Internet Law Commons^™

Reframing Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence At The Intersections Of Law & Society, Jane S. Bailey, Carys Craig, Suzie Dunn, Sonia Lawrence

Articles & Book Chapters

This special issue of the Canadian Journal of Law and Technology focuses on the growing problem of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV): an expansive, dynamic, and rapidly evolving phenomenon that Jane Bailey and Carissima Mathen have defined as “a spectrum of behaviours carried out at least in some part through digital communications technologies, including actions that cause physical or psychological harm.” The collection of articles in this issue offers multi-disciplinary insights on TFGBV by bringing together the work of emerging scholars in information and media studies, communications, and law. This approach reflects our firm belief that in order to be meaningful …

Rules Of Engagement: Copyright And Automated Gatekeepers' Influence On Creative Expression, Michael W. Carroll

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This Essay turns questions about artificial intelligence and copyright law around. Rather than focus on algorithms as potential authors, this Essay argues for more attention to the role of algorithms as gatekeepers on social media and how creators adapt their creative choices to meet the demands of these automated tastemakers. Using TikTok’s “For You” algorithm and its role in breaking Lil Nas X’s hit song “Old Town Road” as a case study, this Essay poses the question whether algorithmic gatekeeping is simply a difference in degree or a difference in kind from an artist’s perspective. While tentative, this Essay concludes …

The Local Community Standard: Modernizing The Supreme Court's Obscenity Jurisprudence, Jacob S. Gordon

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

Paper presentation on the Supreme Court's outdated case law on obscenity and how it needs to be modernized to in order to combat the dissemination of inappropriate materials in the age of decentralized digital media.

Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari, Gonzalez V. Google, 143 S.Ct. 1191 (2023) (No. 21-1333), Eric Schnapper, Robert J. Tolchin, Keith L. Altman, Daniel Weininger

Court Briefs

QUESTION PRESENTED: Section 203(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act immunizes an “interactive computer service” (such as YouTube, Google, Facebook and Twitter) for “publish[ ing] ... information provided by another” “information content provider” (such as someone who posts a video on YouTube or a statement on Facebook). This is the most recent of three court of appeals’ decisions regarding whether section 230(c)(1) immunizes an interactive computer service when it makes targeted recommendations of information provided by such another party. Five courts of appeals judges have concluded that section 230(c)(1) creates such immunity. Three court of appeals judges have rejected such immunity. …

Application Of U.S. Sanction Laws And Ransomware Payments, Trinity Woodbury

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Ransomware is a major threat that widely affects individuals and organizations, including businesses. Ransomware victims face the situation of potentially paying ransom payments to threat actors, some of whom might be foreign-based criminals. Ransomware affects victims from all sectors and industries.

Republication Liability On The Web, Jeffrey Standen

Marquette Law Review

The tort of defamation evolved in an era where defamatory speech was published in books, magazines, newspapers, or other printed documents. The doctrines that are antecedent to the tort, such as publication, fault, defamation per se, presumed damages, and republication liability, similarly presumed that most defamation would appear in written form in a published work. Similarly, the significant limitations on defamation liability that were produced by a succession of Supreme Court constitutional precedent, including restrictions on prior restraint, heightened fault standards, expanded “public” classes, the “fact/opinion” dichotomy, and the “truth/substantial truth” burden shifting, also were based on a publishing world …

The Best Data Plan Is To Have A Game Plan: Obstacles And Solutions To Reaching International Data Privacy Agreements, James Y. Wang

Michigan Technology Law Review

The modern digital world relies on the instantaneous transfer of data. This digital highway is essential for the growth of the modern digital economy and contributes to the rise of globalization. In order to facilitate these data transfers, ground rules must first be put into place. To date, there are few, if any, binding international data privacy agreements. This is in part due to practical considerations, such as high administrability costs, inadequate enforcement agencies, and complex jurisdictional procedures. More fundamentally, however, this is due to competing incentive structures, as countries are incentivized to protect their own digital sovereignty by limiting …

