Internet Law Commons^™

The Need For Cyber Resilience Of Space Assets: Law And Policy Considerations Of Ensuring Cybersecurity In Outer Space, Daniella Febbraro

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In 2018, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory was the subject of a data breach where over 500 megabytes of data from a major mission system was stolen by hackers. This attack affected NASA’s Deep Space Network, prompting the United States Johnson Space Center to disconnect the International Space Station from the affected gateway due to fears that mission systems could become compromised. NASA has acknowledged that its vast online presence, which includes thousands of publicly accessible datasets, offers a large potential target for cybercriminals. The 2018 incident was one of many, with NASA experiencing more than 6000 cyberattacks from 2017-2021 alone. …

When Your Boss Is An Algorithm: Preserving Canadian Employment Standards In The Digital Economy, Fife Ogunde

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The platform or ‘‘gig” economy is a rapidly growing economy in Canada. Between 2005 and 2016, the share of gig workers among all workers in Canada rose from 5.5% to 8.2%. These include independent contractors, select freelancers and platform workers. In 2018, 28% of Canadians aged 18 and older reported making money through online platforms. Research by Payments Canada in 2021 showed gig workers as representing more than one in 10 Canadian adults with more than one in three Canadian businesses employing gig workers. As the share of platform workers in the economy has grown, so has the discussion regarding …

Slouching Toward Regulation: Assessing Bill 88 As A Solution For Workplace Surveillance Harms, Danielle E. Thompson, Adam Molnar

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Employee monitoring applications (‘‘EMAs”) are proliferating in Canada and provide employers with sophisticated surveillance tools for the monitoring of workers (e.g., on-device video surveillance, browser activity, and email monitoring). In response to concerns about these increasingly invasive surveillance practices, the Government of Ontario passed Bill 88, the Working for Workers Act, 2022, which requires all employers with 25 or more workers to have a written policy stating whether and how they electronically monitor their employees. Bill 88 marks a more explict attempt to regulate workplace surveillance in a modern digital context in Canada; however; however, an analysis of the Bill’s …

The Challenge Designing Intermediary Liability Laws, Emily Laidlaw

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The ideal framework for intermediary liability has vexed policymakers since the internet’s commercialization. The quest has taken on a frenzied pace in recent years with intense scrutiny of who they are, what they do and what they should be responsible for. Over the years a theme has emerged from my discussions about intermediaries, and its subset platforms, and it prompts me to explore it as the focus of this article. My question is simple: why is it so difficult for law and policymakers to agree on a regulatory framework?

This article tackles two parts of the regulatory challenge that are …

The Future Of Data Protection Enforcement In Canada: Lessons From The Gdpr, Guilda Rostama, Teresa Scassa

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Imagine a not-too-distant scenario in which a private sector organization in Canada is investigated by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada jointly with the Commissioners of Quebec, British Columbia (‘‘BC”), and Alberta in relation to complaints that it shared massive quantities of personal data with third parties contrary to its stated practices in its privacy policies. Imagine also that each of the commissioners is empowered under newly amended data protection legislation to issue substantial Administrative Monetary Penalties (‘‘AMPs”). If each of the commissioners finds that its respective laws were breached, should the organization be subject to four different AMPs, or just …

Opaque Notification: A Country-By-Country Review, Lauren Mantel

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

No abstract provided.

A New Right Is The Wrong Tactic: Bring Legal Actions Against States For Internet Shutdowns Instead Of Working Towards A Human Right To The Internet (Part 1), Jay Conrad

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

A New Right is the Wrong Tactic: Bring Legal Actions Against States for Internet Shutdowns Instead of Working Towards a Human Right to the Internet (Part 1) is the first of a two-part series dealing with an increasingly prevalent threat to human rights: State-sanctioned Internet shutdowns. Part 1 details the current tactics and impacts of Internet shutdowns and which human rights are most likely to be violated by or during a shutdown. Part 2 will address the deficiencies of advocating for Internet access to be a recognized human right as a means of combatting shutdowns. Despite the popularity of this …

