Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

Accessibility In The Digital Age - Why The United States Needs A New Approach To The Americans With Disabilities Act, William J. Seguin

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) must be updated to address digital accessibility, as its current framework, designed for the physical world, fails to accommodate the realities of the digital age. The ADA's success in promoting physical accessibility contrasts sharply with its inadequacy in ensuring equal access to digital spaces, highlighting the need for a new approach that includes digital platforms under its protections.

Comments Of The Cordell Institute On Ai Accountability, Neil M. Richards, Woodrow Hartzog, Jordan Francis

Scholarship@WashULaw

These comments are a response to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's 2023 request for comment on AI accountability (AI Accountability RFC, NTIA–2023–0005).

Responding to NTIA’s recent inquiry into AI assurance and accountability, we offer two main arguments regarding the importance of substantive legal protections. First, a myopic focus on concepts of transparency, bias mitigation, and ethics (for which procedural compliance efforts such as audits, assessments, and certifications are proxies) is insufficient when it comes to the design and implementation of accountable AI systems. We call rules built around transparency and bias mitigation “AI half-measures,” because they provide the appearance …

Title Theft, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

Real property owners across the country have been targeted by scammers who prepare deeds purporting to convey title to property the scammers do not own. Sometimes, the true owners are entirely unaware of these bogus transfers. In other instances, the scammers use misrepresentation to induce unsophisticated owners to sign documents they do not understand. Property doctrine protects owners against forgery and fraud—the primary vehicles scammers use in their efforts to transfer title. Owners enjoy protection not only against the scammers themselves, but generally against unsuspecting purchasers to whom the scammers transfer purported title. Recovery of title, however, involves costs and …

Why Is A Debt Collector Texting Me? The Modernization Of Debt Collection Practices, Emily Schmidt

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Information Privacy And The Inference Economy, Alicia Solow-Niederman

Northwestern University Law Review

Information privacy is in trouble. Contemporary information privacy protections emphasize individuals’ control over their own personal information. But machine learning, the leading form of artificial intelligence, facilitates an inference economy that pushes this protective approach past its breaking point. Machine learning provides pathways to use data and make probabilistic predictions—inferences—that are inadequately addressed by the current regime. For one, seemingly innocuous or irrelevant data can generate machine learning insights, making it impossible for an individual to anticipate what kinds of data warrant protection. Moreover, it is possible to aggregate myriad individuals’ data within machine learning models, identify patterns, and then …

Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence, Luke Stark, Jevan Hutson

Articles

The reanimation of the pseudosciences of physiognomy and phrenology at scale through computer vision and machine learning is a matter of urgent concern. This Article—which contributes to critical data studies, consumer protection law, biometric privacy law, and antidiscrimination law—endeavors to conceptualize and problematize physiognomic artificial intelligence (“AI”) and offer policy recommendations for state and federal lawmakers to forestall its proliferation.

Physiognomic AI, as this Article contends, is the practice of using computer software and related systems to infer or create hierarchies of an individual’s body composition, protected class status, perceived character, capabilities, and future social outcomes based on their physical …

Discrimination On Wheels: How Big Data Uses License Plate Surveillance To Put The Brakes On Disadvantaged Drivers, Nicole K. Mcconlogue

Law Faculty Scholarship

As scholarly discourse increasingly raises concerns about the negative societal effects of “fintech,” “dirty data,” and “technochauvinism,” a growing technology provides an instructive illustration of all three of these problems. Surveillance software companies are using automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology to develop predictive analytical tools. In turn, software companies market those tools to auto financers and insurers as a risk assessment input to evaluate consumers seeking to buy a car. Proponents of this technology might argue that more information about consumer travel habits will result in more accurate and individualized risk predictions, potentially increasing vehicle ownership among marginalized groups. …

Biometric Data Collection And Big Tech: Imposing Ethical Constraints On Entities That Harvest Biometric Data, Ian Ducey

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

Amazon can tell when you are sleeping, when you are awake, and when you are stressed, and they can do it before you may recognize it yourself. At least it will be able to if you decide to buy their newest wearable health monitoring technology. In 2020, Amazon joined Google’s Fitbit and Apple’s Apple Watch in the wearable technology market with the Amazon Halo. A wristband outfitted with a variety of sensors designed to help manage and record health identifiers, including body fat percentage, step tracking, sleep tracking, and now emotional responses. Many companies have begun developing and exploring the …

Autonomous Vehicle Regulation & Trust: The Impact Of Failures To Comply With Standards, William H. Widen, Phillip Koopman

Articles

The autonomous vehicle (AV) industry works very hard to create public trust in both AV technology and its developers. Building trust is part of a strategy to permit the industry itself to manage the testing and deployment of AV technology without regulatory interference. This article explains how industry actions to promote trust (both individually and collectively) have created concerns rather than comfort with this emerging technology. The article suggests how the industry might change its current approach to law and regulation from an adversarial posture to a more cooperative one in which a space is created for government regulation consistent …