Understanding Chilling Effects, Jonathon W. Penney

Articles & Book Chapters

With digital surveillance and censorship on the rise, the amount of data available unprecedented, and corporate and governmental actors increasingly employing emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology for surveillance and data analytics, concerns about “chilling effects,” that is, the capacity for these activities to “chill” or deter people from exercising their rights and freedoms, have taken on greater urgency and importance. Yet, there remains a clear dearth in systematic theoretical and empirical work points. This has left significant gaps in understanding. This Article has attempted to fill that void, synthesizing theoretical and empirical insights from law, privacy, …

Global Partnership Should Be The Way Forward To Combat Money Laundering, Maame Nyakoa Boateng

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This Comment compares the major anti-money laundering (“AML”) laws in the United States and Iran. This Comment argues that even though the United States is advanced in its compliance approach, without a partnership with countries that are more vulnerable to money laundering attacks, its AML efforts could prove counter-productive because of the inter-connectedness of our world today. Accordingly, this Comment proposes a global partnership between countries with effective AML legislation and countries with less effective AML legislation to combat this complex crime.

Platforms, Encryption, And The Cfaa: The Case Of Whatsapp V Nso Group, Jonathon W. Penney, Bruce Schneier

Articles & Book Chapters

End-to-end encryption technology has gone mainstream. But this wider use has led hackers, cybercriminals, foreign governments, and other threat actors to employ creative and novel attacks to compromise or workaround these protections, raising important questions as to how the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the primary federal anti-hacking statute, is best applied to these new encryption implementations. Now, after the Supreme Court recently narrowed the CFAA’s scope in Van Buren and suggested it favors a code-based approach to liability under the statute, understanding how best to theorize sophisticated code-based access barriers like end-to-end encryption, and their circumvention, is now …

Regulating Social Media In The Global South, Zahra Takhshid

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, the disinformation crisis has made regulating social media platforms a necessity. The consequences of disinformation campaigns are not only limited to election interferences or political debates; they have also included fatal consequences. In response, however, scholars in the United States have generally focused on regulating social media companies in the United States, without paying much attention to these companies’ global impact, particularly in the Global South. Lost in the quest to fight disinformation is addressing the social media companies’ neglect of consumer rights in the Global South.

Countries in the Global North, such as the United States, …

The Increased Use And Permanency Of Technology: How Those Changes Impact Attorneys’ Professional Responsibility And Ethical Obligations To Clients And Recommendations For Improvement, Scott B. Piekarsky

University of Miami Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Narrowing Data Protection's Enforcement Gap, Filippo Lancieri

Maine Law Review

The rise of data protection laws is one of the most profound legal changes of this century. Yet, despite their nominal force and widespread adoption, available data indicates that these laws recurrently suffer from an enforcement gap—that is, a wide disparity between the stated protections on the books and the reality of how companies respond to them on the ground. Indeed, Appendix I to this Article introduces a novel literature review of twenty-six studies that analyzed the impact on the ground of the GDPR and the CCPA: none found a meaningful improvement in citizen’s data privacy. This raises the question: …

Social Media, Section 230, And Free Expression, Russell L. Weaver

Mercer Law Review

Throughout history, as new communications technologies have been developed, they have been controlled by “gatekeepers” who had the power to decide who could access those technologies. Although Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in the Fifteenth century was revolutionary and ultimately led to major innovations in science and technology, as well as to dramatic societal changes, Gutenberg’s invention was not accessible by everyone. Because printing presses were expensive, only wealthy individuals could afford to own and operate them, and those few individuals had the power to control who could use their technologies to mass communicate. Many of the technologies …

State Spoliation Claims In Federal District Courts, Jeffrey A. Parness

Catholic University Law Review

The increasing amounts of electronically stored information (ESI) relevant to civil litigation, and the ease of their loss, caused federal lawmakers explicitly to address the possible consequences of certain pre-suit or post-suit ESI losses. These lawmakers acted in both 2006 and 2015 through Federal Civil Procedure (FRCP) 37(e). But they acted only on certain ESI. Their actions have prompted increasing attention to the significant risks of pre-suit and post-suit losses of all ESI, and of non-ESI, otherwise discoverable in civil actions. In addition, their actions have spurred increasing attention to the availability of substantive law claims involving spoliation of information …

Ai And Digital Tools In Workplace Management And Evaluation: An Assessment Of The Eu's Legal Framework, Valerio De Stefano, Mathias Wouters

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

This study focuses on options for regulating the use of AI enabled and algorithmic management systems in the world of work under EU law. The first part describes how these technologies are already being deployed, particularly in recruitment, staff appraisal, task distribution and disciplinary procedures. It discusses some near-term potential development prospects and presents an impact assessment, highlighting some of these technologies' most significant implications.

