Communications Law Commons^™

Wireless Net Neutrality Regulation And The Problem With Pricing: An Empirical, Cautionary Tale, Babette E.L. Boliek

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

I present here a unique empirical analysis of the consumer welfare benefits of prior regulation in the mobile telecommunications industry. In particular, I analyze the relative consumer benefits of state rate regulation and federal entry regulation. The institution of filing requirements and FTC review and approval of various consumer pricing regimes is highly analogous to the consumer price controls imposed by various state level public utility commissions in the past. Furthermore, the imposition of a zero-price rule is analogous to past rate regulation; in particular it is similar to past wholesale regulation with its underlying principles of open access and …

A Proposed Restriction On The First Amendment: Protecting Children From Internet Pedophiles, Jennifer L. Pass

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Anti-Slapp Law Make Benefit For Glorious Entertainment Industry Of America: Borat, Reality Bites, And The Construction Of An Anti-Slapp Fence Around The First Amendment, Jonathan Segal

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Taking Chances: The United States' Policy On Internet Gambling And Its International Implications, Yevgeniya Roysen

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Internet Regulation, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

Policymakers are at a precipice with regard to Internet regulation. The Federal Communications Commission's ("FCC") self-styled adjudication of a complaint that Comcast violated the agency's Internet policy principles (requiring reasonable network management, among other things) clarified that the era of the non-regulation of the Internet is over. Equally clear is that the agency has yet to develop a model of regulation for a new era. As explained in this Article, the old models of regulation - reliance on command-and-control regulation or market forces subject only to antitrust law - are doomed to fail in a dynamic environment where cooperation is …

Homes With Tails: What If You Could Own Your Internet Connection?, Derek Slater, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, we propose and describe a new way to encourage broadband deployment. Most proposals have focused on deployment as a problem for firms and for government. Firms that provide broadband service question how a company can justify investments in a fiber infrastructure without a "killer app" that provides a new and proven revenue source different from what is available from existing copper wires. Governments question how they might build and operate their own networks, convince or pay existing carriers to do so, or encourage new market entrants to arrive and save the day.

We believe an innovative …

Regulation Of Blog Campaign Advocacy On The Internet: Comparing U.S., German, And Eu Approaches, Allison R. Hayward

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

This essay examines how U.S., German, and EU laws have treated the regulation of political commentary on the Internet. As political blogging grows in popularity, the reach of these web sites, and their influence in political campaigns, may make them a target for regulation by rivals and incumbents, both at home and abroad. Since ordinarily any URL can be reached from anywhere with Internet access, conflicting domestic rules about what can be said (and who can say it) present potential for conflicting rules on blogging.

In brief, U.S. law protects blogging content, but may impose restrictions on the source of …

The Newest Way To Screen Job Applicants: A Social Networker's Nightmare, Carly Brandenburg

Federal Communications Law Journal

Social networking is an easy way to share information with friends, family, and the company that just offered you an interview. Employers are utilizing all of the tools available to them as they strive to hire the right people, and this means that social networkers may need to self censor in order to protect their information from falling into the wrong hands. This Note questions whether social networkers can legally expect or enjoy any right to privacy with respect to their online postings.

Internet File-Sharing: Swedish Pirates Challenge The U.S., Ulric M. Lewen

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note examines the challenges of enforcing copyright laws in the digital age, focusing on the contrasting approaches of the U.S. and Sweden in addressing peer-to-peer file sharing. It critiques the U.S. for its aggressive legal strategy, which may prove counterproductive, while highlighting Sweden's potential as a model for alternative solutions. The analysis underscores the need for a balanced approach that protects copyright holders without stifling innovation.

Internet Search And Seizure In United States V. Forrester: New Problems In The New Age Of Pen Registers, Deborah Buckner

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

A New Frontier Or Merely A New Medium - An Analysis Of The Ethics Of Blawgs, Justin Krypel

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The purpose of this Note is to investigate those rules of ethics which interact with attorney blogs, placing a special emphasis on advertising rules. The central finding is that, under the Supreme Court's current First Amendment jurisprudence, attorney blogs (or, more cleverly, "blawgs") are not subject to regulation by the ethics codes of the ABA or the various state bars. Furthermore, if the Supreme Court were to, for some reason, construe blawgs as falling outside of First Amendment protection, evidence suggests that regulating this new medium would be neither desirable nor effective. Part II outlines the historical framework which underlies …

