On June 29th, The Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF) and the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) will co-host a National Press Club briefing entitled "Sending an Online Safety Message to Congress." This event will feature a discussion about the recently released report of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group (OSTWG), "Youth Safety on a Living Internet." OSTWG -- a congressionally-mandated blue ribbon working group -- analyzed the state of online child safety and offered policymakers and parents a wide array of recommendations for how to keep kids safe and secure in today's "always-on," interconnected world. [For more background on OSTWG and our final report, see this post.] Several OSTWG leaders will be on hand to discuss the report and outline the next steps that need to be taken on this front. Here are the details.

What:	Sending an Online Safety Message to Congress -- A discussion about the OSTWG final report and the future of childrens' online safety and public policy.
When:	Tuesday, June 29 9:00 a.m. - 10:45 p.m. (breakfast provided)
Where:	National Press Club First Amendment Lounge, 13th Floor 529 14th Street NW Washington, D.C. 20515
Who:	Hemanshu Nigam, Founder, SSP Blue, and Co-Chair of OSTWG Larry Magid, Co-Director, ConnectSafety.org Michael McKeehan, Executive Director, Internet & Technology Policy, Verizon Adam Thierer President, The Progress & Freedom Foundation Stephen Balkam Chief Executive Officer, Family Online Safety Institute, (moderator)

To Register: Space is limited, so an RSVP is required to attend. Please register here.

We've added a couple of new speakers to next Thursday's PFF event on "Can Government Help Save the Press?" Again, the event will take place on Thursday, May 20, 2010 from 9 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. in the International Gateway Room, Mezzanine Level of the Ronald Reagan Building on 1300 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W. here in DC. This event will examine the FCC's "Future of Media" proceeding and debate what role the government should play (if any) in sustaining struggling media enterprises, "saving journalism," or promoting more "public media" or "public interest" content. [PFF filed comments in the proceeding and here's a list of other "major" comments that were filed.]

Our May 20th event will feature a keynote address by Ellen P. Goodman, who is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the FCC and is assisting the FCC's Future of Media team. After Ellen Goodman brings us up to speed with where the FCC's Future of Media process stands, we'll hear from a diverse panel of experts that includes:

• Charlie Firestone - Executive Director, Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program


• Kurt Wimmer - Partner, Covington & Burling (who represents broadcasters among others)


• Andrew Jay Schwartzman - Senior Vice President and Policy Director, Media Access Project


• Craig L. Parshall - Senior Vice President and General Counsel, National Religious Broadcasters


• Robert Corn-Revere - Partner, Davis Wright Tremaine

And I still might add one more. I hope you will come join us next Thursday, May 20th at 9:00 for this exciting event. Please sign up now!

Thought you all might be interested in this upcoming PFF event on "Can Government Help Save the Press?" It will take place on Thursday, May 20, 2010 from 8:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. in the International Gateway Room, Mezzanine Level of the Ronald Reagan Building on 1300 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W. here in DC. This event will consider the FCC's "Future of Media" proceeding (comments are due this Friday) and debate what role the government should play (if any) in sustaining struggling media enterprises, "saving journalism," or promoting more "public media" or "public interest" content. [You can find all our essays about this here.]

The event will feature a keynote address by Ellen P. Goodman of the FCC's Future of Media team. Ellen is one of the sharpest minds in the media policy universe today, and a real asset to the FCC team. She is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the FCC, a Research Fellow at American University's Center for Social Media, and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communications. She is also a Professor at Rutgers University School of Law at Camden, specializing in information law and policy. She has spoken before a wide range of audiences around the world on media policy issues, has consulted with the U.S. government on communications policy, and served as an advisor to President Obama's presidential campaign and transition team.

After Ellen Goodman brings us up to speed with where the FCC's Future of Media process stands, we'll hear from a diverse panel of experts that I am still busy assembling. But so far it includes Charlie Firestone of the Aspen Institute, who will be on hand to discuss the work he's been doing with the Knight Commission on this front. I've also invited a rep from the Newspaper Association of America to come and talk about the diversity of new media monetization models that they have been aggregating. (Check out the appendix of their outstanding FTC filing last Nov.) And Kurt Wimmer of Covington & Burling, who represents broadcasters among others, will talk about the need for regulatory flexibility / forbearance, especially on ownership issues. Again, more panelists to come. But please sign up now!

