Computer Law Commons^™

Keynote Address: The Movement To Protect Kids From Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein

Seattle University Law Review

In this keynote address, I describe my personal journey starting with a school outreach program I created in 2017 to address technology overuse among kids. While I initially advocated for self-help methods, I grew to recognize that the tech industry bore responsibility. This realization led me to write Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, which focused on collective action to pressure the tech industry to redesign its addictive products.

I then describe the movement to control addictive technologies and protect kids, which has gained momentum since the end of the pandemic. This movement combines grassroots parent activism with legal-political action. …

Moral Panic Or Public Health Crisis? Lessons From Drugs And Gambling For “Addictive” Design, Matthew B. Lawrence, Haomin (Kevin) Yan

Seattle University Law Review

Alcohol, automobiles, guns, lottery, loot boxes, meat, music, opioid painkillers, processed foods, prop bets, slot machines, television, tobacco, violent video games. Over the last century each of these has been subject to concerns—some might even say “moral panics”—from parents and policymakers about avoidable harms to kids and adults. In some cases we look back with the benefit of hindsight and dismiss those concerns as naïve or moralistic. In others we look back at them as justified or as having come too late to check an expanding industry before it did unfathomable harm while growing so powerful that it became all …

Responding To Digital Addiction, Ned Snow

Seattle University Law Review

In Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, Professor Gaia Bernstein calls our attention to the growing problem of digital addiction. Digital addiction may sound like something out of a science-fiction novel or something that does not raise the same sort of real-life practical concerns as are present in a physical health crisis or an economic decline. But as Bernstein presents the evidence, we learn that the consequences of digital addiction can be just as harmful as a serious disease or a financial depression. Cognitive development disorders, anxiety, emotional depression, social isolation, and other mental health ills can be debilitating—as much …

The Ai Doppelgänger Dilemma: Cloned Voices In The Music Industry, Elizabeth Shields

Seattle University Law Review

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), there has been an influx of “voice clones”—deep-learning algorithms that create synthetic speech to realistically mimic human voices. Celebrities and, in particular, music artists, have been subjected to the proliferation of AI voice clones on social media platforms like TikTok and streaming platforms such as Spotify. Despite music utilizing AI voice clones having amassed much popularity, this technology can be harmful and highly invasive to musicians whose livelihoods often depend on their distinct voices. While legal scholars have attempted to articulate various rights that could protect a person’s voice, individuals are largely …

Let The Sunshine In: Crafting Constitutional Transparency Regulations For Content Moderation, Caitlin Ring Carlson

Seattle University Law Review

In response to public concern about the impact of social media, legislators in some U.S. states have developed laws to regulate the process of content moderation. Many include mandatory transparency and disclosure requirements, some of which courts have already deemed an unconstitutional infringement on social media platforms’ right to free expression. This article explores the parameters for crafting constitutional social media transparency regulations using existing U.S. media policy and insights from recent legal challenges. The resulting analysis identifies content neutral transparency requirements that mandate the disclosure of purely factual, non-controversial information as those most likely to withstand judicial scrutiny. Specifically, …

This Is Not A Game: The Addictive Allure Of Digital Companions, Nizan Geslevich Packin, Karni Chagal-Feferkorn

Seattle University Law Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents have become an inescapable part of modern childhood, reshaping education, leisure activities, entertainment, and social interaction. From AI-powered tutors that adapt to individual learning styles to emotionally responsive chatbots that simulate human companionship, these systems promise unprecedented personalization, cognitive stimulation, and social support. However, these benefits mask significant risks that remain unregulated and inadequately addressed.

Although adults are also susceptible to forming deep emotional bonds with AI companions—often trusting them as if they possessed genuine understanding and empathy—children are particularly vulnerable. Their misplaced trust can more severely distort social development, weaken critical thinking, and foster unhealthy …

Smart Resolutions: Exploring The Role Of Artificial Intelligence In Alternative Dispute Resolution, Nadia Ahmad

Cleveland State Law Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) has had a significant impact on most industries, including the legal landscape. Effective AI incorporation has removed barriers to access to justice, resolving issues such as backlogged court systems and inadequate resources for pursuing claims. Similarly, the expediency and cost-effectiveness associated with alternative dispute resolution (ADR) have established ADR as a mainstay in most countries to enhance legal accessibility. It was inevitable that AI and ADR were integrated to efficiently deliver justice.

