Emily Brill Investigates Jonathan Zittrain’s Financial Ties to Apple Competitors

Emily Brill:

Professors at Harvard Law School’s influential Berkman Center for Internet & Society consistently take positions on hotly debated business issues in support of companies like Google, which favor a free-wheeling Internet culture and less control over intellectual property, and against companies like Apple and AT&T, which — at least when it comes to hardware like the iPhone — favor closed digital systems and stricter intellectual property rights. […]

What most readers don’t know is that the Berkman Center and many of its leading professors have financial and personal ties to Google and other tech companies — ties that are not disclosed when these academics speak or publish, and that I discovered after auditing a class with Zittrain.

Tuesday, 6 July 2010