A whole bunch of you have been submitting this story about how mobile app developers around the globe have begun pulling their apps from the US Apple iOS and Android Market stores because they're afraid of getting hit by patent lawsuits in the US. This shouldn't surprise anyone. Plenty of folks in the tech industry have been warning for well over a decade about the problems with our patent system and how it's basically being used to extract money from innovators, rather than to encourage innovation. The article quotes a bunch of developers, some of whom say that they're "concerned about my future as a software developer due to these patent issues."

At what point will people finally admit that the system is broken? Totally and completely broken?

And yet, what did Congress do? It took them five or six years, but they passed a totally toothless bit of patent reform that won't address a single one of the problems we all know are facing the system. But how can people deny that the patent system is a problem when it's clearly keeping innovation out of the US market?

Almost all of the issues facing broadband in this country (our slow speeds and high prices relative to other countries, questions about "neutrality" and things like customers being forced into broadband tiers) are really symptoms of a lack of significant competition in many markets. Many customers really only have one or two options, neither of which they like (I'm in that camp myself). Yet, the broadband providers want to make everyone believe it's a really competitive market. That's why they've done everything possible to block the FCC from getting accurate data about actual broadband deployments and competition over the years. Their most recent plan has been about pitching the idea of an organization called "Connected Nation" to "map" broadband penetration. However, as has been discussed previously, Connected Nation seems more like a front for the big telcos to try to pretend there's significant competition... and an increasing number of doubts are being raised about Connected Nation's efforts -- even as it seems to remain a darling of DC politicians. However its "mapping" still won't look at house-by-house penetration and competition (by demand from the broadband providers) and the collected data will remain proprietary, rather than open.

Meanwhile, Verizon has put up a video claiming to explain why there's plenty of competition in broadband in the US, but it does so by pulling a neat little trick: rather than defining the market as DSL and cable providers, it dumps wireless providers into the mix... So when you add mobile data providers, yes, there are more players in the space, but that ignores the fact that (1) many of the mobile players and broadband players are actually connected (i.e., AT&T has both, as does Verizon) and (2) that the cellular wireless broadband providers are all greatly limited, and use terms of service that tend to forbid using the data account as a primary connection. In other words, they're not really part of the same market at all.

But, most importantly, the video fails to back up its thesis that the US is "one of the most successful broadband markets in the world." It says there's lots of competition, investment in new technologies and consumers are getting more as prices go down. That suggests there is, in fact, some competition in the market -- a point pretty much everyone agrees on. But it does nothing to compare the US to other markets around the world that have much more competition, much more investment and much greater consumer value per dollar spent. Just saying that because there's some competition, the US is one of the most successful in the world, doesn't back up the thesis at all. It's like saying that you won a baseball game because you fielded nine guys. You forgot about the actual game.

Well, US telcos who are sick and tired of people pointing out how far behind the US is in broadband, is certainly happy to hear about a new report that claims the US is actually #1 in broadband. But, of course, the devil is in the details and the details look pretty ridiculous. Apparently, the guy behind the study built a bizarre and somewhat meaningless "connectivity scorecard," where he measured five different factors in a variety of countries, from overall internet penetration to online banking usage to voice minutes (both wired and wireless) to SMS usage per capita and, finally, consumer spending on software. From that, he ranked the countries with the US being number one.

Of course, looking over those factors, it's difficult to see why those specific factors should be the ones measured. Or how the relative weights of those factors should be measured to have any say at all in overall connectivity. SMS usage per capita? Does that really say anything about broadband connectivity? I actually use SMS less when I'm around a broadband connection. And, consumer software spending? That would mean that a hypothetical country that relies mostly on open source technologies is considered less connected than one that buys Microsoft. Even worse, as we see more and more free "cloud" offerings, it would mean those that use something like Google Docs, rather than paying for Microsoft would be seen as less connected, even as it likely means they're more connected.

Similar ideas have been proposed before, but new bills have been proposed in both the House and the Senate that require anyone offering internet connectivity to retain log files for two years. There's no good reason for this, of course. It's been shown that such data retention laws actually make it more difficult to track down the information you need while being expensive. But, of course, the politicians are claiming this is "to protect the children." Of course. They even have come up with a silly acronym so that the title of the bill (Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act) spells out "Internet SAFETY Act." Of course, that's a load of crap, because this bill has little to do with protecting children, and won't do much, if anything to actually protect children.

It will, however, be a huge nuisance for just about everyone. That's because the bill, as written, doesn't just apply to big ISPs, but to anyone providing internet access -- meaning all of you with your home routers fall under this law and will need to keep log files for two years or, you know, be accused of helping child predators. I can't wait until prosecutors are looking to charge someone with something -- and since they have no actual evidence on whatever it is they're looking for, they'll make use of such a law to prosecute. For the children. Of course.
Can someone pass a law that says that any politician who proposes a law "for the sake of the children" or "to protect the children" automatically gets thrown out of elected office? Protecting children is great -- but why is it that every law that is supposedly there to protect the children never actually has anything to do with protecting children?

Given China's mentality towards its citizens, it probably won't surprise many people to find out that the head of the country's biggest mobile phone operator gleefully acknowledges that it can spy on anyone's location and has no qualms about handing that info over to authorities. He also talks about how the company is considering using this data to better target advertisements. While the article paints this as somehow shocking, it's been widely assumed that this was true already. And, the idea, as expressed in the article, that it wouldn't or couldn't happen in the United States seems a bit naive as well. Given how telcos helped the US government spy on phone calls without warrants, it seems like it may already be happening here as well.