Internet Law Commons^™

Facing The Future With Fosta: Examining The Allow States And Victims To Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act Of 2017, Caitlyn Burnitis

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

On April 11, 2018, President Trump signed the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act (SESTA) and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) package into effect. This law amends Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act that provides safe harbors for website hosts. Under the amended law, these safe harbor laws that provide websites civil liability immunity for the actions of their users would now exclude enforcement of federal and state sex trafficking laws. While many praised the passage of this law, many others raised concerns about its effect on free speech, prosecution, and sex workers. …

Smart Homes: The Next Fourth Amendment Frontier, Christina A. Robinson

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

Under the third-party search doctrine, an individual does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in information he or she voluntarily discloses to third parties. “Always on” in-home technology creates recordings of unsuspecting consumers in their most intimate spaces and sends them to third party companies and their affiliates, which makes this information subject to warrantless search by law enforcement under the third- search doctrine. The third-party search doctrine is ill-suited to the digital age, where consumers are routinely required to volunteer information to third parties in order to access digital content. This Note suggests that a warrant should be …

The Website Accommodations Test: Applying The Americans With Disabilities Act To Websites, Ashley Cheff

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

In 2017, 814 lawsuits were filed alleging discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) due to website inaccessibility, up from 262 in the previous year. Beginning in July 2010, the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) considered issuing regulations under ADA Title III related to website accessibility. However, no changes have been made to date, leaving courts split over whether websites constitute places of public accommodation via the ADA. Dispositive to some jurisdictions’ holdings is whether a website has a nexus to a physical place, which may lend toward viewing the site as a public accommodation. Other jurisdictions provide that …

Global Challenges And Regulatory Strategies To Fintech, Aurelio Gurrea-Martinez, Nydia Remolina

Centre for AI & Data Governance (2019-2025)

The rise of new technologies has changed the operation, regulation and supervision of financial markets, bringing new challenges and opportunities for consumers, regulators, and financial institutions. This Article seeks to explore the most common regulatory strategies used by financial regulators around the world to address the challenges associated with the rise of fintech. These strategies include the imposition of bans, regulatory passivity, adoption of new legislation, permission on a case by case basis, and more interactive approaches such as innovation offices, accelerators and sandboxes. This Article argues that the adoption and desirability of each regulatory approach will depend on a …

Data And The Social Obligation Norm Of Property: An Essay In Honor Of Professor Gregory S. Alexander, Christopher K. Odinet

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

In the age of the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal and sundry other data breaches at Under Armour, Target, and Best Buy, the issue of security and privacy in consumer data has become increasingly important. For much of the modern era, the development of technology has gone relatively unchecked, with the United States having ceded much of the policymaking terrain to Silicon Valley. This has resulted in the unbridled creation of vast amounts of consumer data. Users who engage with tech platforms generate bits and bytes about themselves based on their activities, preferences, and habits. This information-this "data"- is then harnessed by …

Exploring The Esports Approach Of America's Three Major Leagues, Peter A. Carfagna

Articles

No abstract provided.

The International Intellectual Property Commercialization Council’S 3rd Annual U.S. Conference: The State Of Innovation In The Union, Neel U. Sukhatme, Paul R. Zielinski, G. Nagesh Rao, Pj Bellomo, Matthew Byers, Meghan Gaffney Buck, Everardo Ruiz

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The International Intellectual Property Commercialization Council (“IIPCC”) presented its third annual policy conference at the United States Capitol on May 6, 2019. The conference’s theme explored the question of “what is the state of innovation in the United States?” Panelists included The Honorable Andrei Iancu – Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office; Dr. Carl J. Schramm – University Professor, Syracuse University and Former President of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation; Mr. Patrick Kilbride – Senior Vice President of the Global Innovation Policy Center (“GIPC”) at the U.S. Chamber of …

A Third-Party Doctrine For Digital Metadata, H. Brian Holland

Faculty Scholarship

For more than four decades, the third-party doctrine was understood as a bright-line, categorical rule: there is no legitimate privacy interest in any data that is voluntarily disclosed or conveyed to a third party. But this simple rule has dramatic effects in a world of ubiquitous networked computing, mobile technologies, and the commodification of information. The digital devices that facilitate our daily participation in modern society are connected through automated infrastructures that are designed to generate vast quantities of data, nearly all of which is captured, utilized, and stored by third-party service providers. Under a plain reading of the third-party …

