Technology Policy for a Thriving Society

Tim Wu & Zephyr Teachout

We can create an economy, society and government that is open,
connected, and accessible, but to do so we must invest in our digital
infrastructure and adopt policies that support public interests, promote
opportunity, and enable innovation.

We are not alone in pursuing such a vision for the future. New York needs
policies that open up access to information, reduce the costs of regulation, and
lower barriers for individuals and small business to transact. New York State
government, which has been a laggard in this area, should begin to lead the
world in our approaches to technology policy.

I. Infrastructure: Better Broadband, Open Networks & Smart Grids

Information is delivered across a network of wireless technologies and wired grid.
New Yorkers should have access to the fastest, most efficient, most open
networks in the world.

Net Neutrality: The State should ensure that internet providers do not
discriminate in carriage of internet traffic and dont create slow lanes on
the network for disfavored traffic.

Facilitating Broadband Competition: As in almost every other segment

of the economy, greater competition will benefit businesses and
consumers alike. The State should adopt the statewide dig once initiative
to ensure that fiber networks are laid down during any major roadwork
construction, including upgrades on state and federal highways. Internet
access providers should abide by the truth in advertising standards
weve set in other realms.

A Spectrum Audit: Radio spectrum is a tremendous resource, and yet is

woefully underutilized. Over 95% of wireless spectrum have been divided
into exclusive licenses for use by public and private actors. However, while
these actors have been granted exclusive access to these valuable bands,
most of the public airways remain unutilized. A 2004 survey funded by the
National Science Foundation during the Republican National Convention
in New York City found that the average utilization of spectrum was 13%.
Today, a decade later, an audit of actual use of spectrum would inform
how to best utilize a critical public resource of the 21st century.

The Worlds First Model Spectrum Test Bed City: In the Summer of
2014, the FCCs Office of Engineering & Technology (OET) and the
Commerce Departments National Telecommunications and Information
Administration (NTIA) released a Joint Public Notice that seeks input on
the establishment of a Model City program to test advanced wireless
spectrum sharing technologies. These government agencies are
encouraging the development of advanced spectrum sharing
technologies and techniques to facilitate development of radio
technologies by establishing provisions for program licenses and
innovation zones. This model city would serve as a model for spectrum
sharing techniques that can be deployed elsewhere and represents a
unique opportunity for New York to create the nations first Spectrum Test
Bed City, drawing high-tech industry and substantial new investment to
the State.

MicroGeneration, Smart Grids & Two-Way Metering: The U.S. Energy

Information Administration estimates that 6% of all electricity produced is
lost in transmission, representing an enormous drain of power and wealth.
The state should study the possibilities inherent in microgeneration, which
can help keep power generation and consumption local and, with recent
advances in wind and solar technologies, represents a smart way to
architect our power grid.

II. Personal Data, Privacy, and Surveillance

Today, an array of networked devices from fitness trackers, smart
thermostats, smartphones, and automobiles, collect data based on a users active
and passive interaction. A cornerstone of contemporary consumer protections is
ensuring that consumers are able to have some control over the data they are
generating every minute of every day. This includes the ability to store data
locally or limit data transmissions as well as safeguards against sale of collected
information to third parties. Protections against pervasive government data
collection (and swapping of information between government and industry) are
important and should be implemented.

III. Regulatory models

The successive technological revolutions of the last century have expanded
access to economic opportunity for individuals and small businesses by reducing
traditional barriers to entry and building new systems for trust and safety. At the
same time, they have introduced new challenges, such as untriggered
externalities (e.g., Airbnb and neighbors), and the benefits and risks of
decentralized systems (e.g., Bitcoin).

The appropriate regulation of disruptive technologies should be handled with a
great deal of care and technical expertise. State policy should aim to avoid panic
and/or efforts primarily designed to protect threatened incumbents.

Tolerance for Decentralized/Disintermediating Technologies: Recent

technological innovations have created an opportunity for a vast array of
new block chain-based technologies that enable the establishment of
verified public financial ledgers without centralized authority. Applications
beyond finance include smart contracts, censorship-proof DNS,
decentralized messaging, and many additional services.

Laying the Groundwork for Intelligent Transportation: With the coming

wave of autonomous vehicles, numerous changes will need to be made to
state law to facilitate this technology. Crafting an environment that is
friendly to autonomous/intelligent transportation and updating state laws to
both protect the general populace and create a meaningful glidepath for
smart vehicles is fundamentally important for improving road safety and
goes hand-in-hand with fair congestion pricing for vehicles, and a host of
other societal improvements.

IV. Open Government, Open Innovation
Innovation on the internet has been fueled by a pervasive open approach to
building technology and to gathering and interpreting data. New York can make
the most of this approach by drastically reducing the cost of technology
development, widely disseminating public information and education resources,
and powering unknown future innovations.

Open Laws: New York's legal code is relatively accessible compared to

other states; however, it is in need of usability improvements. Today, digital
platforms exist to make laws both reusable and more democratic by
providing useful features that improve accessibility and comprehension for
non-lawyers. Committing to getting local laws into America Decoded (or a
similar platform) and adopting the Consumer Finance Protection Bureaus
eRegs tool for all relevant state laws would both be great leaps forward in
empowering residents of the state.

Open by Default -- IT purchasing, data, research: The state will spend

over $420 million on information technology in FY2015, and millions more
on state-funded research. This represents an enormous investment on
behalf of the taxpayer, who has very limited access to the tools, research,
and data that they have so generously funded. By making this software,
data, and research available to the public by default, the state can
maximize the investment it has already made in these valuable assets.
Open source software allows the state to more easily collaborate with
other states on shared problems, and makes these innovations available
to the citizen investors and independent entrepreneurs who paid for their
development. Open data allows citizens to better understand how their
government functions (see, for example, Sunlight Foundations Open Data
Guidelines), and creates an opportunity for new businesses to improve
access and accountability to core government functions. Open access
policies for research help ensure that everyone can benefit from state-
funded science. An Open by Default policy, where taxpayer-funded
information is kept locked away only by specific exception, can stimulate
our economy, improve agency operations, and ensure that taxpayers get
all the value they deserve from the investments they make.