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Full-Text Articles in Law
Digital Planning: The Future Of Elder Law, Naomi R. Cahn
Digital Planning: The Future Of Elder Law, Naomi R. Cahn
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
More than half of individuals over the age of 65 use the Internet or e-mail — and they are a fast-growing population on the Internet. Like most people, however, they have probably not considered how to dispose of their digital life if they become incapacitated or when they die, even though they are in the most likely age group to have drafted a will. Indeed, even if they do engage in planning, they cannot be confident that their wishes will be carried out: only a few states have laws covering probate and digital assets, there is no generally accepted method …
The Digital Broadband Migration And The Federal Trade Commission: Building The Competition And Consumer Protection Agency Of The Future, William E. Kovacic
The Digital Broadband Migration And The Federal Trade Commission: Building The Competition And Consumer Protection Agency Of The Future, William E. Kovacic
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Three areas of the FTC’s fairly extraordinary portfolio of policymaking responsibilities that affect the development of the internet stand out: (1) competition issues, (2) consumer protection issues, and (3) privacy and data protection. These three areas are linked by the FTC’s creation of policy by experimentation, assessment, and refinement, which ensures the FTC makes wise choices in the face of dramatic technological changes that characterize the internet. The three areas are also linked by institutional multiplicity, which may need to be reconfigured for internet-commerce policy.
Effective policy for internet-commerce requires investment in institutional building and implementation because the degree of …
Net Neutrality, Free Speech, And Democracy In The Internet Age, Dawn C. Nunziato
Net Neutrality, Free Speech, And Democracy In The Internet Age, Dawn C. Nunziato
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Professor Nunziato's book explains why the growth of the Internet as the most open forum for free expression in history is now threatened by the privatization of the Internet, the gatekeeper control over expression exercised by a handful of corporate owners, and their power to censor what we say and read online. She sets forth how we got to this place and what must be done about it to guarantee meaningful free speech rights in the Internet age.
Law And Society Approaches To Cyberspace, Paul Schiff Berman
Law And Society Approaches To Cyberspace, Paul Schiff Berman
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
This is the introductory essay to an edited collection titled Law and Society Approaches to Cyberspace and published by Ashgate Publishing. Accordingly, the essay first considers what qualifies as a law and society approach to any particular subject. Then, I address questions about what it means to study cyberspace, surveying some of the academic literature on the subject and identifying three distinct waves of scholarship about the Internet since the mid 1990s. I also discuss some of the major theoretical fault lines that have emerged during this period. Finally, the essay summarizes each of the contributions to the volume, which …
Towards A Cosmopolitan Vision Of Conflict Of Laws: Redefining Governmental Interests In A Global Era, Paul Schiff Berman
Towards A Cosmopolitan Vision Of Conflict Of Laws: Redefining Governmental Interests In A Global Era, Paul Schiff Berman
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
It has now been ten years since the idea of global online communication first entered the popular consciousness. And while the internet has undoubtedly opened up new worlds of interaction and cooperation across borders, this increased transnational activity has also at times inspired parochialism, at least among the legislatures and courts of nation-states around the globe. Such assertions of national authority have helped to reawaken scholarly interest in the classic triumvirate of topics historically grouped together under the rubric of conflicts of laws: jurisdiction, choice of law, and recognition of judgments.
In a previous article, I argued that territorially-based conceptions …
Toward A Constitutional Regulation Of Minors' Access To Harmful Internet Speech, Dawn C. Nunziato
Toward A Constitutional Regulation Of Minors' Access To Harmful Internet Speech, Dawn C. Nunziato
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
In this article, I scrutinize Congress's recent efforts to regulate access to sexually-themed Internet speech. The first such effort, embodied in the Communications Decency Act, failed to take into account the Supreme Court's carefully-honed obscenity and obscenity-for-minors jurisprudence. The second, embodied in the Child Online Protection Act, attended carefully to Supreme Court precedent, but failed to account for the geographic variability in definitions of obscene speech. Finally, the recently-enacted Children's Internet Protection Act apparently remedies the constitutional deficiencies identified in these two prior legislative efforts, but runs the risk of being implemented in a manner that fails to protect either …
Identity Theft, Privacy, And The Architecture Of Vulnerability, Daniel J. Solove
Identity Theft, Privacy, And The Architecture Of Vulnerability, Daniel J. Solove
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
This Article contrasts two models for understanding and protecting against privacy violations. Traditionally, privacy violations have been understood as invasive actions by particular wrongdoers who cause direct injury to victims. Victims experience embarrassment, mental distress, or harm to their reputations. Privacy is not infringed until these mental injuries materialize. Thus, the law responds when a person's deepest secrets are exposed, reputation is tarnished, or home is invaded. Under the traditional view, privacy is an individual right, remedied at the initiative of the individual.
In this Article, Professor Solove contends the traditional model does not adequately account for many of the …
Access And Aggregation: Privacy, Public Records, And The Constitution, Daniel J. Solove
Access And Aggregation: Privacy, Public Records, And The Constitution, Daniel J. Solove
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
In this article, Professor Solove develops a theory to reconcile the tension between transparency and privacy in the context of public records. Federal and state governments maintain public records containing personal information spanning an individual's life from birth to death. The web of state and federal regulation that governs the accessibility of these records generally creates a default rule in open access to information. Solove contends that the ready availability of public records creates a significant problem for privacy because various bits of information when aggregated paint a detailed portrait of a person's life that Solove refers to as a …
Privacy And Power: Computer Databases And Metaphors For Information Privacy, Daniel J. Solove
Privacy And Power: Computer Databases And Metaphors For Information Privacy, Daniel J. Solove
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Journalists, politicians, jurists, and legal academics often describe the privacy problem created by the collection and use of personal information through computer databases and the Internet with the metaphor of Big Brother - the totalitarian government portrayed in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Professor Solove argues that this is the wrong metaphor. The Big Brother metaphor as well as much of the law that protects privacy emerges from a longstanding paradigm for conceptualizing privacy problems. Under this paradigm, privacy is invaded by uncovering one's hidden world, by surveillance, and by the disclosure of concealed information. The harm caused by such invasions …
Exit, Voice, And Values On The Net, Dawn C. Nunziato
Exit, Voice, And Values On The Net, Dawn C. Nunziato
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Professor Lawrence Lessig makes the (rather dire) prediction in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace that the Internet will be transformed from an unregulated medium into a highly regulated one. Lessig posits that the Net will largely be regulated not by the government but by commercial entities - in particular, by the software (or code) written by entities such as AOL and IBM. While the government's regulatory power is limited by the Constitution, regulation by commercial entities is not. For example, Internet service providers can censor "indecent" speech on the Net largely free of constitutional constraints. The "Net libertarians" applaud …
Internet Solutions To Consumer Protection Problems, Gregory E. Maggs
Internet Solutions To Consumer Protection Problems, Gregory E. Maggs
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
This Article claims that the Internet may provide consumers with new kinds of protection in buying goods and services and new powers in resolving disputes. The Internet achieves these results by reducing the cost of communication.