The Progress & Freedom Foundation serves to educate Congress, policymakers and the public on policy issues relating to the digital revolution.  PFF regularly receives mention in national news outlets, wire services and trade publications.  A sampling is provided below.

This Month:

• "Interview: laying it on the line with FCC chair Kevin Martin," Ars Technica, October 6, 2008
  "No one saw Martin's challenge better than Adam Thierer of the Progress and Freedom Foundation. In early 2006, shortly after I just started writing online, I interviewed Thierer, a staunch advocate of relaxing the rules, about where the broadcast ownership docket seemed headed. He told me that by trying to loosen the limits all at once, Powell 'gave the opponents of liberalization a big, juicy target to go after in the courts, and man did they hit a bulls eye when they went after it.'
  "Martin has learned from that lesson, Thierer argued, 'and has decided to go about it the old way, which is to disaggregate these issues, take them on a case-by-case or one-by-one basis, and look at each rule as is needed and determine where you can make a little bit of inroad and achieve some reform successfully.'"
• "Speakers Criticize FCC Policy Conditions Unrelated to Mergers," TR Daily, October 10, 2008
  "An audience member, Barbara Esbin, a former FCC official who is now senior fellow and director of the Center for Communications and Competition Policy at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, said that under Mr. Powell, 'there was a huge attempt to rein in the process' and make sure conditions were related to 'merger-related harm.' But she said that sometimes conditions 'end up having a shelf life' that is longer than necessary. She cited arbitration provisions imposed on News Corp. related to the Hughes Electronics Corp. transaction."
• "Capitol Hill," Consumer Electronics Daily, October 3, 2008
  "Adam Thierer of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, who earlier warned against the original bill's effort to grant the FCC expansive new powers, said the version passed is better. But S-602 still 'opens the door to an expansion of the FCC's authority over media content on multiple platforms and threatens to undermine private, voluntary rating systems in the process,' Thierer said. 'There are better ways to help parents and protect kids.'"
• "Broadband Rollout May Duck Financial Crisis," eWeek, October 3, 2008
  "'Broadband is really now rolling along. It's coming into its own and it's really booming right now,' said Bret Swanson, the director of the Center for Global Innovation at the Progress & Freedom Foundation."
  "'For the past year or so most of the turmoil has been limited to Wall Street. The worry now is what effect a real clampdown on commercial credit would have. If the cost of borrowing rises significantly, it could have an impact,' Swanson said, adding that telecommunications companies rely heavily on debt."
  "He hastened, however, to add, 'I don't think we're there yet. I don't think it [the financial crisis] affects tech as much as other industries tied to Wall Street.'
  "Swanson noted that with or without congressional intervention, much is being done to alleviate the crisis. In addition to the bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.), the Federal Reserve announced Sept. 29 that central banks are significantly expanding initiatives to support financial stability and to maintain a stable flow of credit to the economy."
• "Politicians Push for Net Neutrality, Broadband Policy," PCWorld, September 22, 2008
  "Broadband providers need incentives to invest in more broadband capacity while managing the use of their services, said Berin Szoka, a visiting fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation."
• "Product Placement On TV: Too Much, Too Little, Or Who Cares?," Ars Technica, September 22, 2008
  "But a very different perspective comes from Adam Thierer and W. Kenneth Ferree of the Progress and Freedom Foundation (Ferree is a former FCC bureau chief). The filers characterize the whole proceeding as a threat to the First Amendment rights of broadcasters, and irrelevant to boot. 'If the Notice demonstrates anything, it is that a majority of the current Commissioners live in a world wholly alien and unfamiliar to most Americans;' they write, 'indeed, a world long forgotten if it ever existed.'
  "Thierer/Ferree contend that most TV watchers these days know embedded ads when they seem them, and don't need intrusive protections such as concurrent disclosure. 'There can be little doubt but that viewers and listeners understand that when American Idol judges drink from Coca-Cola cups, promotional consideration was exchanged;' they write, 'when a radio host talks about the great dinner he ate at Ruth’s Chris Steak House, the restaurant is a sponsor of the show; when contestants on The Biggest Loser are taught how to make desserts with "Jell-O" gelatin, the association is not serendipitous.'"
• "In-Flight VoIP Ban: Against FCC Rules? Highly Desirable?," Wi-Fi Networking News, September 17, 2008
  "Think-tank wonders whether banning in-flight VoIP constitutes a violation of FCC rules about blocking services: The Progress and Freedom Foundation’s Barbara Esbin uses the ban on in-flight VoIP by American Airlines (facilitated by provider Aircell) to make a broader argument about what she calls the FCC’s 'ad hoc approach to broadband network management issues.'"
• "PFF Paper Sees U.S. Deregulatory Broadband Policy As Success," TR Daily, September 10, 2008
  "The relatively deregulatory U.S. approach to broadband policy is producing 'high levels of investment and innovation, ubiquitous broadband availability, high and increasing levels of penetration, falling prices, and high levels of consumer satisfaction,' and other nations would do well to abandon mandatory resale requirements and follow the U.S. model 'to avoid being left behind,' according to a paper released today by the Progress & Freedom Foundation.
