Internet Law Commons^™

Keep Your Update To Yourself, Neil M. Richards

Scholarship@WashULaw

An essay from Wired Magazine (UK)'s special edition, The Wired World in 2013. The essay makes the argument that frictionless sharing of reading habits should decline in 2013.

Three Paradoxes Of Big Data, Neil M. Richards, Jonathan H. King

Scholarship@WashULaw

Big data is all the rage. Its proponents tout the use of sophisticated analytics to mine large data sets for insight as the solution to many of our society’s problems. These big data evangelists insist that data-driven decision making can now give us better predictions in areas ranging from college admissions to dating to hiring to medicine to national security and crime prevention. But much of the rhetoric of big data contains no meaningful analysis of its potential perils, only the promise. We don’t deny that big data holds substantial potential for the future, and that large dataset analysis has …

The Perils Of Social Reading, Neil M. Richards

Scholarship@WashULaw

Our law currently treats records of our reading habits under two contradictory rules: rules mandating confidentiality and rules permitting disclosure. Recently, the rise of the social Internet has created more of these records and more pressures on when and how they should be shared. Companies like Facebook, in collaboration with many newspapers, have ushered in the era of “social reading,” in which what we read may be “frictionlessly shared” with our friends and acquaintances. Disclosure and sharing are on the rise.

This Article sounds a cautionary note about social reading and frictionless sharing. Social reading might have some appeal, but …

Searching For Internet Freedom In China: A Case Study On Google's China Experience, Jyh-An Lee, Ching-Yi Liu, Weiping Li

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Terry Jones And Global Free Speech In The Internet Age, G. Aaron Leibowitz

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Deference To Protocol: Fashioning A Three-Dimensional Public Policy Framework For The Internet Age, Richard S. Whitt

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

This Article discusses how public policy grounded in the Internet's architecture can best ensure that the Net fully enables tangible benefits such as innovation, economic growth, free expression, and user empowerment. In particular, recognizing that the Internet is rapidly becoming society's chief operating system, this Article shows how an overarching public policy framework should be faithful to the multifaceted nature of the online world. As part of such a framework, this Article will explore one key aspect of the Internet: the "logical" Middle Layers functions, its inner workings derived from open software protocols and inclusive, decentralized processes. Adhering to the …

"A Right To Be Spared Unhappiness": Images Of Death And The Expansion Of The Relational Right Of Privacy, Catherine Leibowitz

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Electronic Silk Road: How The Web Binds The World In Commerce, Anupam Chander

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

On the ancient Silk Road, treasure-laden caravans made their arduous way through deserts and mountain passes, establishing trade between Asia and the civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean. Today’s electronic Silk Roads ferry information across continents, enabling individuals and corporations anywhere to provide or receive services without obtaining a visa. But the legal infrastructure for such trade is yet rudimentary and uncertain. If an event in cyberspace occurs at once everywhere and nowhere, what law applies? How can consumers be protected when engaging with companies across the world?

In this accessible book, cyber-law expert Anupam Chander provides the first thorough …

The Anonymous Internet, Bryan H. Choi

Publications

This Article argues in favor of regulating online anonymity, not from the standpoint that doing so will prevent harmful abuses or improve security, but instead that refusing to do so will ultimately harm other liberty interests. One principle that has emerged from cyberlaw scholarship is that we should safeguard the Internet’s "generativity"— a key attribute representing the latitude and plasticity with which a technology (like the Internet) can be adapted to perform new, unanticipated uses—because generativity is the root source of the Internet’s unique vitality. Yet, if we want regulators to leave generativity alone, we must offer them another point …

Real Masks And Real Name Policies: Applying Anti-Mask Case Law To Anonymous Online Speech, Margot E. Kaminski

Publications

The First Amendment protects anonymous speech, but the scope of that protection has been the subject of much debate. This Article adds to the discussion of anonymous speech by examining anti-mask statutes and cases as an analogue for the regulation of anonymous speech online. Anti-mask case law answers a number of questions left open by the Supreme Court. It shows that courts have used the First Amendment to protect anonymity beyond core political speech, when mask-wearing is expressive conduct or shows a nexus with free expression. This Article explores what the anti-mask cases teach us about anonymity online, including proposed …

Durkheim's Internet: Social And Political Theory In Online Society, Ari Ezra Waldman

Articles & Chapters

While the Internet has changed dramatically since the early 1990s, the legal regime governing the right to privacy online and Internet speech is still steeped in a myth of the Internet user, completely hidden from others, in total control of his online experience, and free to come and go as he pleases. This false image of the “virtual self” has also contributed to an ethos of lawlessness, irresponsibility, and radical individuation online, allowing the evisceration of online privacy and the proliferation of hate and harassment.

