article it mentions how RIMM and Nokia / Symbian fell in market share significantly, and the top two competitors are Apple and Android.  For me, these articles raised a few questions.  Clearly RIMM and Nokia/Symbian differ in form factor and feature capabilities, and have been outpaced by Apple and Android.  Google purchasing Motorola Mobility seemed to enhance the lack of Google’s interest in backing other hardware manufacturers.  My first question is what is the difference between generic drugs and name brand drugs, and this situation, and how do Generics persist in the marketplace?  Is this battle really Android versus Apple, but Google is keeping an arm’s length because they have their own hardware manufacturer internally?  Second, are every single innovation adopted by one OS and/or hardware manufacturer, e.g. mutithreaded / multitasking support, all up for debate, fines, and closed the ability to compete in the marketplace.  This situation smells of geopolitics, and how American Capitalism marketplace may be leveraging some form of Protectionism.  Again, this case, and possibly Samsung should partner with another Android OS partner, possibly outside the U.S., to transform this case to the U.S. Supreme Court, and make this about the Operating Systems rather than hardware.