Law Commons^™

Taking It With You: Platform Barriers To Entry And The Limits Of Data Portability, Gabriel Nicholas

Michigan Technology Law Review

Policymakers are faced with a vexing problem: how to increase competition in a tech sector dominated by a few giants. One answer proposed and adopted by regulators in the United States and abroad is to require large platforms to allow consumers to move their data from one platform to another, an approach known as data portability. Facebook, Google, Apple, and other major tech companies have enthusiastically supported data portability through their own technical and political initiatives. Today, data portability has taken hold as one of the go-to solutions to address the tech industry’s competition concerns.

This Article argues that despite …

Digital Market Perfection, Rory Van Loo

Michigan Law Review

Google’s, Apple’s, and other companies’ automated assistants are increasingly serving as personal shoppers. These digital intermediaries will save us time by purchasing grocery items, transferring bank accounts, and subscribing to cable. The literature has only begun to hint at the paradigm shift needed to navigate the legal risks and rewards of this coming era of automated commerce. This Article begins to fill that gap by surveying legal battles related to contract exit, data access, and deception that will determine the extent to which automated assistants are able to help consumers to search and switch, potentially bringing tremendous societal benefits. Whereas …

Do We Need Help Using Yelp? Regulating Advertising On Mediated Reputation Systems, David Adam Friedman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Yelp, Angie’s List, Avvo, and similar entities enable consumers to access an incredibly useful trove of information about peer experiences with businesses and their goods and services. These “mediated reputation systems,” gatherers and disseminators of consumer peer opinions, are more trusted by consumers than traditional commercial channels. They are omnipresent, carried everywhere on mobile devices, and used by consumers ready to transact.

Though this information is valuable, a troubling conflict emerges in its presentation. Most of these reputation platforms rely heavily on advertising sales to support their business models. This reliance compels these entities to display persuasive advertising right along …

Can You Diagnose Me Now? A Proposal To Modify The Fda’S Regulation Of Smartphone Mobile Health Applications With A Pre-Market Notification And Application Database Program, Stephen Mcinerney

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Advances in mobile technology continually create new possibilities for the future of medical care. Yet these changes have also created concerns about patient safety. Under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the authority to regulate a broad spectrum of products beyond traditional medical devices like stethoscopes or pacemakers. The regulatory question is not if the FDA has the statutory authority to regulate health-related software, but rather how it will exercise its regulatory authority. In September 2013, the FDA published Final Guidance on Mobile Medical Applications; in it, the Agency limited its oversight to …

Chopping Down The Rainforest: Finding A Solution To The "Amazon Problem", Eric Andrew Felleman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

Current economic conditions in the United States have led to a dramatic decrease in state tax revenue. Without these funds, states will be unable to support important public services, and hundreds of thousands of jobs in the public and private sectors are at risk of being cut, as states work to close $103 billion in budget gaps. Accomplishing that will involve overcoming many hurdles, such as the unpopularity of raising taxes during times of economic trouble, but one largely untapped source could provide a significant amount of income to states. States currently lose around $23 billion annually in uncollected use …

Information Anxieties, G. S. Hans

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The constant access and instant publication that the Internet allows have given every pundit an online soapbox. This content explosion has created two related problems for consumers and industry: how to find valuable content online (whatever "valuable" means) and how to moderate the flow of the content itself. Tim Wu argues in The Master Switch that the second issue of content control and mediation has been fiercely debated in the United States as far back as the invention of the telephone in the late nineteenth century. Consumers, creators, companies, and government officials have disputed the appropriate regulations for the devices …

Technology Convergence And Federalism: Who Should Decide The Future Of Telecommunications Regulation?, Daniel A. Lyons

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article critically examines the division of regulatory jurisdiction over telecommunications issues between the federal government and the states. Currently, the line between federal and state jurisdiction varies depending on the service at issue. This compartmentalization might have made sense fifteen years ago, but the advent of technology convergence has largely rendered this model obsolete. Yesterday's telephone and cable companies now compete head-to-head to offer consumers the vaunted "triple play" of voice, video, and internet services. But these telecommunications companies are finding it increasingly difficult to fit new operations into arcane, rigid regulatory compartments. Moreover, services that consumers view as …

Everything In Its Right Place: Social Cooperation And Artist Compensation, Leah Belsky, Byron Kahr, Max Berkelhammer, Yochai Benkler

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The music industry's crisis response to the Internet has been the primary driver of U.S. copyright policy for over a decade. The core institutional response has been to increase the scope of copyright and the use of litigation, prosecution, and technical control mechanisms for its enforcement. The assumption driving these efforts has been that without heavily-enforced copyright, artists will not be able to make a living from their art. Throughout this period artists have been experimenting with approaches that do not rely on technological or legal enforcement, but on constructing web-based business models that engage fans and rely on voluntary …

