Internet Law Commons^™

Moderating From Nowhere, Gilad Abiri

BYU Law Review

We are living in the midst of a battle over online hate speech regulation, and the stakes could not be higher. Hate speech not only harms its intended victims, be they individuals or groups, but it also polarizes and divides society in ways that undermine the health of democratic regimes. While there is widespread agreement that the current situation of online discourse is untenable, scholars and policymakers are deeply divided on the best way to improve it.

Until recently, American free speech norms have dominated the content moderation policies of digital media platforms. First Amendment norms are extremely resistant to …

Cybersecurity Spillovers, Mark Verstraete, Tal Zarsky

BYU Law Review

This Article identifies and analyzes a previously unrecognized source of positive externalities within cybersecurity, which we term "cybersecurity spillovers". Most commentators have focused on negative externalities and market failures, leading to a pervasive pessimism about the possibility of adequate cybersecurity protections. In response, this Article demonstrates that unique dynamics from the world of cloud computing – most notably, indivisibility – may force cloud service firms to generate spillovers. These spillovers are additional security protections provided to common cloud users: clients who may not have been willing or able to acquire these security services otherwise. Furthermore, this additional source of security …

Data Privacy Regulations In The United States, China, And The European Union, Charlsey A. Kelly

Honors College Theses

This paper compares and discusses the different data privacy regulations found in the United States, China, and the European Union. It is no secret that big tech companies like Facebook and Google continuously collect data on their users. The big question is what protections and rights one has as a consumer. The answer to this question differs when you are in different parts of the world. Currently the United States does not have a federal data privacy law, China recently adopted a new data privacy law called the Personal Information Protection Law, and the European Union has a data privacy …

An "Opensea" Of Infringement: The Intellectual Property Implications Of Nfts, Madison Yoder

The University of Cincinnati Intellectual Property and Computer Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The "Worst Law In Technology": How The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act Allows Big Businesses To Collect And Sell Your Personal Information, Alicia Nakhjavan

Brooklyn Law Review

For years, big businesses have been collecting and selling users’ personal information without permission. In attempts at preventing this practice, users have brought civil actions under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), alleging a loss of personal privacy. As currently enacted, “personal privacy” is not included in the statutory definition of loss. Further, courts have been reluctant to interpret the CFAA broadly to cover loss of personal privacy claims. This note proposes that an amendment to the CFAA is necessary to close this gap in the statute’s coverage and better protect users’ right to privacy.

Ayla Llc V. Alya Skin Pty. Ltd., 2021 Wl 38233624 (9th Cir. Aug. 27, 2021), Liya Levin

DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Andy Warhol Foundation V. Goldsmith, Alyssa Weitkamp

DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Google V. Oracle: The Recent Supreme Court Decision, How It Highlights The Inadequacies Of Shoehorning New Technology Into Intellectual Property Law, And Possible Solutions, Claire Price

DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Updating The Section 230 Safe Harbor Provision In A New Age Of Social Media Platforms, Arnold Owusu

DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Strategies To Deter Child Pornography In The Absence Of A Mandatory Encryption Back Door: Tipster Programs, A Licensed Researcher System, Compelled Password Production, & Private Surveillance, Anthony Volini, Farzana Ahmed

DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

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 …

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.

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, …

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 …

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 …

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 …