Let’s begin with a puzzle raised by the previous session on who should regulate consumer protection. We heard from a specialist in administrative law that the design of the current method of bank supervision is the worst regulatory system she has ever seen. The fact that the regulators are paid by the banks (that is […]

This is the first of several posts I’ll do on the Consumer Financial Protection Agency that the Obama Administration has proposed to protect consumers and investors from financial abuse.
The Administration released an 88 page white paper on financial services reform on June 17th. The CFPA is a major new proposed agency and accounts for a […]

The populist bandwagon to whack the credit card companies for a financial crisis they didn’t cause is still going on. The latest is proposed legislation —really a revival of stuff that’s been floating around—to help the merchants reduce the fees they pay to the card companies. You don’t need an advanced degree in economics—just […]

60 minutes on Sunday presented a report on a worm virus lying dormant in millions of computers worldwide awaiting instructions from China or Russia or wherever it was hatched that could instantly bring down the web. This morning, CNN reported that this virus has a name: “Conficker.” CNN also reported that it may go “live” […]

Rasmussen reports say that nearly one in three Americans (29% to be exact) belong to social networks, with more than half of those under 30 and 45% of those 30 – 39 belonging. And, the majority of those who use social networks use them primarily for personal activities (88%).
Not such a newsflash.
That means […]

The latest brouhaha between Facebook and its users illustrates how far away many social networking sites are from having viable business models. The Facebook execs must be seething over the latest outcry from ungrateful users who haven’t figured out that you can’t get something for nothing. The ingrates get a vast amount of services for […]

Social networking sites should take the indictment of the evil Mom who used MySpace to drive her daughter’s friend to suicide quite seriously. I’m sure the folks at MySpace feel terrible about this and, like all of us, their hearts go out to the family of the dead girl. It was a real and senseless tragedy.
 
But […]

John Gapper responded today to Esther Dyson’s WSJ op-ed on the coming revolution in advertising.
I’m with John in being doubtful that friending is the future of online advertising. Someone will no doubt come up with a creative way to do some form of advertising for the millions of eyeballs on the social networking […]

Esther Dyson’s commentary on “The Coming Ad Revolution” manages to be both wrongly optimistic and wrongly pessimistic. Common ground is that there is a coming ad revolution. According to the article, online will become increasingly effective through the use of behavioral targeting, viral marketing on social networking sites, and sophisticated methods that are being dreamed […]

The NYTimes asked whether we are “living in a Google World, where everything is free thanks to the advertising that can be generated by people using the Google tools.” Is there a free ad-supported Porsche in your future? Or maybe even free tummy tucks in return for tattooing ads on your forehead. There […]