Aclu V. Clearview Ai, Inc.,, Isra Ahmed

DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Texas’ War On Social Media: Censorship Or False Flag, Leni Morales

DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Thaler V. Vidal, 43 F.4th 1207 (Fed. Cir. 2022), Matthew Messina

DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

On The Danger Of Not Understanding Technology, Fredric I. Lederer

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

The Intersection Of Nfts And Structured Finance, Christopher K. Odinet, Andrea Tosato

Faculty Scholarship

Blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) continue to invade financial markets. Whether through partnerships between financial institutions and tech firms or through in-house initiatives at some of the nation’s largest banks, blockchain-based products, services, and transactional structures are a major point of interest. In a recent work by Professor Steven Schwarcz, the growing NFT market is analyzed using the traditional tools of structured finance. Creating a new conceptual model called non-cash-flow monetizations, Professor Schwarcz reveals the risks to investors and markets, if the tokenization of non-traditional and largely illiquid assets proliferates. Having identified the potential harms, he offers …

Some Legal And Practical Challenges In The Investigation Of Cybercrime, Ritz Carr

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), in 2021, the United States lost around $6.9 billion to cybercrime. In 2022, that number grew to over $10.2 billion (IC3, 2022). In one of many efforts to combat cybercrimes, at least 40 states “introduced or considered more than 250 bills or resolutions that deal significantly with cybersecurity” with 24 states officially enacting a total of 41 bills (National Conference on State Legislatures, 2022).

The world of cybercrime evolves each day. Nevertheless, challenges arise when we investigate and prosecute cybercrime, which will be examined in the following collection of essays that highlight …

Understanding Dark Patterns In Home Iot Devices, Monica Kowalczyk, Johanna Gunawan, David Choffnes, Daniel J. Dubois, Woodrow Hartzog, Christo Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices are ubiquitous, but little attention has been paid to how they may incorporate dark patterns despite consumer protections and privacy concerns arising from their unique access to intimate spaces and always-on capabilities. This paper conducts a systematic investigation of dark patterns in 57 popular, diverse smart home devices. We update manual interaction and annotation methods for the IoT context, then analyze dark pattern frequency across device types, manufacturers, and interaction modalities. We find that dark patterns are pervasive in IoT experiences, but manifest in diverse ways across device traits. Speakers, doorbells, and camera devices contain the most …

The Evidentiary Implications Of Interpreting Black-Box Algorithms, Varun Bhatnagar

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

Biased black-box algorithms have drawn increasing levels of scrutiny from the public. This is especially true for those black-box algorithms with the potential to negatively affect protected or vulnerable populations.1 One type of these black-box algorithms, a neural network, is both opaque and capable of high accuracy. However, neural networks do not provide insights into the relative importance, underlying relationships, structures of the predictors or covariates with the modelled outcomes.2 There are methods to combat a neural network’s lack of transparency: globally or locally interpretable post-hoc explanatory models.3 However, the threat of such measures usually does not bar an actor …

Compulsory Licensing: A Potential Solution To The Antitrust Dilemma Of Technology Standards Setting, Shen Peng

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

The Constitution grants patent owners exclusive rights over their inventions to “promote the Progress of Science.”1 This clause was drafted based on the belief that monetary incentives granted to the first inventor, such as the proceeds from selling and licensing the invention, will foster new ideas and accelerate innovation to the benefit of the public welfare. However, when the first inventor is the sole benefactor of the rewards from the innovation, subsequent innovation may be stifled.

