Law Commons^™

The First Amendment, Common Carriers, And Public Accommodations: Net Neutrality, Digital Platforms, And Privacy, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

Recent prominent judicial opinions have assumed that common carriers have few to no First Amendment rights and that calling an actor a common carrier or public accommodation could justify limiting its right to exclude and mandating that it provide nondiscriminatory access. A review of the history reveals that the underlying law is richer than these simple statements would suggest. The principles for determining what constitutes a common carrier or a public accommodation and the level of First Amendment protection both turn on whether the actor holds itself out as serving all members of the public or whether it asserts editorial …

Privacy, Freedom, And Technology—Or “How Did We Get Into This Mess?”, Alex Alben

Seattle University Law Review

Can we live in a free society without personal privacy? The question is worth pondering, not only in light of the ongoing debate about government surveillance of private communications, but also because new technologies continue to erode the boundaries of our personal space. This Article examines our loss of freedom in a variety of disparate contexts, all connected by the thread of erosion of personal privacy. In the scenarios explored here, privacy reducing activities vary from government surveillance, personal stalking conducted by individuals, and profiling by data-driven corporations, to political actors manipulating social media platforms. In each case, new technologies …

Dear Yahoo: A Comment On In Re Yahoo Mail Litigation, Nareen Melkonian

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cookie Monster: Balancing Internet Privacy With Commerce, Technology And Terrorism, Nichoel Forrett

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Eye Of The Beholder: Participation And Impact In Telecommunications (De)Regulation, Dorit Reiss

Dorit R. Reiss

The California Public Utilities Commission addressed both pricing deregulation and universal service in telecommunications during the last decade. Both decisions had a similar cast of characters, and similarly elaborate processes. In relation to price deregulation, the utilities positions were accepted on every issue addressed; in relation to universal service, consumer organizations’ positions were accepted in about 60% of the issues. This article tells the story of how those decisions were made, and examines the reasons for the difference in impact. The article examines and reject an explanation of capture; accepts in part a focus on the influence of the commissioner …

Failing Expectations: Fourth Amendment Doctrine In The Era Of Total Surveillance, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

Today’s reasonable expectation test and the third-party doctrine have little to nothing to offer by way of privacy protection if users today are at least conflicted about whether transactional noncontent data should be shared with third parties, including law enforcement officials. This uncertainty about how to define public expectation as a descriptive matter has compelled courts to defer to legislatures to find out what public expectation ought to be more as a matter of prudence than doctrine. Courts and others presume that legislatures are far better than courts at defining public expectations about emergent technologies.This Essay argues that the reasonable …

Sender Side Transmission Rules For The Internet, Tejas N. Narechania, Tim Wu

Tejas N. Narechania

New Technologies And Constitutional Law, Thomas Fetzer, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Unwarranted Fears Mask The Benefits Of Network Diversity: An Argument Against Mandating Network Neutrality, Elvis Stumbergs

ExpressO

The rapid development of the Internet has necessitated an update to Federal telecommunications laws. Recent Congressional efforts to enact such an update, however, have spawned a fiery debate over a somewhat nebulous concept: network neutrality. The debate concerns the way that Internet access providers handle the data traffic being sent over their networks. These providers would like the option to offer some of their customers, web site hosting companies and similar entities, additional services that would essentially result in these customers’ content loading faster, more reliably, or more securely than others not receiving such priority treatment. Yet, this proposed “diversity” …

Relative Access To Corrective Speech: A New Test For Requiring Actual Malice, Aaron K. Perzanowski

Aaron K. Perzanowski

This Article reexamines the First Amendment protections provided by the public figure doctrine. It suggests that the doctrine is rooted in a set of out-dated assumptions regarding the media landscape and, as a result, has failed to adapt in a manner that accounts for our changing communications environment. The public figure doctrine, which imposes the more rigorous actual malice standard of fault on defamation plaintiffs who enjoy greater access to mass media, was constructed in an era defined by one-to-many communications media. Newspapers, broadcasters, and traditional publishers exhausted the Court's understanding of the means of communicating with mass audiences. As …

Copyright And Free Expression: The Convergence Of Conflicting Normative Frameworks, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

All Faculty Scholarship

Recent attempts to expand the domain of copyright law in different parts of the world have necessitated renewed efforts to evaluate the philosophical justifications that are advocated for its existence as an independent institution. Copyright, conceived of as a proprietary institution, reveals an interesting philosophical interaction with other libertarian interests, most notably the right to free expression. This paper seeks to understand the nature of this interaction and the resulting normative decisions. The paper seeks to analyze copyright law and its recent expansions, specifically from the perspective of the human rights discourse. It looks at the historical origins of modern …