The second part addresses the regulatory field. It examines the different EU regulations and directives that are already relevant to regulating the use of AI in employment. Subsequently, it analyses the potential labour and employment …

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 …

Social Media And Democracy After The Capitol Riot, Or, A Cautionary Tale Of The Giant Goldfish, Seth Oranburg

Mercer Law Review

Lately, people have been finding giant pet goldfish in lakes across America. You may see these tiny fish swimming in bowls at the county fair, but left alone in a lake or large pond, where they are dropped perhaps by a well-meaning child, they can grow to 20 pounds or more—and destroy ecosystems. The goldfish is a cautionary tale that has been told time and again in different forms, like Pandora’s box.

On January 6, 2021, a somewhat organized group of rioters overran and briefly took control of the U.S. Capitol. Social media clearly played a role in the riots …

Clicks, Bricks, And Politics: Website Accessibility Under Title Ii And Title Iii Of The Americans With Disabilities Act, Elliza Guta

Mercer Law Review

The Internet’s role in modern society is constantly expanding. While only a few thousand websites were in existence in the early 1990s, there are almost two billion active websites today. Every major business, news source, health care provider, and government entity has an online presence and the nation’s reliance on the Internet is growing. The role of the Internet in Americans’ daily lives is not a new phenomenon, but in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of the Internet and online technology has dramatically increased. Whether it’s grocery shopping, zoom-school, or checking local infection rates, the pandemic has …

Section 230 Of The Communications Decency Act: The “Good Samaritan” Law Which Grants Immunity To “Bad Samaritans”, Josh Slovin

Mercer Law Review

In 1989, the “world wide web” launched in the public domain, creating what we call today the “internet.” However, the internet was slow to catch on. In 1996, there were only 20 million American users on the internet. As the adoption of the internet by Americans slowly increased so did the development of internet websites and internet services. The United States Congress quickly began to see the pitfalls of the internet unfolding before its own eyes. In effect, the internet created a new venue for the dissemination of defamatory and elicit content.

Beginning in 1991, litigation commenced when individuals sought …

The Glocal Net: Standing On Joel Reidenberg’S Shoulders, Michael Birnhack

Fordham Law Review

Information technology and digital networks are global, and information can easily cross borders. Laws, however, are territorial, local, and specific. This is the meeting of the global and the local. Imposing local laws on global technology can result in a conflict, but it may give birth to a new condition, the “glocal net”: the fusion of the global and the local. Under the condition of the glocal net, as a matter of practice, people experience the internet differently in different places around the globe. As an ideal, the glocal net would strive to enable both the global and the local …

Social Media Platforms And Free Expression: An Introduction, Eric J. Segall

Mercer Law Review

On Friday, October 8, 2021, the Mercer Law Review hosted a virtual Symposium on “Social Media Platforms and Free Expression.” This important topic could not be timelier. With the Right calling for regulation of Facebook and Twitter in order to stop the removal of conservatives from their platforms, to the direct effect of social media on our elections and our politics, the worldwide spread of this technology has brought with it new and difficult legal issues regarding freedom of expression and social harms. Congratulations to the Mercer Law Review for addressing these controversial and complex questions.

To Be Seen But Not Heard: How The Internet’S Negative Impact On Minors’ Constitutional Right To Privacy, Speech, And Autonomy Creates A Need For Empathy-By-Design, Jon M. Garon

Mercer Law Review

This Article reviews the rights of individuals younger than eighteen to engage in their daily activities, now often mediated through online service providers, learning management systems, and other technological intermediaries. Unlike prior generations, modern adolescents must navigate the complex world of online society in addition to their family life, school day, and the time they spend away from school at work or in social activities.

This project includes concerns over bullying and harassment, contractual rights, social media policies, child pornography laws, revenge pornography laws, and end-user license agreements.

