Law Commons^™

Congress, The Internet, And The Intractable Pornography Problem: The Child Online Protection Act Of 1998, Timothy Zick

Timothy Zick

No abstract provided.

The Satellite Has No Conscience: §230 In A World Of ‘Alternative Facts’, Laura A. Heymann

Laura A. Heymann

No abstract provided.

Are We Overprotecting Code? Thoughts On First-Generation Internet Law, Orin S. Kerr

Orin Kerr

No abstract provided.

Resilience: Building Better Users And Fair Trade Practices In Information, Andrea M. Matwyshyn

Andrea Matwyshyn

Symposium: Rough Consensus and Running Code: Integrating Engineering Principles into Internet Policy Debates, held at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Technology Innovation and Competition on May 6-7, 2010.

In the discourse on communications and new media policy, the average consumer-the user-is frequently eliminated from the equation. This Article presents an argument rooted in developmental psychology theory regarding the ways that users interact with technology and the resulting implications for data privacy law. Arguing in favor of a user-centric construction of policy and law, the Author introduces the concept of resilience. The concept of resilience has long been discussed in …

Money's Past Is Fintech's Future: Wildcat Crypto, The Digital Dollar, And Citizen Central Banking, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

This Essay argues that crypto-currencies will soon go the way of the ‘wildcat’ banknotes of the mid-19th century. As central banks worldwide upgrade their payments systems, the Fed will begin issuing a ‘digital dollar’ that leaves no licit function for what the Author calls ‘wildcat crypto.’ But the imminent change heralds more than a shakeout in fintech. It will also make possible a new era of what the Author calls ‘Citizen Central Banking.’ The Fed will administer a national system of ‘Citizen Accounts.’ This will not only end the problem of the ‘unbanked,’ it will also simplify monetary policy. Instead …

Workplace Privacy And Monitoring: The Quest For Balanced Interests , Ariana R. Levinson

Ariana R. Levinson

We can see in 2001 that 77 percent of employers were engaged in monitoring. This may have increased slightly or decreased slightly, but whatever has happened, we know that this is a significant amount of employers--much greater than a majority--that are engaging in monitoring of their employees. We can also see the great rise in monitoring of computers and electronic files in a ten-year period between 1997 and 2007. Finally, we can see some of the newer technologies. In 2007, twelve percent of the reporting employers were monitoring the blogosphere, eight percent were monitoring GPS vehicle tracking, and ten percent …

Dead Ends And Dirty Secrets: Legal Treatment Of Negative Information, 25 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 619 (2008), John T. Cross

John Cross

This article discusses the process of innovation and releasing so-called negative information to help others in the process to innovate. The article focuses on patent law and asks the questions: Why do people innovate? Does the legal system really reflect how the process of innovation actually occurs?

Age Verification In The 21st Century: Swiping Away Your Privacy, 23 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 363 (2005), John T. Cross

John Cross

Today a lot of private businesses have adopted the practice of driver's license swiping where proof of age or security issues arise. This practice has beneficial uses for both private entities, in identifying underage persons and those with fake identification, and law enforcement. However, the problem arise when the private sector, businesses are not using the information to merely identify underage customers or those with fake identification but store the information encoded on the barcode in a computer database. No federal laws and very few state laws regulate the collection and use of this information while the private sector is …

Trapped In Public: The Regulation Of Street Harassment And Cyber-Harassment Under The Captive Audience Doctrine, Joanne Sweeny

JoAnne Sweeny

No abstract provided.

Do Sexting Prosecutions Violate Teenagers' Constitutional Rights?, Joanne Sweeny

JoAnne Sweeny

The media has recently been highlighting a rash of prosecutions of teenagers who engage in "sexting"--sending nude or sexually explicit images of themselves or their peers--under child pornography laws. These prosecutions have led to mass criticism for threatening teens with long prison terms and registration as sex offenders for activities that are perceived to be relatively innocent. Many, if not most, of these sexting teens are legally permitted to engage in sexual activities through their states' statutory rape laws, which leads to an absurd situation in which teens are permitted to engage in sex but not photograph it. This mismatch …

To Narrow The Digital Divide, The Fcc Should Not Simply Extend Lifeline To Broadband, Daniel A. Lyons

Daniel Lyons

No abstract provided.

The Congressional Review Act And The Toxic Politics Of Net Neutrality, Daniel A. Lyons

Daniel Lyons

No abstract provided.

E-Rulemaking And The Politicization Of The Comment Process, Daniel A. Lyons

Daniel Lyons

No abstract provided.

Revisiting Net Neutrality, Daniel A. Lyons

Daniel Lyons

No abstract provided.

The Right Way To Protect Privacy Throughout The Internet Ecosystem, Daniel A. Lyons

Daniel Lyons

No abstract provided.

Narrowing The Digital Divide: A Better Broadband Universal Service Program, Daniel Lyons

Daniel Lyons

Universal service has long been an integral component of American telecommunications policy. As more activities move online, it becomes increasingly important to narrow the digital divide by helping low-income Americans get online and by extending broadband networks into unserved areas.

Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission’s reforms are unlikely to help solve this problem. The Commission is repurposing an $8 billion telephone subsidy program to focus instead on broadband networks. But when pressed, the agency admits that it has no proof that the program meaningfully affected telephone adoption rates, and it offers little evidence that it will fare any better at …

A Cognitive Theory Of The Third-Party Doctrine And Digital Papers, H. Brian Holland

H. Brian Holland

Three Questions That Will Make You Rethink The U.S.-China Intellectual Property Debate, 7 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 412 (2008), Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

Commentators have attributed China’s piracy and counterfeiting problems to the lack of political will on the part of Chinese authorities. They have also cited the many political, social, economic, cultural, judicial, and technological problems that have arisen as a result of the country’s rapid economic transformation and accession to the WTO. This provocative essay advances a third explanation. It argues that the failure to resolve piracy and counterfeiting problems in China can be partly attributed to the lack of political will on the part of U.S. policymakers and the American public to put intellectual property protection at the very top …

Four Common Misconceptions About Copyright Piracy, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

Copyright piracy is one of the most difficult, yet important, transnational problems in the twenty-first century. Although legal literature has discussed copyright piracy extensively, commentators rarely offer a "grand unified theory" on this global problem. Rather, they give nuanced analyses, discussing the many aspects of the problem-political, social, economic, cultural, and historical.

This nuanced discussion, however, is missing in the current public debate. To capture the readers' emotion and to generate support for proposed legislative and executive actions, the debate often oversimplifies the complicated picture by overexagerrating a particular aspect of the piracy problem or by offering an abbreviated, easy-to-understand, …

Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail And The Telephone Consumer Protection Act Of 1991, David E. Sorkin

David E. Sorkin

No abstract provided.

Tinkering With Success: College Athletes, Social Media And The First Amendment, Mary Margaret Meg Penrose

Meg Penrose

Good law does not always make good policy. This article seeks to provide a legal assessment, not a policy directive. The policy choices made by individual institutions and athletic departments should be guided by law, but absolutely left to institutional discretion. Many articles written on college student-athletes’ social media usage attempt to urge policy directives clothed in constitutional analysis.

In this author’s opinion, these articles have lost perspective – constitutional perspective. This article seeks primarily to provide a legal and constitutional assessment so that schools and their athletic departments will have ample information to then make their own policy choices.

Sharing Stupid $H*T With Friends And Followers: The First Amendment Rights Of College Athletes To Use Social Media, Mary Margaret Meg Penrose

Meg Penrose

No abstract provided.

Section 230 Of The Cda: Internet Exceptionalism As A Statutory Construct, H. Brian Holland

H. Brian Holland

Since its enactment in 1996, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has become perhaps the most significant statute in the regulation of online content, and one of the most intensely scrutinized.

The essay begins with a brief introduction to Section 230. As interpreted and applied by the judiciary, this statute is now conceived as a broad grant of immunity from tort liability.—broad not only in terms of those who can claim its protection but also in terms of predicate acts and causes of action to which such immunity extends.

Working from this foundation, I then seek to position the …

The Google Dilemma, James Grimmelmann

James Grimmelmann

No abstract provided.

By Reading This Title, You Have Agreed To Our Terms Of Service, Brian Larson

Brian Larson

Privacy In The Age Of The Hacker: Balancing Global Privacy And Data Security Law, Cunningham, Mckay, Mckay Cunningham

McKay Cunningham

The twin goals of privacy and data security share a fascinating symbiotic relationship: too much of one undermines the other. The international regulatory climate, embodied principally by the European Union’s 1995 Directive, increasingly promotes privacy. In the last two decades, fifty-three countries enacted national legislation largely patterned after the E.U. Directive. These laws, by and large, protect privacy by restricting data processing and data transfers.

At the same time, hacking, malware, and other cyber-threats continue to grow in frequency and sophistication. In 2010, one security firm recorded 286 million variants of malware and reported that 232.4 million identities were exposed. …

The Federal Trade Commission And Consumer Privacy In The Coming Decade, Joseph Turow, Chris Jay Hoofnagle, Deirdre K. Mulligan, Nathaniel Good, Jens Grossklags

Chris Jay Hoofnagle

The large majority of consumers believe that the term “privacy policy” describes a baseline level of information practices that protect their privacy. In short, “privacy,” like “free” before it, has taken on a normative meaning in the marketplace. When consumers see the term “privacy policy,” they believe that their personal information will be protected in specific ways; in particular, they assume that a website that advertises a privacy policy will not share their personal information. Of course, this is not the case. Privacy policies today come in all different flavors. Some companies make affirmative commitments not to share the personal …

Insuring Against Cyber Risk: The Evolution Of An Industry (Introduction), Christopher French

Christopher C. French

The Unresolved Legality Of Online Gambling In Singapore, Siyuan Chen

Siyuan CHEN

This article addresses what appears to be a hitherto (legislatively and judicially) unresolved issue in a country where gambling is an established sub-culture – the legality of online gambling. The existing legislation does not provide direct answers, and as a result, the courts have not been given the opportunity to answer the question directly either. The police have previously made a few statements to the press and the media, but what should we make of them? While placing bets with unauthorised bookies (including those who operate their own website or use others’ websites) is clearly outlawed, leaving the offender with …

Professor Breaks Ground With Journal On Sexual Violence And Exploitation, Joseph Essig, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes