Tim Wu

Tim Wu
Born	Washington, D.C.
Alma mater	McGill University Harvard Law School
Occupation	Professor at Columbia Law School
Known for	Net Neutrality
Political party	Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Kate Judge
Children	1
Website	timwu.org

Tim Wu
Traditional Chinese	吳修銘
Simplified Chinese	吴修铭
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Wú Xiūmíng Wade–Giles Wu2 Hsiu1-ming2 IPA [ǔ ɕi̯óu̯mǐŋ]

Tim Wu is a senior lawyer and special adviser at the Office of the New York State Attorney General. He is currently on a leave of absence from Columbia Law School, where he is the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, director of the Poliak Center for the First Amendment at Columbia Journalism School, and a regular contributor for The New Yorker. He is also a former Bernard L. Schwartz and Future Tense fellow at The New America Foundation. He is best known for coining the phrase network neutrality in his paper Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination, and popularizing the concept thereafter, leading in part to the 2010 passage of a federal Net Neutrality rule. Wu has also made significant contributions to wireless communications policy, most notably with his "Carterfone" proposal.

Wu is a scholar of the media and technology industries, and his academic specialties include antitrust, copyright, and telecommunications law. In 2013, Wu was named to National Law Journal's "America's 100 Most Influential Lawyers," and also to the "Politico 50" in years 2014 and 2015. Additionally, Wu was named one of Scientific American's 50 people of the year in 2006, and in 2007 Wu was named one of Harvard University's 100 most influential graduates by 02138 magazine. His book The Master Switch was named among the best books of 2010 by The New Yorker magazine, Fortune magazine, Publishers Weekly, and other publications.

From 2011 to 2012, Wu served as a Senior Advisor to the Federal Trade Commission.

Wu has recently appeared on the television programs The Colbert Report and Charlie Rose.

Early life

Wu was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Basel, Switzerland and Toronto, Canada. His father, Alan Ming-ta Wu, was from Taiwan and his mother, Gillian Wu, is British-Canadian. They both studied as immunologists at the University of Toronto. Wu and his younger brother were sent to alternative schools that emphasized creativity. At school, he befriended Cory Doctorow. Wu's father died in 1980 and his mother bought him and his brother an Apple II computer using some of the insurance money, starting Wu's fascination with computers. Wu attended McGill University, where he initially studied biochemistry and later switched his major to biophysics. He graduated from McGill with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1995 and received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1998. At Harvard, he studied under copyright scholar Lawrence Lessig.

Academic career

Wu worked with the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, after graduating from law school, and before starting a clerkship with Richard Posner on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998-1999. He also clerked for Stephen Breyer, U.S. Supreme Court in 1999-2000. Following his clerkships, Wu moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, worked at Riverstone Networks, Inc. (2000–02) and then entered academia at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Wu was Associate Professor of Law at the University of Virginia from 2002 to 2004, Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School in 2004, Visiting Professor at Chicago Law School in 2005, and Visiting Professor at Stanford Law School in 2005. In 2006, he became a full professor at Columbia Law School and started Project Posner, a free database of all of Richard Posner's legal opinions. Wu called Posner "probably America's greatest living jurist."

Influence

Wu is credited with popularizing the concept of network neutrality in his 2003 paper Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination. The paper considered network neutrality in terms of neutrality between applications, as well as neutrality between data and Quality of Service-sensitive traffic, and proposed some legislation to potentially deal with these issues.

In 2006, Wu wrote "The World Trade Law of Internet Filtering", which analyzed the possibility of the World Trade Organization's treating censorship as a barrier to trade. In June 2007, when Google Inc. lobbied the United States Trade Representative to pursue a complaint against China's censorship at the WTO, Wu's paper was cited as a "likely source" for this idea. In 2006, Wu was also invited by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to help draft the first network neutrality rules attached to the AT&T and BellSouth merger.

In 2007, Wu published a paper proposing a "Wireless Carterfone" rule for mobile phone networks; the rule was adopted by the Federal Communications Commission for the 700 MHz spectrum auctions on July 31, 2007, with FCC Commissioner Michael Copps stating: "I find it extremely heartening to see that an academic paper—in this case by Professor Timothy Wu of Columbia Law School—can have such an immediate and forceful influence on policy." In November 2007 BusinessWeek credited Wu with providing "the intellectual framework that inspired Google's mobile phone strategy."

With his Columbia Law School colleagues Professors Scott Hemphill and Clarisa Long, Wu co-directs the Columbia Law School Program on Law and Technology, founded in 2007. In August 2007, in collaboration with the University of Colorado School of Law's Silicon Flatirons Program, the Columbia Law School Program on Law and Technology launched a Beta version of AltLaw, which he produced.