I argue that the myth of the online anonym is not only false as a …

Caught In A Bind: Reassuring Judicial Authority To Bind Non-Party Search Engines Under Rule 65 In Counterfeit Goods Cases, Courtney Brown

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Data Protection Principles For The 21st Century, Fred H. Cate, Peter Cullen, Viktor Mayer-Schonberger

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

This paper proposes revisions to the OECD Guidelines that include basic changes essential for the protection of individual privacy in the 21st century, while avoiding unnecessary restrictions on uses of personal information that are increasingly important.

The Internet Is Not A Super Highway: Using Metaphors To Communicate Information And Communications Policy, Kristen Jakobsen Osenga

Law Faculty Publications

Do metaphors influence our information policy preferences? Professor Osenga thinks so, which makes it especially important to choose the right one, as a metaphor is often the primary tool the general public uses to understand information policy. Using a five-point rubric, she evaluates, among others, understanding the Internet as “tubes,” “highway,” “space (cyberspace),” “coffee shop/bar” and “cloud.” Osenga finds them all lacking in important ways. However, she believes the metaphor of the Internet as “ecosystem” is very promising and deserves to be further developed.

Fighting Cybercrime After United States V. Jones, David C. Gray, Danielle Keats Citron, Liz Clark Rinehart

Faculty Scholarship

In a landmark non-decision last term, five Justices of the United States Supreme Court would have held that citizens possess a Fourth Amendment right to expect that certain quantities of information about them will remain private, even if they have no such expectations with respect to any of the information or data constituting that whole. This quantitative approach to evaluating and protecting Fourth Amendment rights is certainly novel and raises serious conceptual, doctrinal, and practical challenges. In other works, we have met these challenges by engaging in a careful analysis of this “mosaic theory” and by proposing that courts focus …

Virtual Assembly, John D. Inazu

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article provides one of the first scholarly considerations of the constitutional boundaries for online groups. It explores both why and how we should protect these groups by asking two related questions. The first question is theoretical: do online groups implicate the kinds of values that warrant elevated constitutional protection. The second question is doctrinal: what is the best framework for providing constitutional protection to these groups. The Article argues that we should protect online groups because they advance important First Amendment values and because the line between our offline and our online groups is collapsing. Turning to the doctrinal …

Copyright 1992-2012: The Most Significant Development?, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Fordham Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference, its organizer, Professor Hugh Hansen, planned a session on “U.S. Copyright Law: Where Has It Been? Where Is It Going?” and asked me to look back over the twenty years since the conference’s inception in order to identify the most important development in copyright during that period. Of course, the obvious answer is “the Internet,” or “digital media,” whose effect on copyright law has been pervasive. I want to propose a less obvious response, but first acknowledge that digital media and communications have presented …

Privacy And Publicly Available Personal Information, Teresa Scassa

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article begins with a review of the structure of PIPEDA in order to situate the exception within its statutory context. This is followed by a detailed consideration of the exception for publicly available information. The article then offers a discussion of whether the scope of this exception should be expanded, and offers an alternative.

Agriculture Under Threat - A Crisis Of Confidence? The Solution: Redefine Adventitious Presence Maximum Levels From Zero To Zero++, Mark Perry, Ramesh Karky

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The issue of Adventitious Presence (AP) of genes, those that are not “naturally” present in food and crops but rather have been placed there using recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) technology, has become a hot issue for producers and consumers. It can also be a major problem for exporters. Part of this problem is the reality that zero presence is now impossible to guarantee in some crops and products. Pressure has arisen to establish a Low Level Presence (LLP) threshold, one that is above zero, to be determined at an international level. This would allow crops to be imported and exported …

C-11 Et L'Information Sur Le Régime Des Droits: Regard Rétrospectif Et Prospectif, Antoine Guilman

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

La récente adoption du projet de loi C-11, portant modification de la Loi sur le droit d’auteur, change aujourd’hui considérablement la donne. En effet, son article 41.22 instaure désormais un régime propre à l’information sur le régime des droits. Il devient dès lors nécessaire de remettre en contexte ce texte, pour l’appréhender pleinement et comprendre l’approche retenue par le Canada en matière de protection de l’information sur le régime des droits.