Network Neutrality And The False Promise Of Zero-Price Regulation, C. Scott Hemphill

Center for Contract and Economic Organization

This Article examines zero-price regulation, the major distinguishing feature of many modern "network neutrality" proposals. A zero-price rule prohibits a broadband Internet access provider from charging an application or content provider (collectively, "content provider") to send information to consumers. The Article differentiates two access provider strategies thought to justify a zero-price rule. Exclusion is anticompetitive behavior that harms a content provider to favor its rival. Extraction is a toll imposed upon content providers to raise revenue. Neither strategy raises policy concerns that justify implementation of a broad zero-price rule. First, there is no economic exclusion argument that justifies the zero-price …

Hidden Costs Of The Wireless Broadband Lifestyle: Comparing Consumer Protections In The United States, Canada, And The European Union, Renee Dopplick

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Spurred by relatively inexpensive and widely available retail equipment and increased residential Internet penetration, consumer demand for more wireless broadband options continues at a rapid rate. Now, with consumers increasingly looking for mobile Internet interconnectivity over greater distances and with greater flexibility, technology companies are pushing the next generation of wireless broadband technologies with the promise of freeing consumers from location-based Internet access. These newer technologies can provide robust video and audio capabilities, such as digital television, on-demand video, and VoIP on a variety of digital devices. Yet, the rise of wireless

broadband networks and the roll-out of new technologies …

Bridging The Digital Divide: Improving Broadband Access For Rural Americans, Brian Witkowski

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Google Dilemma, James Grimmelmann

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Privacy, Visibility, Transparency, And Exposure, Julie E. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay considers the relationship between privacy and visibility in the networked information age. Visibility is an important determinant of harm to privacy, but a persistent tendency to conceptualize privacy harms and expectations in terms of visibility has created two problems. First, focusing on visibility diminishes the salience and obscures the operation of nonvisual mechanisms designed to render individual identity, behavior, and preferences transparent to third parties. The metaphoric mapping to visibility suggests that surveillance is simply passive observation, rather than the active production of categories, narratives, and, norms. Second, even a broader conception of privacy harms as a function …

The Next Frontier For Network Neutrality, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

The challenge for policymakers evaluating calls to institute some form of network neutrality regulation is to bring reasoned analysis to bear on a topic that continues to generate more heat than light and that many telecommunications companies appear to believe will just fade away. Over the fall of 2007, the hopes of broadband providers that broadband networks could escape any form of regulatory oversight were dealt a blow when it was revealed that Comcast had degraded the experience of some users of Bittorent (a peer-to-peer application) and engaged in an undisclosed form of network management. This incident, as well as …

Homes With Tails: What If You Could Own Your Internet Connection?, Tim Wu, Derek Slater

Faculty Scholarship

America's communications infrastructure is stuck at a copper wall. For the vast majority of homes, copper wires remain the principal means of getting broadband services. The deployment of fiber optic connections to the home would enable exponentially faster connections, and few dispute that upgrading to more robust infrastructure is essential to America's economic growth. However, the costs of such an upgrade are daunting for private sector firms and even for governments. These facts add up to a public policy challenge.

Our intuition is that an innovative model holds unrealized promise: household investments in fiber. Consumers may one day purchase and …

Zoning The Internet: A New Approach To Protecting Children Online, Cheryl B. Preston

BYU Law Review

This Article considers how Internet architecture can be harnessed to create an online environment where government regulation of material harmful to minors can be effective but not unreasonably burdensome. It proposes a solution that engages technology in refocusing the point of regulation, thereby reducing the burden on speech and increasing the ability to achieve constitutionally recognized governmental objectives. This Article briefly examines failed congressional attempts to restrict children's access to sexually explicit content online, and then introduces the Internet Community Ports Concept, which relies on channeling technology to divide kinds of content among various Internet ports. After briefly outlining the …

Making Family-Friendly Internet A Reality: The Internet Community Ports Act, Dawn C. Nunziato

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

A New First Amendment Model For Evaluating Content-Based Regulation Ofinternet Pornography: Revising The Strict Scrutiny Model To Better Reflect The Realities Of The Modern Media Age, Mark S. Kende

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rethinking The Communications Decency Act: Eliminating Statutory Protections Of Discriminatory Housing Advertisements On The Internet, James D. Shanahan

Federal Communications Law Journal

The recent decision in Craigslist signals a drastic reduction in the effectiveness of the prohibition on discriminatory housing advertisements under the Fair Housing Act ("FHA"). Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gives blanket immunity to Internet Content Providers from publisher liability for content originating from third parties. One of the effects of this immunity is the creation of a monopoly for discriminatory advertisements otherwise proscribed by the FHA. This Note argues that the simplest solution for Congress is to adjust the language of § 230 by adding the FHA to the list of exceptions to statutory immunity.