For instance, the first person to invent the idea of a mobile phone but lacking the right to use the underlying technologies essential to …

Telegraph, Telephone And The Internet: The Making Of The Symbiotic Model Of Surveillance States, Dongsheng Zang

Articles

In the early 2000s, shortly before the September 11 attacks, Daniel J. Solove noted that computer databases in the United States were controlled by public as well as private bureaucracies. In that sense, Solove argued, the "Big Brother" metaphor "fails to capture the most important dimension of the database problem." In his 2008 Lockhart lecture, constitutional law scholar Jack M. Balkin argued that the United States has gradually transformed from a welfare and national security state to a National Surveillance State: "a new form of governance that features the collection, collation, and analysis of information about populations both in the …

Optimizing Cybersecurity Risk In Medical Cyber-Physical Devices, Christopher S. Yoo, Bethany C. Lee

William & Mary Law Review

Medical devices are increasingly connected, both to cyber networks and to sensors collecting data from physical stimuli. These cyber-physical systems pose a new host of deadly security risks that traditional notions of cybersecurity struggle to take into account. Previously, we could predict how algorithms would function as they drew on defined inputs. But cyber-physical systems draw on unbounded inputs from the real world. Moreover, with wide networks of cyber-physical medical devices, a single cybersecurity breach could pose lethal dangers to masses of patients.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is tasked with regulating medical devices to ensure safety and …

Digital Asset Regulation: Peering Into The Past, Peering Into The Future, Kevin Werbach

William & Mary Law Review

Blockchain is often compared to the internet as a disruptive technology that will realign economic structures across the world. This analogy extends to law and regulation. Similar to internet-based services, digital assets raise a host of challenges for policymakers. They also pose general questions regarding the desirability and practicality of regulating decentralized systems. Such debates play out against a backdrop of concerns that regulatory action will chill innovation or push market activity to more tolerant jurisdictions. The story of internet policy in the late 1990s and early 2000s therefore provides important lessons for policymakers today when confronting digital assets. Two …

Cftc & Sec: The Wild West Of Cryptocurrency Regulation, Taylor Anne Moffett

University of Richmond Law Review

Over the past few years, a turf war has been brewing between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) over which agency should regulate cryptocurrencies. Both agencies have pursued numerous enforcement actions over the cryptocurrencies they believe to be within their jurisdiction. This turf war has many moving components, but the focus always comes back to one question: which cryptocurrencies are commodities, and which cryptocurrencies are securities? The distinction is important because the CFTC has statutory authority to regulate commodities, whereas the SEC has statutory authority to regulate securities. This Comment rejects the pursuit …

The Freedom Of Influencing, Hannibal Travis

University of Miami Law Review

Social media stars and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) Act are clashing. Influencer marketing is a preferred way for entertainers, pundits, and everyday people to monetize their audiences and popularity. Manufacturers, service providers, retailers, and advertising agencies leverage influencers to reach into millions or even billions of consumer devices, capturing minutes or seconds of the market’s fleeting attention. FTC enforcement actions and private lawsuits have targeted influencers for failing to disclose the nature of a sponsorship relationship with a manufacturer, marketer, or service provider. Such a failure to disclose payments prominently is very common in Hollywood films and on radio …

Cryptocurrencies And Climate Change: A Net-Zero Paradox, Jason Maclean

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Cryptocurrencies pose a number of complex law and policy problems, the most pressing of which are the industry’s climate and environmental impacts. This article examines the climate and environmental impacts of crypto-assets in the broader law and policy context of the UN Paris Agreement and the global goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 or earlier. This approach not only illuminates the limitations and paradoxical nature of the crypto-industry’s climate commitments, but also the limitations and paradoxical nature of ‘‘net zero” itself as the predominant framing of national, subnational, and nonstate actors’ climate pledges. The article concludes by examining the …

From Cartier To Codification: Website-Blocking Injunctions And Third-Party Internet Service Provider Respondents, Dan Mackwood

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In recent years, the proliferation of commercial-scale copyright infringement through unauthorized online content streaming has created persisting legal hurdles for Canadian rights holders seeking redress. John Doe defendants in online copyright disputes can easily preserve their anonymity and operate their infringing enterprises from unknown locations, undeterred by injunctions issued against them directly. These anonymized administrators of illicit streaming platforms offer users unauthorized access to content for a lower cost than or as a free alternative to the access provided by the legitimate rights holder. This form of copyright infringement has reportedly resulted in up to hundreds of thousands of lost …

