Law Commons^™

Ub Viewpoint – Aol/Microsoft Settlement Could Harm Consumers, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Solution To The Yahoo! Problem? The Ec E-Commerce Directive As A Model For International Cooperation On Internet Choice Of Law, Mark F. Kightlinger

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In May 2000, a French court decided that a French law banning the display of Nazi materials for sale applies to an auction website hosted by the California-based company Yahoo! Inc. The following year, at the request of Yahoo! Inc., a U.S. District Court declared that the French judgment was unenforceable in the United States because enforcing it would violate an important public policy-the First Amendment. These two cases have attracted considerable attention because they crystallize a difficult problem. The Internet is global. Every website potentially reaches every home on the planet. Thus, website content or activity that may be …

A Return To Lilliput: The Licra V. Yahoo! Case And The Regulation Of Online Content In The World Market, Marc Greenberg

Publications

The first section of this Article presents the laws governing Internet content providers and the jurisdictional regime that gave rise to this see saw battle. The second section examines a series of court proceedings. The first two proceedings in France in 2000 resulted in a French court order directing Yahoo to add geo-location filtering software to its servers in Santa Clara. The subsequent California district court litigation filed in 2001 resulted in summary judgment for Yahoo. This judgment is on appeal. The third and final section explores the global implications of the French and U.S. proceedings. The section concludes that …

Tolls On The Information Superhighway: Entitlement Defaults For Clickstream Data, Lee B. Kovarsky

Faculty Scholarship

This paper addresses the collection of "clickstream data," and sets forth a theory about the legal rules that should govern it. At the outset, I propose a typology for categorizing privacy invasions. A given state of informational privacy may be represented by: the observed behavior, the collecting agent, and the searching agent. Using this typology, I identify the specific sources of concern about collection of clickstream data. Then, based on expected levels of utility and expected transaction costs of "flipping" to a different rule, I argue for a particular set of privacy defaults for data mining.

Ideas, Artifacts, And Facilities: Information As A Common-Pool Resource, Charlotte Hess, Elinor Ostrom

Libraries' and Librarians' Publications

"The goal of this paper is to summarize the lessons learned from a large body of international, interdisciplinary research on common-pool resources (CPRs) in the past 25 years and consider its usefulness in the analysis of scholarly information as a resource. We will suggest ways in which the study of the governance and management of common-pool resources can be applied to the analysis of information and 'the intellectual public domain.' The complexity of the issues is enormous for many reasons: the vast number of players, multiple conflicting interests, rapid changes of technology, the general lack of understanding of digital technologies, …

Modularity, Vertical Integration, And Open Access Policies: Towards A Convergence Of Antitrust And Regulation In The Internet Age, Joseph Farrell, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

Antitrust law and telecommunications regulation have long adopted different stances on whether to mandate open access to information platforms. This article aims to help regulators and commentators incorporate both Chicago School and post-Chicago School arguments in evaluating this basic policy choice, suggesting how they can be integrated in an effective manner. In particular, the authors outline three alternative models that the FCC could adopt to guide its regulation of information platforms and facilitate a true convergence between antitrust and regulatory policy.

Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Communications regulators over the next decade will spend increasing time on conflicts between the private interests of broadband providers and the public's interest in a competitive innovation environment centered on the Internet. As the policy questions this conflict raises are basic to communications policy, they are likely to reappear in many different forms. So far, the first major appearance has come in the "open access" (or "multiple access") debate, over the desirability of allowing vertical integration between Internet Service Providers and cable operators. Proponents of open access see it as a structural remedy to guard against an erosion of the …

The Internet, Innovation, And Intellectual Property Policy, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

The Internet continues to transform the information industries and challenge intellectual property law to develop a competition policy strategy to regulate networked products. In particular, inventors of "information platforms" that support the viewing of content-be they instant messaging systems, media players, or Web browsers-face a muddled set of legal doctrines that govern the scope of available intellectual property protection. This uncertainty reflects a fundamental debate about what conditions will best facilitate innovation in the information industries--a debate most often played out at the conceptual extremes between the "commons" and "proprietary control" approaches to the Internet and intellectual property policy.

This …

Commentary: Time To Hug A Bureaucrat, A. Michael Froomkin

Articles

No abstract provided.

Identity Theft, Privacy, And The Architecture Of Vulnerability, Daniel J. Solove

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Article contrasts two models for understanding and protecting against privacy violations. Traditionally, privacy violations have been understood as invasive actions by particular wrongdoers who cause direct injury to victims. Victims experience embarrassment, mental distress, or harm to their reputations. Privacy is not infringed until these mental injuries materialize. Thus, the law responds when a person's deepest secrets are exposed, reputation is tarnished, or home is invaded. Under the traditional view, privacy is an individual right, remedied at the initiative of the individual.

In this Article, Professor Solove contends the traditional model does not adequately account for many of the …

States And Internet Enforcement, Joel R. Reidenberg

Faculty Scholarship

This essay addresses the enforcement of decisions through internet instruments. The starting point is a brief justification of internet enforcement as the obligation of democratic states. Next, the essay argues that the movement to re-engineer the internet infrastructure by public and private actions also facilitates state enforcement of legal and policy decisions. The essay maintains that states will increasingly try to use network intermediaries such as payment systems and Internet Service Providers as enforcement instruments. Finally, and most importantly, the essay focuses on ways that states may harness the power of technological instruments such as worms, filters and packet interceptors …

Regulatory Challenges And Models Of Regulation, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

No abstract provided.