On Friday, May 7th from 9:00 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. at the National Press Club, The Progress & Freedom Foundation will hold a panel discussion entitled, "What Should the Next Communications Act Look Like?" This event will consider the implications of the recent Comcast v. FCC court decision, the FCC's pending "Net Neutrality" Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, as well as other developments which have lead many experts, officials, policymakers and a diverse array of companies to call on Congress to update the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Leading industry veterans will make their case for change, and explain how their proposals can be implemented. Our expect panel will include:

• Thomas J. Tauke, Executive Vice President - Public Affairs, Policy and Communications, Verizon Communications


• Peter Pitsch, Associate General Counsel and Executive Director of Communications Policy, Intel


• Walter McCormick, President & CEO, United States Telecom Association


• Ray Gifford, Partner, Wilkinson, Barker, Knauer, LLP


• Michael Calabrese, Vice President, New America Foundation


• Barbara Esbin, Senior Fellow, The Progress & Freedom Foundation

Please RSVP here is you plan to join us on May 7th for this event. Again, it will take place from 9:00 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. at the National Press Club (Holeman Lounge, 13th Floor, 529 14th Street NW). Hope to see you there.

Just a reminder that PFF is hosting a panel discussion on "Cable, Broadcast & the First Amendment: Will the Supreme Court End Must-Carry?" this Tuesday (April 27th) from 10:00-11:45 a.m at Hogan & Hartson LLP (555 13th Street NW, Washington, DC). To hold a seat, please RSVP for the event here.

The event features an all-star cast representing all sides (cable, broadcast and programming) of the fight over the FCC's must-carry rules, which require cable television systems to dedicate some of their channels to local broadcast television stations. The Supreme Court narrowly upheld these "must-carry" rules in the mid-1990s. But last year's DC Circuit decision striking down the FCC's 30% cap on cable ownership lead Cablevision to challenge the must-carry rules. The Supreme Court will soon announce whether it will review the Second Circuit's decision last June upholding the rules. Speakers at our event include:

• Dan Brenner, Partner, Hogan & Hartson LLP; former director of regulatory and legal affairs at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA)


• Matt Brill, Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP; counsel for Discovery Communications, amicus in Cablevision case; former Senior Legal Advisor to FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy


• Jack Goodman, Counsel, WilmerHale; former general counsel of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB)


• Howard Symons, Member, Mintz Levin; counsel for Cablevision; former Senior Counsel to House Subcommittee on Telecommunications

Berin Szoka and I will co-moderate the session. Hope to see you Tuesday. Register for the event here.

The Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee is hosting their second annual State of the Mobile Net conference this Wednesday, April 21 at the DC Hyatt Regency (400 New Jersey Ave NW). The conference runs 12-5 pm followed by a cocktail reception. This conference and the larger State of the Net conference are probably the two best annual Internet policy events in DC, so I hope you'll attend! This year's SOMN includes a bonus: a "Growing Up with the Mobile Net" seminar coordinated by Common Sense Media, 9-11:45 am. I'll be on the first panel of the morning on Kids' Privacy on the Mobile Net: Is it PII or TMI? with:

• Amanda Lenhart of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, veritable goddess of cyber-sociological data (check out her terrific Social Media & Young Adults report);


• Phyllis Marcus, who handles childrens' privacy and COPPA issues at the FTC (and is one of my favorite people there); and


• Alan Simpson, Common Sense Media, a tireless advocate for educating children & parents.

I can only assume Alan asked me to be on this distinguished panel panel to represent kids directly on account of my baby-faced-ness! Jerry Rubin famously said, "Don't trust anyone over thirty"--so I've still got 3.5 months of trustworthiness to go! (Or perhaps he actually read the huge PFF paper Adam Thierer and I did last summer about COPPA and my recent post on the FTC's recently announced COPPA implementation review or my testimony on Maine's COPPA 2.0 law.) Anyway, the rest of the day looks great (so register here), including these sessions:

Please join us for this Progress & Freedom Foundation luncheon briefing today at 12-2 pm in the Capitol Visitor Center, Room SVC 208/209 at E Capitol St NE & 1st St NE. I'll be moderating a discussion of the growing powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and what it might mean for consumers, advertisers, media creators, and the Internet.

If you can't make it in-person, you can listen live here.

