Computer Law Commons^™

Internet Governance Is Our Shared Responsibility, Vinton Cerf, Patrick Ryan, Max Senges

Patrick T. Ryan

This essay looks at the the different roles that institutions play in the Internet governance ecosystem. We propose a model for thinking of Internet governance within the context of the layered model of the Internet. We use the example of the negotiations in Dubai in 2102 at the World Conference on International Telecommunications to show why it is important for different institutions within the governance system to focus on their areas of expertise (e.g., the ITU, ICANN, and IGF). Several areas of conflict are reviewed, such as the desire to promote more broadband infrastructure (a topic that is in the …

The Shaky Ground Of The Right To Be Delisted, Miquel Peguera

Miquel Peguera

It has long been discussed whether individuals should have a “right to be forgotten” online to suppress old information that could seriously interfere with their privacy and data protection rights. In the landmark case of Google Spain v AEPD, the Court of Justice of the European Union addressed the particular question of whether, under EU Data Protection Law, individuals have a right to have links delisted from the list of search results, in searches made on the basis of their name. It found that they do have this right – which can be best described as a “right to be …

The Evolution Of Internet Service Providers From Partners To Adversaries: Tracking Shifts In Interconnection Goals And Strategies In The Internet’S Fifth Generation, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

At the Internet’s inception, carriers providing the bit switching and transmission function largely embraced expanding connections and users as a primary service goal. These ventures refrained from metering traffic and charging for carriage based on the assumption that traffic volumes roughly matched, or that traffic measurement was not worth the bother in light of external funding from government grants. Most Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) bartered network access through a process known as peering in lieu of metering traffic and billing for network use. As governments removed subsidies and commercial carriers invested substantial funds to build larger and faster networks, identifying …

Déjà Vu All Over Again: Questions And A Few Suggestions On How The Fcc Can Lawfully Regulate Internet Access, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

This paper will examine the FCC’s March, 2015 Open Internet Order with an eye to assessing whether and how the Commission can successfully defend its decision in an appellate court. On two prior occasions, the FCC failed to convince a reviewing court that proposed regulatory safeguards do not unlawfully impose common carrier duties on private carriers. The Commission now has opted to reclassify broadband Internet access as common carriage, a decision sure to trigger a third court appeal. The FCC Open Internet Order offers several, possibly contradictory, justifications for its decision to apply Title II of the Communications Act, subject …

Toward A New Language Of Legal Drafting, Matthew Roach

Matthew Roach

Lawyers should write in document markup language just like web developers, digital publishers, scientists, and almost everyone else.

Network Neutrality And Consumer Demand For “Better Than Best Efforts” Traffic Management, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

This paper assesses whether and how ISPs can offer quality of service enhancements, at premium prices for full motion video, while still complying with the new rules and regulations established by the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) in March, 2015. The paper explains that having made the controversial decision to reclassify all forms of Internet access as a telecommunications service, the FCC increases regulatory uncertainty. In particular, the FCC has failed to identify instances where “retail ISPs,” serving residential broadband subscribers, can offer quality of service enhancements that serve real consumer wants without harming competition and the ability of most content …

, The Law School Of The Future: How The Synergies Of Convergence Will Transform The Very Notion Of “Law Schools” During The 21st Century From “Places” To “Platforms”, Jeffrey A. Van Detta

Jeffrey A. Van Detta

This article discusses the disruptive change in American (and trans-national) legal education that the convergence of technology and economics is bringing to legal education. It posits, and then defends, the following assertion about "law schools of the future":

“Law schools will no longer be ‘places’ in the sense of a single faculty located on a physical campus. In the future, law schools will consist of an array of technologies and instructional techniques brought to bear, in convergence, on particular educational needs and problems.”

This paper elaborates on that prediction, discussing the ways in which technology will positively impact legal education, …

The Self, The Stasi, The Nsa: Privacy, Knowledge, And Complicity In The Surveillance State, Richard Warner, Robert H. Sloan

Richard Warner

We focus on privacy in public. The notion dates back over a century, at least to the work of the German sociologist, Georg Simmel. Simmel observed that people voluntarily limit their knowledge of each other as they interact in a wide variety of social and commercial roles, thereby making certain information private relative to the interaction even if it is otherwise publicly available. Current governmental surveillance in the US (and elsewhere) reduces privacy in public. But to what extent?