Ill Telecommunications: How Internet Infrastructure Providers Lose First Amendment Protection, Nicholas Bramble

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently proposed an Internet nondiscrimination rule: "Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service must treat lawful content, applications, and services in a nondiscriminatory manner." Among other requests, the FCC sought comment on whether the proposed nondiscrimination rule would "promote free speech, civic participation, and democratic engagement," and whether it would "impose any burdens on access providers' speech that would be cognizable for purposes of the First Amendment." The purpose of this Article is to suggest that a wide range of responses to these First Amendment questions, offered by telecommunications providers …

Wireless Net Neutrality Regulation And The Problem With Pricing: An Empirical, Cautionary Tale, Babette E.L. Boliek

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

I present here a unique empirical analysis of the consumer welfare benefits of prior regulation in the mobile telecommunications industry. In particular, I analyze the relative consumer benefits of state rate regulation and federal entry regulation. The institution of filing requirements and FTC review and approval of various consumer pricing regimes is highly analogous to the consumer price controls imposed by various state level public utility commissions in the past. Furthermore, the imposition of a zero-price rule is analogous to past rate regulation; in particular it is similar to past wholesale regulation with its underlying principles of open access and …

Royalty Rate-Setting For Webcasters: A Royal(Ty) Mess, Amy Duvall

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The Internet is a haven for free expression. Not only are content-based restrictions disfavored, but "[the internet] provides relatively unlimited, low-cost capacity for communication of all kinds." Almost half of all Americans have listened to music online, whether rebroadcasts of terrestrial radio or to find niche music that terrestrial radio simply does not play, and 13 percent tune in regularly. Webcasters provide a unique outlet for new artists; however, if royalty rates are set too high for all but the largest webcasters to stay in business, the variety of music available will be severely restricted. Musical diversity stimulates the generation …

E-Contract Doctrine 2.0: Standard Form Contracting In The Age Of Online User Participation , Shmuel I. Becher, Tal Z. Zarsky

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The growing popularity of e-commerce transactions revives the perennial question of consumer contract law: should non-salient provisions of consumer standard form contracts be enforced? With the focus presently on an ex-ante analysis, scholars debate whether consumers can and should read standardized terms at the time of contracting. In today's information age, such a focus might be misguided. The online realm furnishes various tools, so-called "Web 2.0" applications, which encourage the flow of information from experienced to prospective consumers. This Article, therefore, reframes the analysis of online consumer contracts while taking into account this new flow of information. In doing so, …

Online Boilerplate: Would Mandatory Website Disclosure Of E-Standard Terms Backfire?, Robert A. Hillman

Michigan Law Review

A law backfires when it produces results opposite from those its drafters intended. Lots of laws may have backfired. For example, people opposed to hate crimes legislation think that the laws "inflame prejudice rather than eradicate it." The Endangered Species Act, according to some analysts, has helped destroy rather than preserve the creatures listed by the Act. Even consumer protection laws, some believe, increase prices and confuse consumers instead of protecting them. This Article analyzes whether mandatory website disclosure of standard terms, advocated by some as a potential solution to market failures when consumers contract over the Internet, is another …

Race, Media Consolidation, And Online Content: The Lack Of Substitutes Available To Media Consumers Of Color, Leonard M. Baynes

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In its 2003 media ownership proceedings, the FCC relied on the existence of the Internet to provide justification for radically relaxing the FCC ownership rules. These rules limited the national audience reach of the broadcast licensees and the cross-ownership of different media properties by broadcasters and newspapers. In relaxing these rules, the FCC failed to recognize that a media submarket for African Americans and Latinos/as existed. This separate market is evidenced by the different television viewing habits of African Americans and Latinos/as as compared to Whites and Billboard magazine's delineation of R&B/urban music radio stations as a separate radio station …

Snake-Oil Security Claims The Systematic Misrepresentation Of Product Security In The E-Commerce Arena, John R. Michener, Steven D. Mohan, James B. Astrachan, David R. Hale

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The modern commercial systems and software industry in the United States have grown up in a snake-oil salesman's paradise. The largest sector of this industry by far is composed of standard commercial systems that are marketed to provide specified functionality (e.g. Internet web server, firewall, router, etc.) Such products are generally provided with a blanket disclaimer stating that the purchaser must evaluate the suitability of the product for use, and that the user assumes all liability for product behavior. In general, users cannot evaluate and cannot be expected to evaluate the security claims of a product. The ability to analyze …