As I've discussed here, here and here, financial reform legislation passed by the House (HR 4173) and now under debate in the Senate would give the FTC sweeping new powers to regulate not just Wall Street, but also unfair or deceptive trade practices across the economy. This could reshape regulation in a wide range of areas, such as privacy, cybersecurity, child safety, COPPA, and child nutrition, affecting media online as well as offline. Unfortunately, as Adam and I have noted, there seems to be a disconnect at the FTC between concerns over the future of struggling media creators and efforts to step up regulation on a number of fronts, especially privacy. The FTC has also asserted expanded authority to regulate "unfair" competition in its lawsuit against Intel, based solely on the FTC's Section 5 unfairness authority rather than traditional antitrust law. PFF has assembled a group of expert panelists--veteran FTC practitioners, scholars and insiders--to discuss these issues and more. Here's our panel:

• Jack Calfee, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) & author of Fear of Persuasion: A New Perspective on Advertising and Regulation (1998)


• Maureen Ohlhausen, Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer, Consumer Protection Law and Competition Law practices, & 11-year FTC veteran


• Jim Davidson, Chair of the Public Policy group, Polsinelli Shughart PC


• Stu Ingis, Partner, Venable LLP

To Register: Please RSVP online here (for free).

Friday, April 16: I'll be moderating a PFF Capitol Hill briefing on Super-Sizing the FTC & What It Means for the Internet, Media & Advertising. My panel of FTC veterans and observers will discuss the growing powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As I've mentioned here and here, financial reform legislation passed by the House and now pending in the Senate would give the FTC sweeping new powers to regulate not just Wall Street, but also unfair or deceptive trade practices across the economy. This could reshape regulation in a wide range of areas, such as privacy, cybersecurity, child safety, child nutrition, etc. The FTC has also asserted expanded authority to regulate "unfair" competition in its lawsuit against Intel. Register here for this 12-2 pm briefing in the Capitol Visitor Center!

Thursday, April 15: I'll be participating in Capitol Hill briefing on Google's proposed acquisition of AdMob, a leading in-app mobile ad network, which the FTC appears poised to challenge. (RSVP here.) Geoff Manne has probably done the best job debunking arguments against the deal but, sadly, couldn't make the panel. ITIF's Dan Castro will moderate a panel including (besides myself):

• Simon Buckingham, who's expressed concerns about the deal on his Appitalism blog and accused Google of leveraging Google's desktop search dominance into the high-end mobile market";


• Lillie Coney of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which never passes up an opportunity to denounce Google on privacy grounds;


• Jonathan Kanter, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, who represented TradeComet.com in their antitrust suit against Google and has also represented Microsoft in the past; and


• Glenn Manishin - Duane Morriss LLP, an antitrust lawyer who's represented Google.

Tuesday, April 27: We just announced another PFF Briefing: Cable, Broadcast & the First Amendment: Will the Supreme Court End Must-Carry?, 10:00-11:45 a.m at Hogan & Hartson LLP (555 13th Street NW, Washington, DC).

Interesting upcoming event on April 21st at Georgetown University about "Digital Power and Its Discontents." It's described as: "A one-day conference exploring the ways digital technologies disrupt the balance of power between and among states, their citizens and the private sector." Evgeny Morozov of Georgetown's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, which is organizing the event, was kind enough to invite me to participate on the first panel of the day. And I see that my fellow TLF blogger Jerry Brito of the Mercatus Center will be on another panel. Other panelists include: John Morris of CDT, Micah Sifry of the Personal Democracy Forum, Mark MacCarthy of Georgetown Univ., Rebecca MacKinnon, Joel Reidenberg of Fordham Law, Amb. Philip Verveer, and several others.

The event will be held on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Georgetown University Mortara Center for International Affairs. (3600 N Street, N.W.) Go to the website to RSVP. You'll find the complete agenda down below. It sounds like a terrific event. RSVP here.

My good friend and mentor Robert Corn-Revere, a Partner at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, will be delivering what sounds like a terrific speech on April 5th at 4:00 at the George Mason University School of Law on "The First Amendment and the End of History: Does Media Convergence Mean the End of Regulation or is it Just the Beginning?" It's a topic I care about deeply and you'll see how influential Bob's thinking has been on my own by watching that video down below. Bob is one of America's leading free speech scholars and a tireless defender of First Amendment rights. And he's always entertaining when he steps to a podium to deliver remarks. Admission to the event is free but RSVPs are requested: iep.gmu@gmail.com. Here are logistical details:

Monday, April 5, 2010, 4 p.m.
George Mason University School of Law (Room 120)
3301 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, Va. (Orange Line: Virginia Square-GMU Metro)