The question matters because adequate self-realization requires adequate privacy in public. That in turn depends on informational norms, social norms that …

The Unexamined Life In The Era Of Big Data: Toward A Udaap For Data, Sean Brian

Sean Brian

No abstract provided.

The Costs And Benefits Of Regulatory Intervention In Internet Service Provider Interconnection Disputes: Lessons From Broadcaster-Cable Retransmission Consent Negotiations, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

This paper considers what limited roles the FCC may lawfully assume to ensure timely and fair interconnection and compensation agreements in the Internet ecosystem. The paper examines the FCC’s limited role in broadcaster-cable television retransmission consent negotiations with an eye toward assessing the applicability of this model. The FCC explicitly states that it lacks jurisdiction to prescribe terms, or to mandate binding arbitration. However, it recently interpreted its statutory authority to ensure “good faith” negotiations as allowing it to constrain broadcaster negotiating leverage by prohibiting multiple operators, having the largest market share, from joining in collective negotiations with cable operators. …

Internet Protocol Television And The Challenge Of “Mission Critical” Bits., Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

The Internet increasingly provides an alternative distribution medium for video and other types of high value, bandwidth intensive content. Many consumers have become “technology agnostic” about what kind of wireline or wireless medium provides service. However, they expect carriers to offer access anytime, anywhere, via any device and in any format. These early adopters of new technologies and alternatives to “legacy” media have no patience with the concept of “appointment television” that limits access to a specific time, on a single channel and in only one presentation format. This paper assesses whether and how Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) can offer …

Drones, Henry H. Perritt Jr., Eliot O. Sprague

Henry H. Perritt, Jr.

Dissolving Innovation In Meltwater: A Misguided Paradigm For Online Search, Bill D. Herman

Bill D. Herman

With the exponential increases in online information, internet search engines have helped fill a substantial and growing need for the capacity to sort through and manage data. News outlets in general and newspapers in particular are among the most socially important sources of online content being indexed, and these outlets are faring rather poorly in the internet economy. Both of these sectors are thus in a precarious, potentially conflicted relationship, with copyright law serving as the primary legal basis for mediating the relationship. A 2013 decision, Associated Press v. Meltwater, is one recent attempt to mediate this relationship. In …

Federal And State Authority For Network Neutrality And Broadband Regulation, Tejas N. Narechania

Tejas N. Narechania

For the second time in less than four years, the D.C. Circuit has rebuffed the Federal Communications Commission’s attempt at imposing network neutrality rules on internet traffic. But in so doing, the D.C. Circuit affirmed the FCC’s theory of jurisdiction based on section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This ruling has the significant effect of transforming a questionable source of authority into what may become the Commission’s most significant font of regulatory power.

Surprisingly, section 706 seems to give the Commission the power to implement a slightly revised set of network neutrality rules. By narrowing the scope of …

Sender Side Transmission Rules For The Internet, Tejas N. Narechania, Tim Wu

Tejas N. Narechania

Flawed Transparency: Shared Data Collection And Disclosure Challenges For Google Glass And Similar Technologies, Jonathan I. Ezor

Jonathan I. Ezor

Current privacy law and best practices assume that the party collecting the data is able to describe and disclose its practices to those from and about whom the data are collected. With emerging technologies such as Google Glass, the information being collected by the wearer may be automatically shared to one or more third parties whose use may be substantially different from that of the wearer. Often, the wearer may not even know what information is being uploaded, and how it may be used. This paper will analyze the current state of U.S. law and compliance regarding personal information collection …

A Comprehensive Approach To Bridging The Gap Between Cyberbullying Rules And Regulations And The Protections Offered By The First Amendment For Off-Campus Student Speech, Vahagn Amirian

Vahagn Amirian

No abstract provided.

Consumers As Marketers: An Analysis Of The Facebook “Like” Feature As An Endorsement, Chang Zhou

Chang Zhou

No abstract provided.

