Anne Wells Branscomb, a guiding force in the building of the global information infrastructure for more than two decades, died Thursday at her home in Concord, Massachusetts. She was 68.
A visionary lawyer who wrote Who Owns Information? and The Information Society, Branscomb's curriculum vitae was filled with accomplishments and appointments that located her at the center of the Internet and information policy debate. Most recently she was head of the Raven Group consulting firm, and research associate of the Harvard University Program on Information Resources Policy. She held many positions on professional, academic, corporate, and government bodies considering infotech issues.
Fellow Net pioneer Tony Rutkowski said Branscomb "served as this incredible backplane behind the entire telecom and computer-networking environment, marshaling her incredible network of people, companies, and institutions to accomplish more than just studies - but literally helping change the course of regulatory history by encouraging people to think in certain directions."
A key direction, Rutkowski said, was Branscomb's championing of "fertile legal and regulatory environments for the emergence of the Internet."
