My presentation from the Heritage Foundation’s 2010 Resource Bank in Miami, Florida is posted at ReadyMadeWeb.com along with audio from the rest of the panel. My co-panelists were David All and Robert Willington. The panel was moderated by Heritage’s Robert Bluey.

In less than a decade, Google has grown from a Ph.D. research project to be the indispensable tool of the information economy. With the objective of making all information instantly and universally accessible, Google now controls the principal index to the internet and the email traffic of millions, while adding new features such as maps replete with street-level photos cataloging the non-virtual world.

How should governments around the world treat this data? Is it a great new resource for national security and law enforcement, or should we protect it from the prying eyes of bureaucrats? Should private companies be reigned in by regulation, or will government action only serve to undermine the modicum of privacy we maintain in the information age?

On January 16th Americas Future Foundation (AFF) will be hosting a roundtable to discuss these and other questions.

The panelists:

• Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
• Amber Taylor of O’Melveny & Myers LLP
• Jim Harper of the Cato Institute
• Cord Blomquist of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (me)

The event will take place at the Fund for American Studies, 1706 New Hampshire Avenue, NW, near Dupont Circle. Drinks at 6:30; Roundtable begins at 7:00. Roundtables are free for AFF members, $5 for non-members. So join today! Please RSVP to Cindy Cerquitella at cindy@americasfuture.org.

Hopefully we’ll see some TLF fanboys at the event!