Fixing Frand: A Pseudo-Pool Approach To Standards-Based Patent Licensing, Jorge Contreras

Jorge L Contreras

Technical interoperability standards are critical elements of mobile telephones, laptop computers, digital files, and thousands of other products in the modern networked economy. Most such standards are developed in so-called voluntary standards-development organizations (SDOs) that require participants to license patents essential to the standard on terms that are “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” (FRAND). FRAND commitments are thought to avoid the problem of patent hold-up: the imposition of excessive royalty demands after a standard has been widely adopted in the market. While, at first blush, FRAND commitments seem to assure product vendors that patents will not obstruct the manufacture and sale …

Copyright Freeconomics, John M. Newman

John M. Newman

Innovation has wreaked creative destruction on traditional content platforms. During the decade following Napster’s rise and fall, industry organizations launched litigation campaigns to combat the dramatic downward pricing pressure created by the advent of zero-price, copyright-infringing content. These campaigns attracted a torrent of debate, still ongoing, among scholars and stakeholders—but this debate has missed the forest for the trees. Industry organizations have abandoned litigation efforts, and many copyright owners now compete directly with infringing products by offering licit content at a price of $0.

This sea change has ushered in an era of “copyright freeconomics.” Drawing on an emerging body …

Privacy, Transparency & Google's Blurred Glass, Jonathan I. Ezor

Jonathan I. Ezor

No matter the context or jurisdiction, one concept underlies every view of the best practices in data privacy: transparency. The mandate to disclose what personal information is collected, how it is used, and with whom and for what purpose it is shared, is essential to enable informed consent to the collection, along with the other user rights that constitute privacy best practices. Google, which claims to support and offer transparency, is increasingly opaque about its many products and services and the information they collect for it, posing a significant privacy concern.

Emerging Technologies And Dwindling Speech, Jorge R. Roig

Jorge R Roig

Pitfalls And Promises Of Social Media And Mobile Lawyering, Jonathan I. Ezor

Jonathan I. Ezor

No abstract provided.

Disclosure's Effects: Wikileaks And Transparency, Mark Fenster

Mark Fenster

Privacy And Data Protection In Business: Laws And Practices (Sample Chapters), Jonathan I. Ezor

Jonathan I. Ezor

In the fields of digital privacy and data protection in the business world, effective compliance and risk management require not only knowledge of applicable laws and regulations, but at least a basic understanding of relevant technologies and the processes of the company or other organization that is collecting and/or using the personal information or monitoring behavior. This book is structured to provide a framework for law and other students to both learn the law and place it in the necessary technological and practical context, divided into topic areas such as children’s privacy, health information, governmental requirements, employee data and more. …

Decoding First Amendment Coverage Of Computer Source Code In The Age Of Youtube, Facebook And The Arab Spring, Jorge R. Roig

Jorge R Roig

Rationales For And Against Fcc Involvement In Resolving Internet Service Provider Interconnection Disputes, Rob M. Frieden

Rob Frieden

Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) provide end users with access to and from the Internet cloud. In addition to providing the first and last mile carriage of traffic, ISPs secure upstream access to sources of content via other ISPs typically on a paid (transit), or barter (peering) basis. Because a single ISP operates in two separate segments of traffic routing, both the terms and conditions of network interconnection and the degree of marketplace competition can vary greatly. In this double-sided market, ISPs typically have many transit and peering opportunities upstream to content providers, but downstream end users may have a limited …

An Innovation-Centric Approach Of Telecommunications Infrastructure Regulation, Konstantinos Stylianou

Konstantinos Stylianou

This paper considers the mechanics and role of innovation in telecommunications networks, and explains how regulation can be designed to maximize innovation. To better focus on the relationship between innovation and regulation an effort is made to distinguish innovation from competition, although the two concepts are closely related, and several reasons are presented on why the fast changing, networked and technical nature of telecommunications offers a very favorable environment for innovation to thrive, as well as why innovation benefits from a large number of actors. Moreover, the paper further explains that even small players are useful in the innovation process …

Invoking And Avoiding The First Amendment: How Internet Service Providers Leverage Their Status As Both Content Creators And Neutral Conduits, Rob M. Frieden

Rob Frieden

Much of the policy debate and scholarly literature on network neutrality has addressed whether the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has statutory authority to require Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) to operate in a nondiscriminatory manner. Such analysis largely focuses on questions about jurisdiction, the scope of lawful regulation, and the balance of power between stakeholders, generally adverse to government oversight, and government agencies, apparently willing to overcome the same inclination. The public policy debate primarily considers micro-level issues, without much consideration of broader concerns such as First Amendment values. While professing to support marketplace resource allocation and a regulation-free Internet, the …