The New Bailments, Danielle D’Onfro

Washington Law Review

The rise of cloud computing has dramatically changed how consumers and firms store their belongings. Property that owners once managed directly now exists primarily on infrastructure maintained by intermediaries. Consumers entrust their photos to Apple instead of scrapbooks; businesses put their documents on Amazon’s servers instead of in file cabinets; seemingly everything runs in the cloud. Were these belongings tangible, the relationship between owner and intermediary would be governed by the common-law doctrine of bailment. Bailments are mandatory relationships formed when one party entrusts their property to another. Within this relationship, the bailees owe the bailors a duty of care …

Passcodes, Protection, And Legal Practicality: The Necessity Of A Digital Fifth Amendment, Ethan Swierczewski

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

The Rise Of 5g Technology: How Internet Privacy And Protection Of Personal Data Is A Must In An Evolving Digital Landscape, Justin Rabine

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

The Application Of The Right To Be Forgotten In The Machine Learning Context: From The Perspective Of European Laws, Zeyu Zhao

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The right to be forgotten has been evolving for decades along with the progress of different statutes and cases and, finally, independently enacted by the General Data Protection Regulation, making it widely applied across Europe. However, the related provisions in the regulation fail to enable machine learning systems to realistically forget the personal information which is stored and processed therein.

This failure is not only because existing European rules do not stipulate standard codes of conduct and corresponding responsibilities for the parties involved, but they also cannot accommodate themselves to the new environment of machine learning, where specific information can …

Discrimination On Wheels: How Big Data Uses License Plate Surveillance To Put The Brakes On Disadvantaged Drivers, Nicole Mcconlogue

Faculty Scholarship

As scholarly discourse increasingly raises concerns about the negative societal effects of “fintech,” “dirty data,” and “technochauvinism,” a growing technology provides an instructive illustration of all three of these problems. Surveillance software companies are using automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology to develop predictive analytical tools. In turn, software companies market those tools to auto financers and insurers as a risk assessment input to evaluate consumers seeking to buy a car. Proponents of this technology might argue that more in-formation about consumer travel habits will result in more accurate and individualized risk predictions, potentially increasing vehicle ownership among marginalized groups. …

The Common Law And The Self-Driving Car, Mbilike M. Mwafulirwa

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ransomware Warfare: Exploring Global And Private Negotiations To Help U.S. Victims Respond To The Threat, Karina Nad

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

By weaponizing technology, now more than ever before, cybercriminals are transforming the cyberworld into their new hunting ground. Almost daily, news headlines alert us to a new malicious cyber threat or major data breach. The evolution of cybercrime has created a malicious online environment, or "malspace," that is now inhabited by hacker groups and espionage units from all over the world. As a global concern, the use of powerful online capabilities by hacker groups has led to the "militarization" of cyberspace. Closer to home, critical infrastructure, valuable personal data, and access to medical care has been compromised at alarming rates …

Opening Remarks, Christopher J. Buccafusco, Matthew Vernace

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Wild West Of Data Privacy: Why Rhode Island Needs To Enact Comprehensive Legislation To Protect Consumers’ Data, Candace Quinn

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Putting A Finger On Biometric Privacy Laws: How Congress Can Stitch Together The Patchwork Of Biometric Privacy Laws In The United States, Eliza Simons

Brooklyn Law Review

The use of biometric identification in the consumer industry has grown immensely over the last decade and is projected to continue growing at an even faster rate. As private entities abandon password-based security systems and opt for the more secure, convenient, and cost-effective method of using biometric data, individuals are worried how that information will be protected. Although the right to privacy has always been valued in the United States, Congress has yet to specifically address biometric privacy. This note sets the legal landscape of privacy law, through the lens of biometric privacy, by surveying four categories of privacy law: …

The Ratio Method: Addressing Complex Tort Liability In The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Harrison C. Margolin, Grant H. Frazier

St. Mary's Law Journal

Emerging technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution show fundamental promise for improving productivity and quality of life, though their misuse may also cause significant social disruption. For example, while artificial intelligence will be used to accelerate society’s processes, it may also displace millions of workers and arm cybercriminals with increasingly powerful hacking capabilities. Similarly, human gene editing shows promise for curing numerous diseases, but also raises significant concerns about adverse health consequences related to the corruption of human and pathogenic genomes.

