Law Commons^™

Guiding The Censor’S Scissors: A Framework To Assess Internet Filtering, Derek E. Bambauer

Derek Bambauer

While China’s Internet censorship receives considerable attention, censorship in the United States and other democratic countries is largely ignored. The Internet is increasingly fragmented by states’ different value judgments about what content is unacceptable. States differ not in their intent to censor material – from political dissent in Iran to copyrighted songs in America – but in the content they target, how precisely they block it, and how involved their citizens are in these choices. Previous scholars have analyzed Internet censorship from various values-based perspectives, and have sporadically addressed key principles such as openness, transparency, narrowness, and accountability in evaluating …

Parental Rights In Myspace: Reconceptualizing The State’S Parens Patriae Role In The Digital Age, Sheerin N. Shahinpoor

Sheerin N. Shahinpoor

The law grants parents a great deal of leeway in their child-rearing decisions, including choices in the context of their children’s internet use. But there is a harm about which many parents and state and federal governments are unaware: reputational harm. Children and teenagers’ current internet use put them at risk of permanently harming their reputations, and there are no protective measures in place, whether educational or regulatory. They are posting personal information on the internet at an alarming rate mostly via social networking sites like MySpace.com and Facebook.com without an awareness of the present and long-term consequences, such as …

Ceo Postings: Leveraging The Internet’S Communications Potential While Managing The Message To Maintain Corporate Governance Interests In Information Security, Reputation And Compliance, Margo E. K. Reder

Margo E. K. Reder

CEO POSTINGS –

LEVERAGING THE INTERNET’S COMMUNICATIONS POTENTIAL WHILE MANAGING THE MESSAGE TO MAINTAIN CORPORATE GOVERNANCE INTERESTS IN INFORMATION SECURITY, REPUTATION AND COMPLIANCE

By Margo E. K. Reder

For approximately eight years, Whole Foods Market, Inc. [Whole Foods] CEO John Mackey posted messages to Yahoo! Financial’s online message board for Whole Foods. Rather than using his real name, Mr. Mackey like many posters to chat rooms, created an online alter ego and posted his comments under a pseudonym. As “Rahodeb” Mr. Mackey promoted his Whole Foods chain, boasted about personal stock gains in Whole Foods stock, company plans and performance …

Last-Mile Dilemma: How Network Neutrality Legislation Could Create Barriers To Innovation, Nicholas R. Brown

Nicholas R Brown

This paper takes a look at the various concepts of Network Neutrality and their affects on the end user. And then investigates proposed policy solutions and how that policy may hinder future Internet innovation.

Omniveillance, Privacy In Public, And The Right To Your Digital Identity: A Tort For Recording And Disseminating An Individual’S Image Over The Internet, Josh Blackman

Josh Blackman

Internet giant Google recently began photographing American streets with a new technology they entitled Google Street View. These high-resolution cameras capture people, both outside, and inside of their homes, engaged in private matters. Although the present iteration of this technology only displays previously recorded images, current privacy laws do not prevent Google, or other technology companies, or wealthy individuals, from implementing a system that broadcasts live video feeds of street corner throughout America. Such pervasive human monitoring is the essence of the phenomenon this Article has termed omniveillance. This threat is all the more realistic in light of projected trends …

Chilling Effects: The Communications Decency Act And The Online Marketplace Of Ideas, Anthony M. Ciolli

Anthony M Ciolli

The popularization of the Internet has ensured that, for the first time in human history, speech is in a position where it can become truly free. In 1996 Congress, hoping to preserve and promote a vibrant and competitive free marketplace of ideas on the Internet, passed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a controversial statute that grants the owners of private online forums and other Internet intermediaries unprecedented immunity from liability for defamation and related torts committed by third party users. Since then, a fierce debate has raged over how to strike the proper balance between the seemingly competing …

The Strange Case Of Josh Wolf: What It Tells Us About Privilege Law, Anthony L. Fargo

Anthony L Fargo

The case of Josh Wolf, a blogger jailed for nearly six months for failing to comply with a subpoena, highlights several problems with the law of journalist's privilege. In particular, the Wolf case demonstrates the problems of defining who is a journalist and reconciling the law among different federal circuits and between federal and state courts. A proposed federal shield law may solve some, but not all, of these problems.

What Google Knows: Privacy And Internet Search Engines, Omer Tene

Omer Tene

Search engines are the dominant actors on the Internet today and Google is undoubtedly, the undisputed king of search, evoking ambivalent feelings. It is adored for its ingenuity, simple, modest-looking interface, and superb services offered at no (evident) cost. Yet increasingly, it is feared by privacy advocates who view it as a private sector "big brother," posing what one commentator dubbed “the most difficult privacy problem in all of human history.” Google is an informational gatekeeper, harboring previously unimaginable riches of personal data. Billions of search queries stream across Google servers each month, the aggregate thoughtstream of humankind online. Google …

Kuwait University, Civil Law And The Internet: Genesis Of A Dedicated Civil Law-Teaching Website (Being A Unesco Cited Project), Mashael Alhajeri

Mashael Alhajeri

No abstract provided.

Preserving Competition In Multi-Sided Innovative Markets: How Do You Solve A Problem Like Google?, Kristine Laudadio Devine

Kristine L Devine

The unique characteristics of the search advertising industry encourage the development of anticompetitive monopoly power, facilitating the rise and dominance of companies like Google. First, the search advertising industry is subject to multi-sided network effects that create a positive feedback loop. An increase in the number of customers on one side of the market attracts increased numbers of customers on the other side, enabling dominant firms to entrench their market power. Second and relatedly, the search advertising industry operates in an innovative market where firms compete not to outdo competitors on price but rather to displace one another’s products entirely. …

Myspace Is Also Their Space: Ideas For Keeping Children Safe From Sexual Predators On Social Networking Sites, Susan H. Duncan

Susan Duncan

A growing number of disturbing incidents involving minors as victims of sexual solicitation, assault and even murder have been traced to a fairly new type of Internet communication, social networking sites. These sites, hugely popular with teens, provide unique and largely independent and unsupervised channels of self expression and socialization for children. Yet the sites also present real dangers to today’s youth, the most serious being child victimization by sexual predators. To understand the magnitude of the issue this Article begins by defining what social networks are, explaining how they work and tracing their ever increasing popularity. Millions of users …

The Disruption Of Marital Eharmony: Distinguishing Mail-Order Brides From Online Dating In Evaluating "Good Faith Marriage", Brandon N. Robinson

Brandon N. Robinson

ABSTRACT In today’s society, more and more people are turning to the information superhighway to find love. No longer confined to the girl or boy “next door,” many of today’s single men and women can connect with potential soul mates across the globe with the simple click of a button, symbolizing yet another consequence of a world community that is quickly becoming smaller and more interconnected. Once an international “match” has been made, the U.S. citizen can begin the complicated process of bringing his newfound loved one to the States. The IMO industry has a much more sinister underbelly, however, …

Asking For It: A Grokster-Based Approach To Internet Sites That Distribute Offensive Content, Zac Locke

Zac Locke

Anyone connected to the Internet can post their words, images and any other expression to millions of sites online. However, these sites are also available to tortfeasors and criminals such as defamers, sexual predators, and child pornographers. These individuals rely on interactive computer services (“ICSs”), such as Internet service providers, search engines, social networking sites, video sharing sites, and chat rooms, to disseminate their illegal and offensive messages. The fact that torts and crimes such as defamation, predation and child pornography happen in cyberspace instead of on a street corner does not shield speakers from liability for their actions. However, …