Dans cette perspective, nous porterons, d’une part, un regard rétrospectif sur l’évolution technologique récente et les solutions apportées au plan juridique en matière d’information sur le régime des droits …

Big Brother's Shadow: Decline In Reported Use Of Electronic Surveillance By Canadian Federal Law Enforcement, Nicholas Koutros, Julien Demers

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Despite popular perception of increased government surveillance, particularly since 9/11, a longitudinal study of the Annual Reports on the Use of Electronic Surveillance, published by Public Safety Canada between 1973 and 2011, demonstrates the opposite trend. This article first outlines this decline to situate the use of electronic surveillance by federal law enforcement. The second section of the article advances legal, political, and practical influences which are likely contributing to the diminished use of wiretapping by police. The purpose of this article is to present quantitative evidence to better inform the ongoing debate around extending “lawful access” regimes in Canada. …

Protection From The Protectors: Does The Competition Act Provide An Answer To The Misuse Of Technological Protection Measures?, Keith D. Rose

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

McOrmond suggested that this linkage of authorized content and devices may fall within the definition of tied selling:

If you are a competitor of the members of the DVD CCA, or for any reason cannot sign on to their contractual obligations, you will not receive the keys to encode your own content or decode content. It should be reviewed by the Competition Bureau to determine whether such contractual obligations should be allowed. Tying the ability to access content encoded with DVD CCA keys requiring a DVD CCA-approved access device seems like a text- book example of “tied selling” under section …

Corporate Cyber-Censorship: The Problems With Freedom Of Expression Online, Max Rothschild

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article will explore the problem of the applicability of human rights law to the corporate entities that own and enable the operation of the Internet. The focus will be the status of the right to freedom of expression online, and the different possibilities that have been suggested in order to ensure that users have and are able to exercise this right. As the Internet is a communicative tool that allows for an unprecedented global discourse, freedom of expression is naturally of primary importance in the online context.

Self-Defensive Force Against Cyber Attacks: Legal, Strategic And Political Dimensions, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

When does a cyber attack (or threat of cyber attack) give rise to a right of self-defense – including armed self-defense – and when should it? By "cyber attack" I mean the use of malicious computer code or electronic signals to alter, disrupt, degrade or destroy computer systems or networks or the information or programs on them. It is widely believed that sophisticated cyber attacks could cause massive harm – whether to military capabilities, economic and financial systems, or social functioning – because of modern reliance on system interconnectivity, though it is highly contested how vulnerable the United States and …

Certainty At Last?: A "New" Framework For Electronic Contracting In Singapore, Eliza Mik

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Singapore is the first Asian country to accede to the UNCITRAL Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts (“CUECIC” or “Convention”). Upon accession, the Singaporean Electronic Transactions Act (“ETA” or “Act”) was repealed and re-enacted in a modified version, with effect from 1 July 2010. The modified ETA retains the framework of the original ETA but adds or amends certain provisions dealing with electronic contracting to align domestic e-commerce regulations with the Convention. Accordingly, Singapore is not only the first Asian nation to accede to the CUECIC but also the first nation to implement some of its …

Emerging Technologies And Dwindling Speech, Jorge Roig

Scholarly Works

Inspired in part by the recent holding in Bland v. Roberts that the use of the “Like” feature in Facebook is not covered by the Free Speech Clause, this article makes a brief foray into the approach that courts have taken in the recent past towards questions of First Amendment coverage in the context of emerging technologies. Specifically, this article will take a closer look at how courts have dealt with the issue of functionality in the context of First Amendment coverage of computer source code. The analysis of this and other recent experiences, when put in a larger context, …

Streaming While Teaching: The Legality Of Using Person Streaming Video Accounts For The Classroom, Jonathan I. Ezor

Scholarly Works

Educators are constantly seeking new sources of relevant material to illustrate doctrinal and practice topics. With the growing understanding of students’ different learning styles, as well as the expansion of high-speed network connections and large displays in the classroom, streaming video has begun gaining popularity as an educational tool. Films, television programs, and real-time and archived legislative and court sessions may provide examples (both positive and negative) to enhance pedagogy. One increasingly common source for streaming content is a commercial video provider such as Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. Even where such providers do not offer educational or institutional services, educators …

Wireless Localism: Beyond The Shroud Of Objectivity In Federal Spectrum Administration, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

Recent innovations in mobile wireless technology have instigated a debate between two camps of legal scholars about how policymakers should structure federal administration of the electromagnetic spectrum. The first argues that the Federal Communications Commission should define spectrum use rights more clearly and give spectrum licensees near fee-simple property rights in frequencies that they can use and sell in secondary markets as they wish. The second camp argues that, rather than award exclusive licenses to the highest bidder, the FCC ought to open much if not most of the spectrum to unlicensed use by smartphones and tablets equipped with the …