Regulating Uncertain States: A Risk-Based Policy Agenda For Quantum Technologies, Tina Dekker, Florian Martin-Bariteau

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Many countries are taking a national approach to developing quantum strategies with a strong focus on innovation. However, societal, ethical, legal, and policy considerations should not be an afterthought that is pushed aside by the drive for innovation. A responsible, global approach to quantum technologies that considers the legal, ethical, and societal dimensions of quantum technologies is necessary to avoid exacerbating existing global inequalities. Quantum technologies are expected to disrupt other transformative technologies whose legal landscape is still under development (e.g., artificial intelligence [‘‘AI”], blockchain, etc.). The shortcomings of global policies regarding AI and the digital context teach lessons that …

Crowdsourcing Justice, Matthew Dylag

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Social media has become ubiquitous in the daily lives of Canadians. Beyond connecting with friends and family, people also turn to social media to find information and seek advice on any number of topics, be it home cooking, workout routines, or automobile purchases. Indeed, social media is a flexible vehicle that can be leveraged for communication on almost any topic. It is not surprising, therefore, that individuals are also turning to social media to help resolve their legal problems. Even a cursory examination of social media will reveal that it is not uncommon for individuals who are experiencing legal difficulties …

Comment: The United Nations And Robot Rights, Heather Alexander

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This comment predicts that robot rights under the law are likely to become a reality in the next fifty years, possibly in multiple countries, as governments pass laws granting rights to robots, including civil rights like voting. This comment calls on the United Nations (‘‘UN”) to be pro-active in guiding the emergence of robot rights by convening a working group on robot rights to better guide member states through what will be a time of momentous change.

Why are robots likely to soon gain rights in some UN member states? There have been huge advances in AI that can pass …

Perceiving Critical Infrastructure With A New Awareness Of Cyber Risk, Duncad Card

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

North America’s critical infrastructure has been the subject of cyber-attack, in various cycles of activity, for many years. In March of 2017, a cyber-attack caused periodic ‘‘blind-spots” for electricity distribution grid operators in the Western US for about 10 dangerous hours. In May of this year, there was panic at the gas pumps across many States in southeastern United States, which has been attributed to a cyber-attack on a major US pipeline that disrupted fuel supplies to the US East coast. US Commerce Secretary Raimondo soon after that attack announced that those sorts of attacks are becoming more frequent and …

Copyright Throughout A Creative Ai Pipeline, Sancho Mccann

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Consider the following fact pattern.

Alex paints some original works on canvas and posts photos of them online. Becca downloads those images and uses them to train an AI (training configures the AI’s model parameters to useful values). Becca posts the resulting trained parameter values on her website under a license that reserves to Becca the right to use the parameters commercially. Cory uses those parameter values in a program that is designed to produce artwork. Cory clicks create and the program produces a work. This work is new to Cory, but it looks a lot like one of Alex’s …

Crispr, Like Any Other Technology: Shedding Determinism & Reviving Athens, Jon Khan

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article examines current narratives surrounding CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) and the current Canadian treatment of this novel biotechnology. It argues that Canada’s current approach to genetic research and CRISPR appear to have succumbed to the false narrative of technological determinism. It argues that Canada must buck the narrative and alter the current status quo in two principal ways: Canada should pursue more somatic CRISPR clinical trials in humans and permit pre-clinical germline editing. To design a regulatory regime for clinical germline editing and better guidance on somatic CRISPR clinical trials, Canada should engage Deliberative Polling to …

Book Review Rethinking The Jurisprudence Of Cyberspace, David Cowan

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

It is a common claim that law is always catching up with technology. This is not entirely fair. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation1 (GDPR) could be viewed as a case of technology having to catch up to the law. That said, clearly there are challenges in law and in the legal profession, both in terms of how the law can adapt to changes in the digital world and the disruption of the legal profession. On the former point, there are perhaps three broad schools of thought: existing law is sufficient for adapting to new technological challenges, as it …