In most instances, only specialists understand the growing intricacies of these novel technologies. As the complexity and speed of …

Shifting Antitrust Laws And Regulations In The Wake Of Hospital Mergers: Taking The Focus Off Of Elective Markets And Centering Health Care, Maya Inka Ureño-Dembar

Brooklyn Law Review

Access to health care requires access to a care center and access to comprehensive health care services. Rampant hospital mergers are uniquely poised to reduce both the number of hospitals, requiring patients to travel further, and the services provided within a newly merged hospital, namely reproductive health services. This phenomenon is clearly seen through the merging of secular and nonsecular hospitals, which often result in patients being forced to travel much further for reproductive health care. In the United States’ current model, health care is not a right, but is treated as a commodity. As such, it is governed by …

The Fight Over Frankenmeat: The Fda As The Proper Agency To Regulate Cell-Based “Clean Meat”, Zoe A. Bernstein

Brooklyn Law Review

In recent years, concern over the environmental, animal welfare, and human costs of animal agriculture has spurred an increased demand for nonanimal sourced protein. This has led to significant innovation in food technology. As part of this trend, food scientists have developed a process for in-vitro cultivation of meat cells to produce protein that is biologically and nutritionally identical to meat from traditionally raised and slaughtered animal sources, but that involves neither animal agriculture nor animal slaughter. This lab-grown “clean meat” represents a new era in food technology and is already having an effect on the existing meat industry. In …

The Rise Of Ada Title Iii: How Congress And The Department Of Justice Can Solve Predatory Litigation, Sarah E. Zehentner

Brooklyn Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted in 1990 to afford equal opportunities for individuals with disabilities. Title III of the ADA, specifically, was enacted to afford disabled individuals equal access to places of public accommodation. When the ADA was enacted, the internet was still in its infancy and Congress did not contemplate the need for governing accessibility to websites of public accommodations. Today, the internet has become embedded in virtually every aspect of our lives, yet there are still millions of disabled individuals who are unable to equally access the websites of American businesses. With the ADA being …

Risky Fine Print: A Novel Typology Of Ethical Risks In Mobile App User Agreements, Bar Fargon Mizrahi

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

The Commodification Of Personal Data And The Road To Consumer Autonomy Through The Ccpa, Blaire Rose

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The internet has transformed into a museum of personal information collected through the digital footprint we leave behind after each act performed on the web. Businesses have monetized this collection of personal data in various ways. For instance, many companies analyze this information through predicting analytics and data profiling to identify consumer interests that they can exploit as a means to generate revenue. Though user data promotes many benefits for businesses and consumers alike, the recent data breaches of massive companies, coupled with hazy privacy disclosures that beget consent disputes, have left both users and businesses perturbed and exposed to …

Taking It With You: Platform Barriers To Entry And The Limits Of Data Portability, Gabriel Nicholas

Michigan Technology Law Review

Policymakers are faced with a vexing problem: how to increase competition in a tech sector dominated by a few giants. One answer proposed and adopted by regulators in the United States and abroad is to require large platforms to allow consumers to move their data from one platform to another, an approach known as data portability. Facebook, Google, Apple, and other major tech companies have enthusiastically supported data portability through their own technical and political initiatives. Today, data portability has taken hold as one of the go-to solutions to address the tech industry’s competition concerns.

This Article argues that despite …

Dignity, Freedom, And Digital Rights: Comparing American And European Approaches To Privacy, Virginia Kozemczak

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The note examines the contrasting approaches of the United States and the European Union to digital privacy, emphasizing how the US prioritizes liberty while the EU focuses on dignity. It argues that US privacy law, particularly under the Fourth Amendment, struggles to adapt to technological advancements, as seen in cases like Carpenter v. United States. In contrast, the EU's framework, guided by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, offers more comprehensive protections by addressing the broader context of data collection and processing. The author suggests that the US could enhance its privacy protections by adopting elements …

Protecting Children In The Frontier Of Surveillance Capitalism, Cole F. Watson

Student Scholarship

This article examines the ongoing technological revolution and its impact on today’s consumers. In particular, this article addresses the promulgation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the context of “surveillance capitalism”2 and analyzes the harms associated with social media and data collection. Finally, this paper will argue that COPPA should be revamped to better regulate the Internet of 2020. A just society ought to protect children from the lurking perils of social media.

Algorithms In Business, Merchant-Consumer Interactions, & Regulation, Tabrez Y. Ebrahim

Faculty Scholarship

The shift towards the use of algorithms in business has transformed merchant–consumer interactions. Products and services are increasingly tailored for consumers through algorithms that collect and analyze vast amounts of data from interconnected devices, digital platforms, and social networks. While traditionally merchants and marketeers have utilized market segmentation, customer demographic profiles, and statistical approaches, the exponential increase in consumer data and computing power enables them to develop and implement algorithmic techniques that change consumer markets and society as a whole. Algorithms enable targeting of consumers more effectively, in real-time, and with high predictive accuracy in pricing and profiling strategies. In …

Smart Cars, Telematics And Repair, Leah Chan Grinvald, Ofer Tur-Sinai

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Recent years have seen a surge in the use of automotive telematics. Telematics is the integration of telecommunications and informatics technologies. Using telematics in cars enables transmission of data communications between the car and other systems or devices. This opens up a wide range of possibilities, including the prospect of conducting remote diagnostics based on real-time access to the vehicle. Yet, as with any new technology, alongside its potential benefits, the use of automotive telematics could also have potential downsides. This Article explores the significant negative impact that the growing reliance on telematics systems could have on competition in the …