The Debate Over Internet Governance: Jamie Love

JAMES LOVE

This is what I'm doing lately.

I have worked full time for the Center for Study of Responsive Law (CSRL) since 1990. The Center was started by Ralph Nader in 1968. I direct the Consumer Project on Technology (CPT). The web address for CPT is http://www.cptech.org. CPT is active in a number of issue areas, including intellectual property, telecommunications, privacy and electronic commerce, plus a variety of projects relating to antitrust enforcement and policy. Beginning in 1991 I have been active in a number of projects involving health care -- particularly pricing of intellectual property issues that relate to medical inventions. Right now we are very interested in the issue of compulsory licensing of essential medical technologies in developing countries. Of course, I am concerned about Microsoft's anticompetitive practices . One solution to Microsoft's predatory strategies is to learn to use non-microsoft operating systems.

In recent years we have become more aware that many issues have important global or international dimensions. This is true for intellectual property, where a complex web of international agreements shape national policies, for antitrust policy (look at recent antitrust disputes involving Boeing and Microsoft, for example), and for the developing field of internet commerce. We are urging citizens to become more involved in policy making at the international level. This isn't easy, but it isn't impossible either. Citizen involvement in the 1996 deliberations by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on internet copyright and sui generis database protection were quite effective, as are current efforts to engage the World Health Assembly in matters concerning trade and public health.

There are lots of these international organizations, and they operate without much involvement from small businesses, consumers or citizen groups. One might look at some of the various regional trade agreements, and the forums on electronic commerce.

I am the editor of an Internet newsletter called info-policy-notes, which is sent out over the Internet about once or twice a week. It covers a wide range of topics on information policy, and features mostly original materials focusing on particular problems. Archives of INFO-POLICY-NOTES are available from the Essential Information LISTPROC. I am also the owner of several other discussions lists, including DB-ACTION, PHARM-POLICY, UPD-DISCUSS ISDN , MED-PRIVACY, JAPAN-US-FOI, TAP-JURIS, ANTITRUST, all of which are available for subscriptions from LISTPROC@ESSENTIAL.ORG, with the message: subscribe listname yourfirstname yourlastname.

A little more background.

I received my graduate education at Harvard and Princeton Universities. Before my present position I was Senior Economist for the Frank Russell Company, a large pension fund consulting firm. When I worked for the Frank Russell Company, I worked on a team that developed a portfolio reporting system for the IBM pension fund's real estate investments, and I developed a return attribution model for the DEC pension fund, plus I worked on worked on a number of deals and research projects. This work was fun, and certainly better paid than my current job.

Before the Frank Russell Company I held teaching and research positions at Rutgers University and Princeton University. At Rutgers I was a visiting lecturer in 1987-1988, where I taught the required microeconomics sequence for the business school. At Princeton I was a lecturer for a while, which is a nice title they give graduate students who do precepts. I was also a research associate at Princeton, for work I was doing with Professor Bill Branson on the impact of exchange rate movements and manufacturing employment. Through my work with Bill, I also held some research position at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), for our work on economic impacts of movements of foreign exchange rates, but I don't have a clue what the official title was, if any.

People who know me call me Jamie, rather than James or Jim. I grew up in the Seattle area and lived in Alaska for 13 years, but since 1980 I have resided in the East Coast. After telecommuting for six years, I moved to the Washington, DC area in 1995, where I live with my wife Manon, and four children (Dashiell, No�, Th�oph� and Fenimore). During the day I can be reached at work by telephone at 202/387-8030 or by fax at 202/234-5176. My Internet address is love@cptech.org. I often have a large backlog of email, and I sometimes miss important messages when they are first sent, so please do not take it personally if I don't respond right way.

Writings

Links