Pseudo-Gambling And Whaling: How Loot Boxes Pray On Vulnerable Populations And How To Curtail Future Predatory Behavior, Alexander Mann

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

The video game industry has blossomed from a niche hobby into a mainstream cultural industry, outpacing global box office sales in annual revenue. Yet the price of a video game has barely increased since the industry’s inception, and the current standard price point of sixty dollars has survived for over a decade. Competitive market forces drive companies to invest ever more time and money into creating increasingly complex software in order to remain on the cutting edge of graphics and design, while simultaneously increasing revenue. Thus, video game developers and publishers have developed a multitude of alternative money- making services …

Geopolitics And The Digital Domain: How Cyberspace Is Impacting International Security, Georgia Wood

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The digital domain is the emerging environment for which the internet and data connectivity exists. This new domain is challenging the traditional place for geopolitics to exist, and creating new challenges to international relations. The use of cyberweapons through direct cyberattacks, such as the possibility of an attack on the U.S. power grid, or misinformation campaigns, such as the one launched by Russia against the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, can expand the international threat landscape. While these new threats increase, states are widely not prepared to address the new challenges in the digital domain. This paper will use three primary …

Protecting Consumers In The Age Of The Internet Of Things, Nicole Smith

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

IoT devices are an ever-increasing force of nature in our daily lives. They provide a multitude of essential benefits that we as a society have come to rely on. Thus, IoT devices are likely to continue to become irreplaceable tools. With the many benefits that these devices bring, they also bring a vast array of privacy and security issues that our society has not had to face until recently. Because of the new and prevalent risks associated with the IoT and because of the increasing harms to consumers, it is time for Congress to enact an IoT-specific data privacy …

New Media, Free Expression, And The Offences Against The State Acts, Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

New media facilitates communication and creates a common, lived experience. It also carries the potential for great harm on an individual and societal scale. Posting integrates information and emotion, with study after study finding that fear and anger transfer most readily online. Isolation follows, with insular groups forming. The result is an increasing bifurcation of society. Scholars also write about rising levels of depression and suicide that stem from online dependence and replacing analogical experience with digital interaction, as well as escalating levels of anxiety that are rooted in the validation expectation of the ‘like’ function. These changes generate instability …

Automation In Moderation, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

This Article assesses recent efforts to encourage online platforms to use automated means to prevent the dissemination of unlawful online content before it is ever seen or distributed. As lawmakers in Europe and around the world closely scrutinize platforms’ “content moderation” practices, automation and artificial intelligence appear increasingly attractive options for ridding the Internet of many kinds of harmful online content, including defamation, copyright infringement, and terrorist speech. Proponents of these initiatives suggest that requiring platforms to screen user content using automation will promote healthier online discourse and will aid efforts to limit Big Tech’s power.

In fact, however, the …

Can Algorithms Promote Fair Use?, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

In the past few years, advances in big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence have generated many questions in the intellectual property field. One question that has attracted growing attention concerns whether algorithms can be better deployed to promote fair use in copyright law. The debate on the feasibility of developing automated fair use systems is not new; it can be traced back to more than a decade ago. Nevertheless, recent technological advances have invited policymakers and commentators to revisit this earlier debate.

As part of the Symposium on "Intelligent Entertainment: Algorithmic Generation and Regulation of Creative Works," this Article …

Access To Algorithms, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

Federal, state, and local governments increasingly depend on automated systems — often procured from the private sector — to make key decisions about civil rights and civil liberties. When individuals affected by these decisions seek access to information about the algorithmic methodologies that produced them, governments frequently assert that this information is proprietary and cannot be disclosed.

