White House to push for tech policy action in 2011

The Obama Administration on will push Congress next year to move ahead on critical technology policies, Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra said. The White House will work with Congress on bills dealing with on patent reform, privacy and corporate taxation. "Much of the policy work is really contingent on congressional action or budgetary action, so you're by default waiting for some bigger stakeholders to participate," he said.

"Spectrum, (universal service fund) reform, privacy issues -- those kinds of things we need to work on and we can work on in a bipartisan fashion," Sen John Ensign (R-NV). Online privacy, which Congress has debated in one form or another for more than a decade, is being hailed as a consumer protection issue as more companies collect personal data and use it in advertising or sell it to third parties without telling people that they are doing it. Patent reform, another recurring theme, has the backing of technology investors who say the system is not keeping up with the fast pace of software development and other innovations. Sen Ensign, ranking member of the Senate subcommittee on communications, technology and the Internet, was less optimistic about prospects for network neutrality legislation.