The Master Switch

Wu's 2010 book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires described a long "cycle" whereby open information systems become consolidated and closed over time, reopening only after disruptive innovation. The book shows this cycle develop with the rise of the Bell AT&T telephone monopoly, the founding of the Hollywood entertainment industry, broadcast and cable TV industries, and finally with the internet industry. He looks at the example of Apple Inc., which began as a company dedicated to openness that evolved into a more closed system under the leadership of Steve Jobs, demonstrating that the internet industry will follow the historical cycle of the rise of Information empires (though Wu does discuss Google as an important counterpoint). The book was named one of the best books of 2010 by The New Yorker magazine, Fortune magazine, Amazon.com, The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, and others.

2014 Lieutenant Governor's race

Main article: New York gubernatorial election, 2014

Wu ran for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor of New York against Kathy Hochul, a conservative Democrat, the running mate of incumbent Governor Andrew Cuomo. Hochul won, but Wu took 40% of the popular vote. Wu campaigned alongside law professor and progressive activist Zephyr Teachout who ran for the Democratic nomination for governor of New York. In a Washington Post interview discussing his candidacy, Wu described his approach to the campaign as one positioned against the concentration of private power: "A hundred years ago, antitrust and merger enforcement was front page news. And we live in another era of enormous private concentration. And for some reason we call all these 'wonky issues.' They're not, really. They affect people more than half a dozen other issues. Day to day, people's lives are affected by concentration and infrastructure... You can expect a progressive-style, trust-busting kind of campaign out of me. And I fully intend to bridge that gap between the kind of typical issues in electoral politics and questions involving private power."

In late August 2014, The New York Times editorial board endorsed Wu for lieutenant governor in the Democratic Party primary. Wu was the only one of the four candidates in the Democratic gubernatorial races (governor and lieutenant governor) whom the paper endorsed. The primary took place September 9. The day after the Times endorsement, Wu was endorsed by the editorial board of Daily Kos.

Appointment to the Office of the New York State Attorney General

In September 2015, the New York Times reported Wu's appointment to the Office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Wu will focus on issues involving technology, including protecting consumers and ensuring fair competition among companies that do business online. Commenting on his appointment in the article, Wu stated: “If I have a life mission, it is to fight bullies, I like standing up for the little guy, and I think that’s what the state A.G.’s office does.”

Personal life

He is married to Kate Judge, also a Columbia Law professor, and they have one daughter.

Selected publications

Book:

• Tim Wu (2010). The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. New York: Knopf (ISBN 0307269930, ISBN 978-0-307-26993-5)
• Goldsmith, Jack L., and Tim Wu (2006). Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World. New York: Oxford UP (ISBN 0195152662, ISBN 978-0-19-515266-1)

Articles:

• (2013) "How the Legal System Failed Aaron Swartz—And Us", The New Yorker News Desk blog, January 14, 2013.
• (2007) "Wireless Net Neutrality: Cellular Carterfone and Consumer Choice in Mobile Broadband", New America Foundation: Wireless Future Program. Working Paper No. 17, Newamerica.net
• (2005) "Copyright's Communications Policy", Michigan Law Review
• (2004) "The Broadband Debate: A User's Guide", Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law 3.69
• (2003) "Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination", Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law 2.2

Features:

• "Airports". Timwu.org. Accessed August 24, 2008. (Personal Webpage review.)
• "Keeping Secrets: A Simple Prescription for Keeping Google's Records out of Government Hands". Slate, January 23, 2006. Accessed August 24, 2008.
• "Network Neutrality FAQ". Timwu.org. Accessed August 24, 2008. (Personal Webpage feature; hyperlinked articles by Wu and others.)
• "No Ice". Timwu.org. Accessed August 24, 2008. (Personal Webpage feature.)
• "Why You Should Care about Network Neutrality: The Future of the Internet Depends On It!". Slate, May 6, 2006. Accessed August 24, 2008.
• "A Historic Decision": Tim Wu, Father of Net Neutrality, Praises FCC Vote to Preserve Open Internet. Democracy Now!, February 27, 2015. Accessed October 20, 2015.

See also

• Chinese Americans in New York City

Further reading and resources

Audiovisual resources

• .

External links

• Tim Wu – Faculty biography, Columbia Law School, Columbia University.
• Tim Wu – Personal/Lieutenant Governor 2014 campaign website.
• Tim Wu – Publications and papers by Tim Wu in the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) (abstracts; full texts).
• Tim Wu on The Innovation Cycle at IIEA, 25 May 2009