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FTC Looks To the Future 28

netbuzz writes "The Federal Trade Commission will host three days of hearings starting Monday that are billed 'Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade' — a reprise of a similar FTC event held a decade ago that attendees still credit with having provided prescient guidance to regulators. You can judge for yourself whether they got things right."

FTC Looks To the Future

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  • Darwinism? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just what we need, the technically challenged US government protecting us by _committee_. Why don't I feel better about this???
  • Will Al Gore be on this committee? I can't think of anybody that would be more qualified.
  • Ok, so a couple major things have happened in the past 10 years.

    Cell phones. E-commerce. No-call lists. E-Marketing.

    Now they're going to talk about HDTV, maybe a little internet regulation. If we're lucky they'll start the ball rolling for some serious anti-spam measures, but come on, technological trends are getting harder and harder to predict since things are changing at a faster and faster rate. Look at the difference in technological insertion between 1985 to 1995 and from 1995 to 2005. It's fricki

    • by kfg (145172)
      Meeting people online isn't "psycho stalker" anymore.

      Speak for yourself.


    • I think you've hit the nail squarely on the head on this one... the pace of new technological developments is far too fast to make terribly useful predictions. They can look at big issues, but I daresay even then, they're going to be lucky to get even a small fraction of them right.

      For instance, I'd say that Identity Theft is a huge problem today that wasn't on anyone's radar back then. I'm no expert in government, but it seems that the FTC would certainly be involved on some level. Dealing with current iss
    • by Ucklak (755284)
      Where do you get Cell Phones from? They've been around like they are now since the pagers were popular, just more expensive. I've had them since the mid/late 80s. Then, you paid a per minute charge and it was like 22 cents off peak and 35 cents on peak. Batteries were huge and you paid roaming charges.

      The ability to keep you cell number is new within 10 years and that is cool.

      The concept of the iPod nano really isn't that far off either from 20 years ago.
      Once you got the concept of the CD and that it's
  • That term makes me want to cry. At least it isn't the "Techade confrence on nettiquite". Maybe someone should "linkroll" that one. All these new words, but no new ideas.
  • Does anyone else suspect that the english language has run out of words? Our slash & burn marketing has almost completely exhausted the natural supply. We are cobbling new buzzwords together out of existing words at an alarming rate.

    Tech-ade? Soloprenure? Fantabulous?

    One recent study from a Canadian research group suggests that the meaning of of 28% of all naturally occuring English buzzwords have been reduced by as much as 90% through over-marketing. We need to act now. If we fail, none of our wor
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Overzeetop (214511)
      On occasion I find it necessary to interact with these "children" of which you speak. I suspect the inability to communicate has already overtaken that generation.
  • "Hello, I'm from the Government and I'm here to help. "

    Is there any more frightening sentence? Ronald Reagan understood this.

    • by nomadic (141991)
      Is there any more frightening sentence? Ronald Reagan understood this.

      Oh please. Reagan increased the size of the federal government and instituted the "war on drugs" (perfect example of "I'm from the government, and I'm hear to help" ideology).
  • yes mr T the future, all the way to the year 2000! in the year 2000... in the year 2000..
  • Okay, fine. Great. *Now* are you going to do something about the obvious pump and dump stock scams being perpetrated through spam? There should be enough counts of fraud there to put some people away for ever and ever.
  • I personally believe that they should just give citizens & consumers more rights for fair use, wireless access (allowing companies & individuals or the local/state goverment to create MAN in cities without interferance from companies), and other rights. Perhaps set up DRM guidelines that allow for DRM compatiablity between competetors etc. I say it again, they need to give people more rights for the media and bandwith they purchase.
  • A video from Dr. BJ Fogg and the Persuasive Technology Lab (at Stanford University) will be shown at these hearings. It warns of the negative sides of persuasive technology -- from credibility to games. There are a bunch more videos about persuasive technology at ahref=http://captology.tv/rel=url2html-27876 [slashdot.org]http:/ /captology.tv/>.
  • Protecting consumers? Could we please stop using this word and talk about protecting people's freedom in their exchanges over the internet? Freedom not to be called or spamed, freedom to choose privacy levels, freedom to share, and freedom to express our opinions. Today we are faced with the Internet being threatened by its appropriation from network owners who are starting to choose and select content (in France they are starting to filter out p2p software). That is number one threat to everyone and Lawre
