Internet Law Commons^™

Privacy Concern In Google Voice Call Recording, Michael Katz, James Tuthill

Michael Katz

The Federal Communications Commission, taking note of AT&T's complaint, has written to Google with questions about its call blocking. But the implications for our privacy of software-managed call services like Google Voice are a much greater threat to consumers, and that's where the FCC should direct its energy - immediately.

Civil Rights In The Cyber World, Danielle Citron

Danielle Keats Citron

No abstract provided.

Fulfilling Government 2.0'S Promise With Robust Privacy Protections, Danielle Citron

Danielle Keats Citron

The public can now “friend” the White House and scores of agencies on social networks, virtual worlds, and video-sharing sites. The Obama Administration sees this trend as crucial to enhancing governmental transparency, public participation, and collaboration. As the President has underscored, government needs to tap into the public’s expertise because it doesn’t have all of the answers. To be sure, Government 2.0 might improve civic engagement. But it also might produce privacy vulnerabilities because agencies often gain access to individuals’ social network profiles, photographs, videos, and contact lists when interacting with individuals online. Little would prevent agencies from using and …

An Introduction To Jurisdictional Issues In Cyberspace, Dan Jerker B. Svantesson

Dan Svantesson

Imagine a state proclaiming that it will claim jurisdiction over, and apply its laws to, any website that can be accessed from a computer located in its territory. The response would perhaps be outrage from some. Others would point to the ineffective nature of such a rule, and yet others would perhaps view the model as infeasible. Indeed, when the Advocate-General’s office of Minnesota in the mid 90’s issued a statement that: ‘[p]ersons outside of Minnesota who transmit information via the Internet knowing that information will be disseminated in Minnesota are subject to jurisdiction in Minnesota courts for violations of …

Digital Divide Older People And Online Legal Advice, Subhajit Basu, Joe Duffy, Helen Davey

Subhajit Basu

Many older people are not aware where and when advice is available. Furthermore they may be unaware that advice is needed

Law's Expressive Value In Combating Cyber Gender Harassment, Danielle Citron

Danielle Keats Citron

The online harassment of women exemplifies twenty-first century behavior that profoundly harms women yet too often remains overlooked and even trivialized. This harassment includes rape threats, doctored photographs portraying women being strangled, postings of women’s home addresses alongside suggestions that they should be sexually assaulted and technological attacks that shut down blogs and websites. It impedes women’s full participation in online life, often driving them offline, and undermines their autonomy, identity, dignity, and well-being. But the public and law enforcement routinely marginalize women’s experience, deeming it harmless teasing that women should expect, and tolerate, given the Internet’s Wild West norms …

Technological Due Process, Danielle Citron

Danielle Keats Citron

Today, computer systems terminate Medicaid benefits, remove voters from the rolls, exclude travelers from flying on commercial airlines, label (and often mislabel) individuals as dead-beat parents, and flag people as possible terrorists from their email and telephone records. But when an automated system rules against an individual, that person often has no way of knowing if a defective algorithm, erroneous facts, or some combination of the two produced the decision. Research showing strong psychological tendencies to defer to automated systems suggests that a hearing officer’s check on computer decisions will have limited value. At the same time, automation impairs participatory …

Survey Of The Law Of Cyberspace: Electronic Contracting Cases 2006-2007, Juliet Moringiello, William Reynolds

William L. Reynolds

In this annual survey, we discuss the electronic contracting cases decided between July 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007. In the article, we discuss issues involving contract formation, procedural unconscionability, the scope of UETA and E-SIGN, and contracts formed by automated agents. We conclude that whatever doctrinal doubt judges and scholars may once have had about applying standard contract law to electronic transactions, those doubts have now been largely resolved, and that the decisions involving electronic contracts are following the general law of contracts pretty closely.

Digital Ethics In Bridging Digital Divide, Subhajit Basu

Subhajit Basu

Our information society is creating parallel systems: one for those with income, education and literacy connections, giving plentiful information at low cost and high speed: the other are those without connections, blocked by high barriers of time, cost and uncertainty and dependent upon outdated information. Hence it can be expressed the DD is nothing but a reflection of social divide. The question is what is the best strategy to construct an information society that is ethically sound? Most people have the views that ICT and underlying ideologies are neutral. This Technology has become so much naturalized that it can no …

Fhaa & The Internet: The Prospects For Self-Regulation, Tim Iglesias

Tim Iglesias

This presentation argues that the internet offers both great promise and possible peril for anti-discrimination in housing. The potential for self-regulation is mixed but ultimately weak. The presentation concludes with a call for federal regulatory reform.

How To Fix The Google Book Search Settlement, James Grimmelmann

James Grimmelmann

The proposed settlement in the Google Book Search case should be approved with strings attached. The project will be immensely good for society, and the proposed deal is a fair one for Google, for authors, and for publishers. The public interest demands, however, that the settlement be modified first. It creates two new entities—the Books Rights Registry Leviathan and the Google Book Search Behemoth—with dangerously concentrated power over the publishing industry. Left unchecked, they could trample on consumers in any number of ways. We the public have a right to demand that those entities be subject to healthy, pro-competitive oversight, …

Cyber Civil Rights (November 2008; Mp3), Danielle Keats Citron

Danielle Keats Citron

Social networking sites and blogs have increasingly become breeding grounds for anonymous online groups that attack women, people of color, and members of other traditionally disadvantaged groups. These destructive groups target individuals with defamation, threats of violence, and technology-based attacks that silence victims and concomitantly destroy their privacy. Victims go offline or assume pseudonyms to prevent future attacks, impoverishing online dialogue and depriving victims of the social and economic opportunities associated with a vibrant online presence. Attackers manipulate search engines to reproduce their lies and threats for employers and clients to see, creating digital "scarlet letters" that ruin reputations. Today's …

Technology Convergence And Federalism, Daniel Lyons

Daniel Lyons

No abstract provided.