The Protection Of Freedom Of Expression From Social Media Platforms, András Koltay

Mercer Law Review

Social media platforms have overturned the previously known system of public communication. As predicted at the outset, the spread of the public Internet that started three decades ago has resulted in a paradigm shift in this field. Now, anyone can publish their opinion outside the legacy media, at no significant cost, and can become known and be discussed by others. Due to the technological characteristics of the Internet, it might also be expected that this kind of mass expression, with such an abundance of content, would necessitate the emergence of gatekeepers, similar in function to the ones that existed earlier …

Serious Notice: A Celebration, Discussion, And Recognition Of Joel Reidenberg’S Work On Privacy Notices And Disclosures, Tal Z. Zarsky

Fordham Law Review

This Essay pays tribute to Professor Joel Reidenberg’s rich academic career and, specifically, to his contributions to the study of privacy policies. In doing so, this Essay takes a close look at privacy policies and possible ways to effectively intermediate their content through various labeling schemes. While severely flawed, privacy policies are here to stay. Therefore, an in-depth analysis of ways to enhance their efficiency is merited. This Essay thus examines key strategies for privacy-related intermediation, obstacles, and problems arising in the process, as well as possible solutions. The analysis weaves together theoretical and empirical privacy law scholarship (much of …

Sovereignty 2.0, Anupam Chander, Haochen Sun

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Digital sovereignty-the exercise of control over the internet-is the ambition of the world's leaders, from Australia to Zimbabwe, seen as a bulwark against both foreign states and foreign corporations. Governments have resoundingly answered first-generation internet law questions of who, if anyone, should regulate the internet. The answer: they all will. Governments now confront second-generation questions--not whether, but how to regulate the internet. This Article argues that digital sovereignty is simultaneously a necessary incident of democratic governance and democracy's dreaded antagonist. As international law scholar Louis Henkin taught, sovereignty can insulate a government's worst ills from foreign intrusion. Assertions of digital …

Kelemahan Pelaksanaan Kebijakan Kriminal Terhadap Cyberbullying Anak Di Indonesia, Wenggedes Frensh

Indonesia Criminal Law Review

Advances in technology can create globalization that causes the world to be borderless. The rapid developing technology is information and communication technology. The development of information and communication technology is followed by the development of the internet which creates a cyberspace where crime is called cybercrime. One of the developing cybercrime is cyberbullying. In Indonesia, there are still weaknesses in the implementation of criminal policies against cyberbullying, so it is necessary to know the weaknesses in the cyberbullying criminal policies in Indonesia. The research method used is normative legal research (normative juridical) and empirical legal research (empirical juridical). The research …

Designing Respectful Tech: What Is Your Relationship With Technology?, Noreen Y. Whysel

Publications and Research

According to research at the Me2B Alliance, people feel they have a relationship with technology. It’s emotional. It’s embodied. And it’s very personal. We are studying digital relationships to answer questions like “Do people have a relationship with technology?” “What does that relationship feel like?” And “Do people understand the commitments that they are making when they explore, enter into and dissolve these relationships?” There are parallels between messy human relationships and the kinds of relationships that people develop with technology. As with human relationships, we move through states of discovery, commitment and breakup with digital applications as well. Technology …

Copyright Licensing And The Regulation Of China's Music Market: Searching For Transactional Efficiency And Fair Compensation, Chien-Chih (Jesse) Lu

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

China’s music copyright collecting society and its new music platforms, find points of commonality through constructing more efficient and profitable systems to generate more users and greater income. By undertaking a comparison of the various copyright regulations, cases, and statistics, this research aims to contribute to academic science by extracting frameworks and solutions from the United States and European licensing models and examining them in the context of China’s music market. It aims to discover rational approaches to connect rising technology and emerging economic incentives.

Appropriate solutions are proposed based on the influence of international treaties and legislative progress driven …

Content Moderation Issues Online: Section 230 Is Not To Blame, Reese D. Bastian

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (“Section 230”) is the glue that holds the Internet—as we know it today—together. Section 230 says, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Simply put, Section 230 says that websites or platforms are not liable for content posted by third parties. There are many critics who attribute the maladies of the online world to Section 230. Section 230 presents issues such as over-moderation by Interactive Computer Service (“ICS”) providers that can go as far …