John Palfrey Quotations

Where it is going to be tricky is in the gray area. That's where we will earn our keep. Where it's something unethical, but maybe not illegal, we want to put companies on notice that we're going to shine a light on them.

On the one hand, these are important, critical issues for the future of democracy in the world, and on the other, they're thorny and unpleasant to talk about. It's a massive brewing dispute.

For too long, unscrupulous companies have made millions of dollars infecting our computers with malicious software. This is so dangerous because there are intruders in your house, but you don't know that they are in there or how they got there.

For too long, these companies have been able to hide in the shadows of the Internet. What we're after is a more accountable Internet.

Massachusetts is the canary in the mine on this issue. If Massachusetts gets this right, others will follow.

We have a whole bunch more lined up behind this one.

We do have companies in mind but we are not going to name names off the bat.

We think there's enormous value ... in giving consumers more control and giving them more information before they do something that could be damaging to their computers. The longer-term goal is we hope that these reports ... will lead the providers of applications to operate more openly and more transparently.

Filtering technologies, and the way that they are implemented, are becoming more sophisticated.

We chose four quite common applications to highlight, and we have found that in each instance the applications do things to violate the guidelines.

We think of it as a neighborhood watch.

There's a fine line between legitimate advertising practices and unwanted advertising practices, and finding where that line falls is a difficult one.

The state's abilities in terms of content control online -- through a mixture of methods -- should not be underestimated.

Other companies that follow similar practices beware: This is just the beginning of what we hope to identify and publicize.

That's when you'll see the true colors of the company on this topic.

You need to avoid any one entity having too much control over the ecosystem.

There's a cat-and-mouse game going on between states that seek to control the information environment and citizens who seek to speak freely online. Filtering technologies, and the way that they are implemented, are becoming more sophisticated.

It's putting the providers of this software on notice that we're going to be paying attention.

The bloom is off the rose for the Internet industry. There is a sense that American companies have a higher obligation than has been practiced in China in recent years.

It's related to the problems that Yahoo and Microsoft and others are facing in China, ... but here the issue is that these technology security companies are directly profiting from the censorship regime itself.

Intruders are now in your house without your permission. They entered through your computer to bombard you with sneaky pop-ups and install tracking software to spy on your every move and steal your most personal information.

But if anyone can manage to mitigate such a risk, it is no doubt the Chinese,

There is a long standing tradition of using code to evade censorship in China, so that goes on. The trouble is the Chinese government has created the world's most sophisticated censorship machine.

China is the most repressive censorship regime on the Internet.

Our studies have shown that China's online censorship systems are by far the most sophisticated and extensive in the world.

It's not about being digital. It's about students who are born digital.

Research now means a Google search.

Television didn't transform education. Neither will the internet. But it will be another tool for teachers to use in their effort to reach students in the classroom. It will also be a means by which students learn outside the classroom