Recognizing that opaque algorithmic governance poses a threat to civil rights and liberties, scholars have called for a renewed focus on transparency and accountability for automated decision making. But scholars have neglected a critical avenue for promoting public accountability and transparency for automated …

Monopolizing Free Speech, Gregory Day

Fordham Law Review

The First Amendment prevents the government from suppressing speech, though individuals can ban, chill, or abridge free expression without offending the Constitution. Hardly an unintended consequence, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously likened free speech to a marketplace where the responsibility of rejecting dangerous, repugnant, or worthless speech lies with the people. This supposedly maximizes social welfare on the theory that the market promotes good ideas and condemns bad ones better than the state can. Nevertheless, there is a concern that large technology corporations exercise unreasonable power in the marketplace of ideas. Because “big tech’s” ability to abridge speech lacks constitutional …

Is There A Right To Tweet At Your President?, Nick Reade

Fordham Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court has developed the public forum doctrine to protect the First Amendment rights of speakers in places of assembly and expression. The doctrine facilitates free expression by restricting the government’s ability to discriminate against or regulate speech in state- controlled public forums. In 2019, two federal courts of appeals extended the doctrine to protect speakers who express themselves in the interactive spaces that elected politicians control on their personal social media accounts. In Davison v. Randall, the Fourth Circuit held that a local official’s Facebook page was a public forum and, therefore, the official could neither …

Cybersecurity And Patent Law - Let's Work Together, Vignesh Ramachandran

Intellectual Property Brief

No abstract provided.

U.S. Regulation Of Blockchain Currencies: A Policy Overview, Averie Brookes

Intellectual Property Brief

No abstract provided.

How The Digital Millennium Copyright Act Affects Cybersecurity, Katherine Weigle

Intellectual Property Brief

No abstract provided.

Technology, The Internet And The Evolution Of Webcasters...Amazon Revisited, Jessica Michelle Ciminero

Intellectual Property Brief

No abstract provided.

What's All The Hype About Hyperlinking?: Connections In Copyright, Dawn Leung

Intellectual Property Brief

No abstract provided.

Crash Goes Icann's Multistakeholder Model, Kathryn Kleiman

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In 1995, the Internet was becoming a global phenomenon and users needed "domain names"--the street signs of Internet addresses--for an array of commercial and noncommercial speech. A small community of "multistakeholders"--business, civil society, governments, technologists, intellectual property and non-government organization representations--began to write rules for Internet addresses largely on behalf of a global population that had yet to be connected to the Internet. I had the privilege of being part of that group. Since then, Internet use has skyrocketed from 70 million users (1.7% of the world population) in 1995 to over 4.5 billion users (58.8% of the world population) …

Kill Me Through The Phone: The Legality Of Encouraging Suicide In An Increasingly Digital World, Sierra Taylor

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ministries Of Truth: Free Speech And The Tech Giants, Clayton Calvin

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

As the tech giants’ influence has grown, they have increasingly become arbiters of truth. This comment explores three methods for lessening their authority over digital speech. Antitrust, adjustment of the companies’ “neutral platform” status, and even creative use of First Amendment could each serve its role. At the same time, the First Amendment rights of the companies themselves pose a barrier, justifiably, to each method. To remain true to its founding ideals, America must lessen this private grip on civic discourse without expanding the government’s dominion over it.

Internet Extraterritoriality: Has Canada Reached Too Far Beyond Its Borders?, Sydney Wilson

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Esports, Player Positions, And The Benefits Of Unionization, Roshan Patel

Duke Law & Technology Review

No abstract provided.

The (Possibly) Injured Consumer: Standing In Data Breach Litigation, Lauren M. Lozada

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note will address the question of what factors a prospective plaintiff must display to “push [a] threatened injury of future identity theft beyond the speculative to the sufficiently imminent.” Part I will delve into relevant statistics to identify the characteristics of a data breach that most often lead to eventual identity theft. Part II will explore recent data breach standing cases and analyze the factual differences and legal perspectives that have led to disparate results among the federal circuits. Lastly, Part III will recommend a method for evaluating future data breach standing issues.

India's Data Wild West: The Aadhaar System And Its Questionable Data Protections, Brett Orren

North Carolina Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Bad Actors: Authenticity, Inauthenticity, Speech, And Capitalism, Sarah C. Haan

Scholarly Articles

“Authenticity” has evolved into an important value that guides social media companies’ regulation of online speech. It is enforced through rules and practices that include real-name policies, Terms of Service requiring users to present only accurate information about themselves, community guidelines that prohibit “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” verification practices, product features, and more.

This Article critically examines authenticity regulation by the social media industry, including companies’ claims that authenticity is a moral virtue, an expressive value, and a pragmatic necessity for online communication. It explains how authenticity regulation provides economic value to companies engaged in “information capitalism,” “data capitalism,” and “surveillance …