Law Commons^™

Digital Colonialism: The 21st Century Scramble For Africa Through The Extraction And Control Of User Data And The Limitations Of Data Protection Laws, Danielle Coleman

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

As Western technology companies increasingly rely on user data globally, extensive data protection laws and regulations emerged to ensure ethical use of that data. These same protections, however, do not exist uniformly in the resource-rich, infrastructure-poor African countries, where Western tech seeks to establish its presence. These conditions provide an ideal landscape for digital colonialism.

Digital colonialism refers to a modern-day “Scramble for Africa” where largescale tech companies extract, analyze, and own user data for profit and market influence with nominal benefit to the data source. Under the guise of altruism, large scale tech companies can use their power and …

Standing After Snowden: Lessons On Privacy Harm From National Security Surveillance Litigation, Margot E. Kaminski

Publications

Article III standing is difficult to achieve in the context of data security and data privacy claims. Injury in fact must be "concrete," "particularized," and "actual or imminent"--all characteristics that are challenging to meet with information harms. This Article suggests looking to an unusual source for clarification on privacy and standing: recent national security surveillance litigation. There we can find significant discussions of what rises to the level of Article III injury in fact. The answers may be surprising: the interception of sensitive information; the seizure of less sensitive information and housing of it in a database for analysis; and …

Modern-Day Monitorships, Veronica Root

Veronica Root

When a sexual abuse scandal rocked Penn State, when Apple engaged in anticompetitive behavior, and when servicers like Bank of America improperly foreclosed upon hundreds of thousands of homeowners, each organization entered into a Modern-Day Monitorship. Modern-Day Monitorships are utilized in an array of contexts to assist in widely varying remediation efforts. They provide outsiders a unique source of information about the efficacy of the tarnished organization’s efforts to remediate misconduct. Yet despite their use in high-profile and serious matters of organizational wrongdoing, they are not an outgrowth of careful study and deliberate planning. Instead, Modern-Day Monitorships have been employed …

What Common Law And Common Sense Teach Us About Corporate Cybersecurity, Stephanie Balitzer

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note examines the challenges of corporate cyberdefense and suggests an approach to mitigate them. Part I outlines the background of the corporate cyberdefense quandary and various cyberdefense strategies. Part II explores the current landscape of cybersecurity law in the United States and the regulatory infrastructure that governs cybercrimes. Part II also surveys case law that illustrates the legal loopholes and ambiguities corporations face when implementing cybersecurity measures. Finally, Part III argues that the proposed active defense model fails to comport with practical concerns and established legal principles. This Note’s comparative analysis of common law ‘defense of property’ principles and …

Modern-Day Monitorships, Veronica Root

Journal Articles

When a sexual abuse scandal rocked Penn State, when Apple engaged in anticompetitive behavior, and when servicers like Bank of America improperly foreclosed upon hundreds of thousands of homeowners, each organization entered into a Modern-Day Monitorship. Modern-Day Monitorships are utilized in an array of contexts to assist in widely varying remediation efforts. They provide outsiders a unique source of information about the efficacy of the tarnished organization’s efforts to remediate misconduct. Yet despite their use in high-profile and serious matters of organizational wrongdoing, they are not an outgrowth of careful study and deliberate planning. Instead, Modern-Day Monitorships have been employed …

Target, Negligence, Chips, And Chickens, Jesse D. Gossett

Jesse D Gossett

SHOPPING ON BLACK FRIDAY. It’s almost as American as baseball and apple pie. But during the 2013 holiday season, over forty million U.S. citizens experienced what is increasingly becoming a uniquely American problem: face-to-face (“FTF”) credit card fraud. This online article briefly explores the problems of data hacking and credit card fraud. It then looks at how European countries have largely avoided the problem and what American consumers can do to minimize the problem here.

A Corporate Right To Privacy, Elizabeth Pollman

All Faculty Scholarship

The debate over the scope of constitutional protections for corporations has exploded with commentary on recent or pending Supreme Court cases, but scholars have left unexplored some of the hardest questions for the future, and the ones that offer the greatest potential for better understanding the nature of corporate rights. This Article analyzes one of those questions — whether corporations have, or should have, a constitutional right to privacy. First, the Article examines the contours of the question in Supreme Court jurisprudence and provides the first scholarly treatment of the growing body of conflicting law in the lower courts on …

Tax Competition And The Case Of Bank Secrecy Rules: New Trends In International Tax Law, Linneu De Albuquerque Mello

SJD Dissertations

The current integration of world markets has led to an increase in the competition for businesses in addition to the competition for passive investments that already existed. In addition, the current financial crisis led countries to search for additional sources of revenue in order to work within their budget constraints. As tax is an area where such competition is more visible, it has also generated an effort – mainly from industrialized countries and international organizations – to curb tax practices deemed harmful to world economy. Bank secrecy rules and lack of transparency are aspects of these "harmful" tax practices. This …

Welfare, Dialectic, And Mediation In Corporate Law, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Transgovernmental Networks Vs. Democracy: The Case Of The European Information Privacy Network, Francesca Bignami

Michigan Journal of International Law

The perspective offered by this Article is twofold. The emergence of transgovernmental networks gives rise to two questions, one causal and the other normative. First, how do we explain transnational cooperation through networks? Why do governments and regulators choose to establish networks rather than retain virtually limitless discretion over policymaking, conditioned only by international legal obligations? Based on the author’s examination of the records of the intergovernmental negotiations on the Data Protection Directive, this Article concludes that one precondition for fettering national discretion through networks is common preferences among governments on the substance of the policy to be administered. Compared …

Corporate Cybersmear: Employers File John Doe Defamation Lawsuits Seeking The Identity Of Anonymous Employee Internet Posters, Margo E. K. Reder, Christine Neylon O'Brien

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Communications systems are now wide open and fully accessible, with no limits in range, scope or geography. Targeted audiences are accessible with pinpoint accuracy. Messages reach millions of readers with one click. There is a chat room for everyone. Most importantly, there is no limit on content. Therefore, employees can register their dissatisfaction by posting a message in a chat room. Moreover, the identity of the posting employee is not easily discoverable due to anonymous and pseudonymous communications capabilities. The nature of these online messages is qualitatively different from real-world communications. By way of example, newspapers have a responsibility regarding …

Rethinking The Rules Against Corporate Privacy Rights: Some Conceptual Quandries For The Common Law, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.