Last week, Illinois based think tank, Heartland Institute, published a blog explaining the importance of passing the Permanent Internet tax Freedom Act (PITFA) before the November 1^st deadline. PITFA is a bill drafted by Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, that would permanently extend the moratorium on Internet access taxes. Since the law was first passed in 1998, the moratorium has helped to promote innovation and the Internet by creating a moratorium on state and local taxation of Internet access and on discriminatory tax

Earlier this week, Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) of the Senate Judiciary Committee convened a field hearing in his home state of Vermont to examine the consequences of deviating from the net-neutrality doctrine.

Local small business owner, Tom Baxter of Pine, Pennsylvania, sent a letter to the editor of The Tribune-Review expressing his frustration with the “e-fairness” bill currently pending in Congress.  As a tech-enabled small business owner, Baxter explained that this bill is anything but fair.

Nevada State Senator Debbie Smith with a member of the Commerce Innovation Showcase staff

Last week, Brian Bieron with the eBay Inc. Public Policy Lab discussed the importance of technology-enabled trade at the State International Development Organization(SIDO) Annual Conference in Washington, DC.  SIDO is an organization focused exclusively on state international trade development.

Last week, United States Trade Representative Michael Froman spoke about the benefits of tech-enabled international trade during the Coalition of Services Industries discussion on the pending Trade in Services Agreement.  As the Trade Representative for the United States, Ambassador Froman  and his staff are responsible for developing and coordinating U.S. international trade and overseeing negotiations with other countries and, therefore, very interested in the recent trends related to technology-enabled international trade.