  "'Broadband Policy: Does the U.S. Have It Right After All?' by PFF board member and Criterion Economics Chairman Jeffrey Eisenach argues that '[t]he economic viability of last-mile infrastructure competition is demonstrated by the simple facts that it exists and is growing.' It also says that 'more intensive infrastructure competition leads directly to more rapid innovation,' citing 50 megabits-per-second FiOS service from Verizon Communications, Inc., and 160 Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 service that Comcast Corp. is beginning to deploy."
• "PFF Paper on FCC's Comcast Order Invokes Kafka," Tech Law Journal, September 8, 2008
  "The author is the PFF's Barbara Esbin."
  "She argues that what the FCC did was in the nature of rule making by adjudication -- or 'adjudi-making'.
  "She elaborated that 'Whatever we call this innovative legal form, it appears to have resulted in factual findings that a single industry participant violated rules of behavior articulated for the first time in the very proceeding in which the accused was found guilty as charged.'
  "Esbin added, 'More troubling still, the adjudi-making was wholly lacking the protections afforded the subjects of more traditional administrative adjudications, such as the need for sworn testimony, adherence to the rules of evidence, and the other procedural safeguards of a "restricted" adjudication.'
  "'It sure seems Kafka-esque when we either cannot know the law or we can only know the ``law´´ by observing the actions of the nobles, wrote Esbin."
• "Cover Story: Martin’s Fall Offensive," Multichannel News, September 6, 2008
  "'If it’s a Scarface finish, maybe he’ll say, "Say hello to my little friend called a la carte" and try to mow them down one last time,' said Progress & Freedom Foundation senior fellow Adam Thierer."
• "Pirates Potential Mobile Market?," Music Confidential, September 5, 2008
  "During a keynote address at the Progress & Freedom Foundation’s Aspen Summit last month, John Horrigan with Pew Internet & American Life Project spoke about the behavior of those who use information and communication technology (ICT) and the climate for innovation.
  "Horrigan said that the Pew Internet Project last year developed a typology of ICT users, which grouped American adults into 10 different categories. One of these categories, the 'Mobile Centrics,' make up 10% of the American population, Horrigan said."
• "Martin Has Eye On Cable Networks," Broadcast Newsroom, September 2, 2008
  "'I do not believe for one minute anything the chairman has to say about this [wholesale bundling] issue being dead because he has kept it alive his entire tenure,' said Adam Thierer, senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation. 'There is no way that Chairman Ahab is going to let this whale get away.'"
• "CEO: Tiered Internet Pricing Fair," Wilkes Barre Times-Leader, August 30, 2008
  "'Like other companies, though, Frontier knows unlimited-usage pricing is not a sustainable business model,' she said during the closing address to telecommunications and cable industry executives, legislators and regulators at the Progress and Freedom Foundation Summit in Aspen, Colo. on Aug. 18."
• "Comcast Order Broke Precedent, Practice, Procedure, Analyst Contends," BNA, Inc., August 29, 2008
  "The Federal Communications Commission's recently released order finding Comcast Corp. violated the commission's Internet policy statement broke with practice, procedure, and precedent in so many ways it is hard to guess how the company will react, a former FCC staffer said Aug. 28. Barbara Esbin, now a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, served at the FCC for more than 14 years, most recently in its Enforcement Bureau. Esbin is director of the foundation's Center for Communications and Competition Policy."
  "Esbin said that with a few small exceptions, she stood by her initial analysis of the order, which she released on Aug. 15, prior to the full release of the commission's order. The analysis concluded that the FCC had become a 'runaway agency' unconstrained by its vision of its powers."
• "Frontier Isn't Enforcing Caps Quietly Imposed on Web Users," Telecom A.M., August 29, 2008
  "'The Company has made no decision about potential charges,' it said. Frontier Chairman Maggie Wilderotter told the recent Progress & Freedom Foundation Aspen conference that metered broadband is inevitable for ISPs but didn't mention Frontier's policy change."
• "Wholesale Unbundling Support May Prompt Martin to Seek Vote," Communications Daily, August 27, 2008
  "Even though there's no order underway, Martin continues to appear intent on getting a vote on rules to promote the sale of cable channels individually, said Progress & Freedom Foundation's Adam Thierer. 'The chances are very good that he will advance something on the wholesale a la carte front,' said Thierer, whose group usually opposes regulation. 'This chairman isn't going to stop until he gets something approximating a full blown a la carte mandate on the cable industry, and he'll do it by any means necessary.'"
• "Launch Prices Flat Despite Cost-of-Living Growth," Communications Daily, August 25, 2008,
  "The Space Frontier Foundation wants launch costs to fall so missions, with and without humans, will increase, said Berin Szoka, foundation chairman and visiting fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation. 'We need to get people to stop thinking of space as a program but as a place' but 'the cost of space launch' is thwarting that shift, Szoka said."

Previous Months:

August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January

Previous Years:

2007
2006
2005
2004