Computer Law Commons^™

Credit Scoring In The Era Of Big Data, Mikella Hurley, Julius Adebayo

Yale Journal of Law and Technology

For most Americans, access to credit is an essential requirement for upward mobility and financial success. A favorable credit rating is necessary to purchase a home or car, to start a new business, to seek higher education, or to pursue other important goals. For many consumers, strong credit is also necessary to gain access to employment, rental housing, and essential services such as insurance. At present, however, individuals have very little control over how they are scored and have even less ability to contest inaccurate, biased, or unfair assessments of their credit. Traditional, automated credit-scoring tools raise longstanding concerns of ...

Virtual Child Pornography Laws And The Constraints Imposed By The First Amendment, Paula Bird

Barry Law Review

This article seeks to navigate through the complexities involved with the uncertain future of virtual child pornography laws. First, this article sets forth a brief history of the legislative actions and court rulings regarding unprotected speech and virtual child pornography, and discusses the current standing of child pornography laws. Entailed in this discussion will be a vigorous inspection of the current statutes and how they simultaneously affect law enforcement, prosecutors, and defendants. Finally, the potential future of laws regarding virtual child pornography is analyzed, including addressing the issues of how the application and interpretation of the laws are changing and ...

The Economics Of Network Neutrality, Nicholas Economides, Benjamin E. Hermalin

New York University Law and Economics Working Papers

Pricing of Internet access has been characterized by two properties: Parties are directly billed only by the Internet service provider (ISP) through which they connect to the Internet. Pricing, moreover, is not contingent on the type of content being transmitted. These properties define a regime known as “network neutrality.” In 2005, some large ISPs proposed that application and content providers directly pay them additional fees for accessing the isps’ residential clients, as well as differential fees for prioritizing certain content. We analyze the private and social incentives to introduce such fees when the network is congested and more traffic implies ...

International Cryptography Regulation And The Global Information Economy, Nathan Saper

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

With the meteoric rise of the Internet and e-commerce in the 1990s came great attention to the problems and opportunities associated with cryptography. Throughout that decade, the United States and many foreign countries debated and experimented with various forms of cryptography regulation, and attempts were made at international harmonization. Since then, however, policy-making activity around cryptography has slowed, if not halted altogether, leaving individuals and companies to face a bewildering array of regulations—or, in many cases, to face regulations that are extraordinarily unclear and haphazardly applied.

This Note seeks to introduce the reader to the issue of international cryptography ...

Computer Crimes: A Case Study Of What Malaysia Can Learn From Others?, Janaletchumi Appudurai, Chitra L. Ramalingam

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Rapid development of information technology (IT) has brought with it many new applications such as e-commerce and global business. The past few years have seen activities in the legislative arena covering issues such as digital signatures, the international recognition of electronic documents and privacy and data protection. Both the developed and developing countries have exhibited keenness to embrace the IT environment. Securing this electronic environment from intrusion, however, continues to be problematic. A particular favorite form of computer crime would be ‘hacking’. As more computer systems move on to on-line processing and improved telecommunications, computer hackers are now a real ...

The Problem With Intellectual Property Rights: Subject Matter Expansion, Andrew Beckerman-Rodau

Yale Journal of Law and Technology

This article examines the expansion of the subject matter that can be protected under intellectual property law. Intellectual property law has developed legal rules that carefully balance competing interests. The goal has long been to provide enough legal protection to maximize incentives to engage in creative and innovative activities while also providing rules and doctrines that minimize the effect on the commercial marketplace and minimize interference with the free flow of ideas generally. The expansive view of subject matter protectable via intellectual property law has erased the clear delineation between patent, copyright, and trademark law. This has led to overprotection ...

Closed Circuit Television For Inside Your Head: Blanket Traffic Data Retention And The Emergency Anti-Terrorism Legislation, Caspar Bowden

Duke Law & Technology Review

Caspar Bowden, Director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), explains the technical and legal context of unprecedented new surveillance capabilities, with particular reference to the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act 2000. He discusses why these powers are unlikely to be effective in detecting or disrupting the communications of terrorist cells or organized crime, but present significant new threats to the security, privacy, and freedom of expression of the law-abiding.

Toward A "Digital Transfer Doctrine"? The First Sale Doctrine In The Digital Era, Sarah Reis

Northwestern University Law Review

The first sale doctrine in copyright law allows a person who owns a copy of a copyrighted work to sell, lend, or give away the copy to someone else. An owner of a copy of a copyrighted work can take advantage of the first sale doctrine, but a licensee cannot. In today’s digital environment, people are increasingly purchasing digital music files and e-books instead of CDs and physical books. Customers often mistakenly believe they become owners of the digital content they purchase when in actuality they merely become licensees most of the time. Licensing agreements impose use restrictions on ...

A Theory Of Creepy: Technology, Privacy, And Shifting Social Norms, Omer Tene, Jules Polonetsky

Yale Journal of Law and Technology

The rapid evolution of digital technologies has hurled to the forefront of public and legal discourse dense social and ethical dilemmas that we have hardly begun to map and understand. In the near past, general community norms helped guide a clear sense of ethical boundaries with respect to privacy. One does not peek into the window of a house even if it is left open. One does not hire a private detective to investigate a casual date or the social life of a prospective employee. Yet with technological innovation rapidly driving new models for business and inviting new types of ...

Lessons For Policymakers And Regulators On The (Predictable) Future Of The Digital Economy, Kevin Werbach

Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative

The next stage in the evolution of the digital economy involves the creation of what can be called the “Internet of the World”—an expanding web of transactions, anticipated today by on-demand platforms such as Uber and Airbnb, that eventually will occur across trillions of networked devices and penetrate every sphere of human activity. This brief looks at the many legal questions raised by these novel services, in particular, at the regulatory classification of on-demand services, as well as the application of antitrust provisions, the imposition of taxes and fees, and the assignment of liability to these new platforms.