Keeping The Internet Neutral?: Tim Wu And Christopher Yoo Debate, Tim Wu, Christopher Yoo

Federal Communications Law Journal

"Net neutrality" has been among the leading issues of telecommunications policy this decade. Is the neutrality of the Internet fundamental to its success, and worth regulating to protect, or simply a technical design subject to improvement? In this debate-form commentary, Tim Wu and Christopher Yoo make clear the connection between net neutrality and broader issues of national telecommunications policy.

A Soldier's Blog: Balancing Service Members' Personal Rights Vs. National Security Interests, Tatum H. Lytle

Federal Communications Law Journal

This Note examines the competing interests between ensuring military personnel's freedom of speech while protecting national security interests. The Author recognizes the necessity of protecting national security interests but emphasizes that military personnel's rights to free speech must be protected as long as such speech poses no threat to military security. In conclusion, clearer protections must be implemented to protect military personnel's right to free speech.

Who Controls The Internet? A Review, Deborah J. Salons

Federal Communications Law Journal

Book Review: Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World, Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu, Oxford University Press 2006.

Ms. Salons reviews Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World, Oxford University Press, 2006. Authored by Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu, the book provides a history of the Internet and analyzes the nexus between globalization and government coercion. The book focuses on how these agents have shaped and developed the Internet as we are familiar with it today.

Internet 3.0: Identifying Problems And Solutions To The Network Neutrality Debate , Robert M. Frieden

ExpressO

What Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) can and cannot do to diversify services lies at the core of the debate over network neutrality. In prior generations ISPs had little incentive or technological capability to deviate from plain vanilla best efforts routing for content providers and from standard “all you can eat” subscription terms for consumer access to the World Wide Web. The next generation Internet has the technological capability and ISPs have the commercial motivation to offer “better than best efforts” routing and premium services for both content providers and consumers seeking higher quality of service and more reliable traffic delivery. …

Surfing Past The Pall Of Orthodoxy: Why The First Amendment Virtually Guarantees Online Law School Graduates Will Breach The Aba Accreditation Barrier, Nicholas C. Dranias

ExpressO

The impact of the constitutional dilemma created by the ABA’s aversion to Internet schooling is widespread. Currently, 18 states and 2 U.S. territories restrict bar exam eligibility to graduates of ABA-accredited law schools. Additionally, 29 states and 1 U.S. territory restrict admission to practice on motion to graduates of ABA-accredited law schools.

Although numerous lawsuits have been filed in ultimately failed efforts to strike down bar admission rules that restrict eligibility to graduates of ABA-accredited law schools, none has challenged the ABA-accreditation requirement based on the First Amendment’s prohibition on media discrimination. This Article makes that case.

Despite accelerating technological …

Space Program And Business In India - Legal Perspectives, Shashi Sharma

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Content On The Fly: The Growing Need For Regulation Of Video Content Delivered Via Cellular Telephony, Jacob M. Chapman

ExpressO

Technological advancements in the last twenty years have substantially altered the ways in which people work, communicate, and are entertained. Many of these advancements have occurred in areas generally thought to fall under the regulatory purview of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). These advancements have included the personal computer, the internet, digital cable, direct broadcast satellites (DBS), and cellular phones. Of all these increasingly available and inexpensive technologies, perhaps the most ubiquitous is the cellular phone. Thus far, the FCC has struggled to apply its public interest mandate to the ever shifting sands of technological development with varying degrees of …

Justice, And Only Justice, You Shall Pursue: Network Neutrality, The First Amendment And John Rawls's Theory Of Justice, Amit M. Schejter, Moran Yemini

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

As broadband becomes the public's technology of choice to access the Internet, it is also emerging as the battlefield upon which the struggle for control of the Internet is being fought. Operators who provide physical access to the service claim the right to discriminate among the content providers who use the infrastructure in which the operators have invested. In contrast, content providers warn that exercising such a policy would "undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success."[...] For academic observers, analysis of this issue has thus far been confined to the areas of property law, innovation, and …