Preserving Identities: Protecting Personal Identifying Information Through Enhanced Privacy Policies And Laws, Robert Sprague, Corey Ciocchetti

Robert Sprague

This article explores the developing phenomenon of the ongoing collection and dissemination of personal identifying information (PII): first, explaining the nature and form of PII, including the consequences of its collection; second, exploring one of the greatest threats associated with data collection - unauthorized disclosure due to data breaches, including an overview of state and federal legislative reactions to the threats of data breaches and identity theft; third, discussing common law and constitutional privacy protections regarding the collection of personal information, revealing that United States privacy laws provide very little protection to individuals; and fourth, examining current practices by online …

Networked Activism, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

The same technologies that groups of ordinary citizens are using to write operating systems and encyclopedias are fostering a quiet revolution in another area – human rights advocacy. On websites such as Avaaz.org and Wikipedia, ordinary citizens are reporting on human rights violations and organizing email writing campaigns, activities formerly the prerogative of professionals. The involvement of amateurs has been heralded as revolutionizing a variety of industries, from journalism to photography. This article asks whether it has the potential to make human rights organizations irrelevant.

In contrast to much of the recent literature, this article provides a decidedly more skeptical …

Public Use, Public Choice And The Urban Growth Machine: Competing Political Economies Of Takings Law, Daniel Lyons

Daniel Lyons

The Kelo decision has unleashed a tidal wave of legislative reforms ostensibly seeking to control eminent domain abuse. But as a policy matter, it is impossible to determine what limits should be placed upon local government without understanding how cities grow and develop, and how local governments make decisions to shape the communities over which they preside. This article examines takings through two very different models of urban political economy: public choice theory and the quasi-Marxist Urban Growth Machine model. These models approach takings from diametrically opposite perspectives, and offer differing perspectives at the margin regarding proper and improper condemnations. …

Domain Names As Jurisdiction-Creating Property In Sweden, Ulf Maunsbach, Michael Bogdan

Ulf Maunsbach

No abstract provided.

The Effectiveness Of Acceptances Communicated By Electronic Means, Or - Does The Postal Acceptance Rule Apply To Email?-, Eliza Mik

Eliza Mik

No abstract provided.

Virtual Third Parties, Michael Risch

Michael Risch

In virtual worlds, where 20 million people spend $200 million each year, rules of life are governed by contract, and three-party transactions are ubiquitous; every exchange of virtual cash, property, sound, pictures, and even conversation introduces a third party into the contractual relationship between user and virtual-world provider. Whenever a contract affects a non-party, the third-party beneficiary ("TPB") doctrine might apply; to date, however, the practical and theoretical boundaries of this important doctrine's application to virtual worlds have yet to be explored, perhaps because of an overly narrow doctrinal conception. Many states have loosened TPB requirements somewhat; most have adopted …

Virtual Rule Of Law, Michael Risch

Michael Risch

This article, which follows a presentation at the West Virginia Law Review Digital Entrepreneurship Symposium, is the first to consider whether virtual worlds provide a rule of law that sets expectations for virtual business. Many consider the rule of law a catalyst for economic development, and there is reason to believe that it will be equally important in virtual economies, despite differences from the real world. As more people turn to virtual worlds to earn a livelihood, the rule of law will become prominent in encouraging investments in virtual business. The article finds – unsurprisingly – that virtual worlds now …

Cyber Crimes And Effectiveness Of Laws In India To Control Them, Mubashshir Sarshar

Mubashshir Sarshar

No abstract provided.

A Comment On James Grimmelmann’S Saving Facebook, Susan Freiwald

Susan Freiwald

This paper comments on Professor James Grimmelmann’s article Saving Facebook (94 Iowa L. Rev. 1137 (2009) http://http://works.bepress.com/james_grimmelmann/20). provides a useful analysis of the privacy debates surrounding this social networking web site. Grimmelmann provides valuable sociological and psychological material for future legislators to draw on in considering legislative control of Facebook and similar sites. Grimmelmann uses Facebook to provide concrete examples of privacy concerns to build on the more general framework provided by the works of Daniel Solove. The comment does take exception to Grimmelmann’s analysis in several points. Chief among these is Grinnlemann’s lack of evidence in support of his …

The Public Domain: Enclosing The Commons Of The Mind, James Boyle

James Boyle

Our music, our culture, our science and our economic welfare all depend on a delicate balance between those ideas that are controlled and those that are free, between intellectual property and the public domain. In his award-winning book, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (Yale University Press) James Boyle introduces readers to the idea of the public domain and describes how it is being tragically eroded by our current copyright, patent, and trademark laws. In a series of fascinating case studies, Boyle explains why gene sequences, basic business ideas and pairs of musical notes are now owned, …

Net Neutrality In America（网络中立在美国）, Henry L. Hu

Henry L Hu

No abstract provided.

A Commentary On The Decision Of The First Case Of Human Flesh Search （评人肉搜索‘第一案’的三个初审判决）, Henry L. Hu

Henry L Hu

No abstract provided.

A Commentary On The Decision Of The First Case Of Human Flesh Search （评人肉搜索‘第一案’的三个初审判决）, Henry L. Hu

Henry L Hu

No abstract provided.

Website Governance: Institutions And Modes （网站治理：制度与模式）, Henry L. Hu

Henry L Hu

No abstract provided.