Law Commons^™

The Taking Economy: Uber, Information, And Power, Ryan Calo, Alex Rosenblat

Articles

Sharing economy firms such as Uber and Airbnb facilitate trusted transactions between strangers on digital platforms. This creates economic and other value but raises concerns around racial bias, safety, and fairness to competitors and workers that legal scholarship has begun to address. Missing from the literature, however, is a fundamental critique of the sharing economy grounded in asymmetries of information and power.

This Essay, coauthored by a law professor and a technology ethnographer who studies work, labor, and technology, furnishes such a critique and proposes a meaningful response through updates to consumer protection law. Commercial firms have long used what …

The Secession Of The Successful: The Rise Of Amazon As Private Global Consumer Protection Regulator, Jane K. Winn

Articles

In 2005, the Americans for Fair Electronic Commerce Transactions (“AFFECT”) coalition issued a list of 12 principles it hoped would contribute to a new consensus about what constitutes fairness in online consumer transactions. A decade later, a cursory review of different jurisdictions indicates that, while there has been little discernable progress in the direction of the principles in the United States, other jurisdictions such as the European Union have made more progress.

However, the one jurisdiction in the world that comes closest to implementing all 12 principles across the full spectrum of consumer transactions is not a government at all, …

Consumer Subject Review Boards: A Thought Experiment, Ryan Calo

Articles

The adequacy of consumer privacy law in America is a constant topic of debate. The majority position is that United States privacy law is a “patchwork,” that the dominant model of notice and choice has broken down, and that decades of self-regulation have left the fox in charge of the henhouse. A minority position chronicles the sometimes surprising efficacy of our current legal infrastructure.

But the challenges posed by big data to consumer protection feel different. They seem to gesture beyond privacy’s foundations or buzzwords, beyond “fair information practice principles” or “privacy by design.” The challenges of big data may …

A "New Approach" To Standards And Consumer Protection, Jane Winn, Nicolas Jondet

Articles

As consumer use of information and communication technology (ICT) products grows, the importance of ICT standards in consumer markets also grows. While standards for manufactured products were once developed at the national level in formal standards bodies, standards for ICT products today are more likely to be developed by informal standards bodies that target global markets, creating new challenges for national consumer protection laws.

As part of the process of creating a single market, the EU developed an innovative and successful form of “coregulation” known as the “New Approach” that coordinated the work of legislators and standards developers to reduce …

The Impact Of Eu Unfair Contract Terms Law On U.S. Business-To-Consumer Internet Merchants, Jane K. Winn, Mark Webber

Articles

This article focuses on the application of European Union unfair contract terms law to retail Internet transactions that U.S. businesses might engage in with European consumers. It compares attitudes toward consumer protection regulation in the U.S. and the EU to provide some context within which the specific provisions of unfair contract terms law can be understood.

While many lawyers and legal academics in the U.S. who study the development of online markets are aware of the profound differences in U.S. and EU information privacy laws, the magnitude of the divergence in consumer electronic contracting law is not as widely recognized. …

Open Systems, Free Markets, And Regulation Of Internet Commerce, Jane Kaufman Winn

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Can commercial transactions conducted over the Internet be regulated by existing commercial law doctrines? Many promoters of Internet commerce argue that business done over open computer networks such as the Internet will require a new regulatory framework In fact, many issues raised by Internet commerce have already been considered at length in the context of electronic commerce conducted over closed computer networks, such as those used in financial markets.

One of the most hotly debated issues regarding the regulation of Internet commerce is the question of what would be the online equivalent of a signature. Some have argued that, because …

The De Minimus Exemption Of Stored Value Cards From Regulation E: An Invitation To Fraud?, Sean M. O'Connor

Articles

How valuable is $100? To a student? To a single unemployed parent? To a well-compensated professional? The Federal Reserve Board apparently believes that the potential loss of $100 is not a tremendous burden on anyone. In a recently proposed rule, the Board exempts stored value cards[that contain less than $100 from the same regulations that protect consumers from most types of fraud associated with ATM, debit, and credit cards. Regulation E (Reg E) currently regulates the electronic funds transfers (EFTs) that are at the heart of ATM/debit/credit card transactions by requiring printed receipts, error resolution procedures, periodic statements, initial disclosure …

Consumer Legislation And The Poor, Eric Schnapper

Articles

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