Most automated ADR systems implemented thus far have been with human intervention. As machine learning develops, there are efforts to completely automate ADR, and this …

The Digital Doctor-Patient Relationship: Imposing Heightened Duties On Femtech Apps, Kevin Frazier

The University of Cincinnati Intellectual Property and Computer Law Journal

The rapid rise of femtech apps has transformed the landscape of reproductive health, offering users access to information and services that were traditionally the domain of medical professionals. These apps, ranging from menstrual tracking to fertility planning tools, often position themselves as indispensable companions for users navigating critical health decisions. Yet, the legal frameworks governing these apps fail to account for the sensitive nature of the user-developer relationship, leaving users vulnerable to inaccurate guidance, data misuse, and inadequate recourse in cases of harm.

This essay argues that femtech app developers often assume roles akin to medical providers, creating relationships with …

Pleading With Particularity: Decoding When Computer Fraud And Abuse Act Claims Must Comply With Rule 9(B), Brooke R. Newman

Pepperdine Law Review

The primary tool for litigating cybercrimes is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which Congress enacted in 1984 following increased computer misuse. Since its debut, the CFAA has undergone a series of amendments. The most noteworthy of which for civil litigators came in 1994 when Congress enacted a civil penalty for cybercrimes. Part of this penalty includes 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(4), which prohibits fraudulent conduct in connection with computer usage. In recent years, litigators have weaponized § 1030(a)(4) to challenge a variety of conduct, most of which has nothing to do with cybercrimes. These filings have split district courts …

Emortgage And Crypto-Mortgage In Home Finance, Julia Patterson Forrester Rogers

Pepperdine Law Review

Most home mortgage loans today are documented on physical paper, but they are increasingly closed as eMortgages. The move to electronic documents is inevitable and will ultimately be a positive change for lenders and borrowers. However, additional regulation is needed to address issues raised by electronic home mortgage closings and the “crypto-mortgage,” a mortgage loan with the obligation evidenced by or tethered to a non-fungible token. Lenders have traditionally required that home mortgage loans be evidenced by a wet-signed paper promissory note to gain the advantages and the certainty of Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) governing negotiable …

Target(Ed) Advertising, Derek E. Bambauer

UF Law Faculty Publications

Targeted advertising—using data about consumers to customize the ads they receive—is deeply controversial. It also creates a regulatory quandary. Targeted ads generate more money than untargeted ones for apps and online platforms. Apps and platforms depend on this revenue stream to offer free services to users, if not for their financial viability altogether. However, targeted advertising also generates significant privacy risks and consumer resentment. Despite sustained attention to this issue, neither legal scholars nor policymakers have crafted interventions that address both concerns, and existing regulatory regimes for targeted advertising have critical gaps.

This Article makes three key contributions to the …

When Anti-Fraud Laws Become A Barrier To Computer Science Research, Madelyne Xiao, Andrew Sellars, Sarah Scheffler

Faculty Scholarship

Computer science research sometimes brushes with the law, from red-team exercises that probe the boundaries of authentication mechanisms, to AI research processing copyrighted material, to platform research measuring the behavior of algorithms and users. U.S.-based computer security research is no stranger to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in a relationship that is still evolving through case law, research practices, changing policies, and legislation

Amid the landscape computer scientists, lawyers, and policymakers have learned to navigate, anti-fraud laws are a surprisingly under-examined challenge for computer science research. Fraud brings separate issues that …

The Law And Ethics Of Ai Creativity, Haochen Sun

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article comprises three parts. In Part I, after demonstrating that creativity is a social process, I explore the ethical principles of originality, attribution, and authenticity of creative activities. In Part II, I scrutinize the opacity of AI systems in the collection, utilization, and generation of works, highlighting the need for a greater focus on the legal and social problems arising from these black box processes. Lastly, in Part III, I explore why the ethical principles of originality, attribution, and authenticity should govern AI creativity, and how they would lead to the adoption by AI companies of filtering and …

Fine-Tuning Llms: Structural Fluency And Augmentation For The Great And Powerful Wizard Of Ai, Verónica C. Gonzales

Duke Law & Technology Review

The civil legal tradition carries assumptions, biases, and attitudes rooted in racism and ideologies intended to protect the (im)balance of power. This moment in history offers new versions of the same challenges with the integration of artificial intelligence (“AI”) and large language models (“LLMs”) into legal frameworks, and those critiques are being addressed in the legal discourse. Building on these perspectives, this moment also offers civil legal professionals a chance to engage in machine learning frameworks informed by social justice principles and accountable to measures of “equal justice for all.” The perception of fairness in the use of these tools …

Determinants Of Socially Responsible Ai Governance, Daryl Lim

Duke Law & Technology Review

The signing of the first international AI treaty by the United States, European Union, and other nations marks a pivotal step in establishing a global framework for AI governance, ensuring that AI systems respect human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. This article advances the concepts of justice, equity, and the rule of law as yardsticks of socially responsible AI—from development through deployment—to ensure that AI technologies do not exacerbate existing inequalities but actively promote fairness and inclusivity. Part I explores AI’s potential to improve access to justice for marginalized communities and small and medium-sized law firms while scrutinizing …

The Future Of Money: How The Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies And Finance, Sohini Banerjee Ms, Pratik Datta Mr

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

The book ‘The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming Currencies and Finance’, written by Eswar Prasad, and published in 2021 by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, is timely and thought-provoking. It provides a bird’s eye view of the noteworthy developments in finance in the past few decades, and predicts that we are on the verge of an even more dramatic transformation having significant economic, political, and social ramifications. For this reason, it is richly deserving of a review. This paper aims to critically analyse the same.

The Right To Receive Information: Conceptual Problems, Shrutanjaya Bhardwaj Mr

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

This article studies the “right to receive information” or the “right to know”, a judicially-recognised right under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. It attempts to show, through an analysis of judgments of the Supreme Court and High Courts, that the right rests on a shaky philosophical foundation and that there are inconsistencies in how the right is judicially treated in terms of its structure and content.

First, the article questions the logic that the “right to know” is implicit in Article 19(1)(a) merely because it makes the exercise of free speech more meaningful. Such a logic was authoritatively rejected by …

Antitrust Concerns Vis-A-Vis Disruptive Innovation – Takeaways For Competition Commission Of India, Sudhanshu Kumar Dr, Garima Gupta Ms

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

In the era of innovation, market dynamics have evolved demanding a more nuanced analysis of market competition. Innovation in digital economy does promise new products and services but it can be an amiable reality only if it is directed towards ensuring consumer welfare and a free markets space for players. Since digital markets attract innovators and disruptors, it is important for antitrust regulators to differentiate between efforts directed towards value-creation and ones aimed at destroying or impeding the same. This paper aims at theorizing around the idea of ‘disruptive innovation’ and its implications for competition policy for India. The paper …

Continuing Discrimination In The Times Of Technology: Women, Work, Algorithms And Law In India, Sejal Chandak Ms

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

Human societies are discriminatory. So, it has been an unrelenting effort to eliminate what divides us. While there have been leapfrog developments in this regard, we need to consider newer challenges now that technology is taking over public and private spaces. The author, in this article, discusses gender-based algorithmic discrimination in workplaces and argues that there is an urgent need to enforce laws for regulating algorithmic discrimination. India is in a precarious position. It has been consistently faring poorly when it comes to the gender gap in work. It lacks a comprehensive and codified anti-discriminatory law; and lacks laws to …

Conceptualising India’S Safe Harbour In The Era Of Platform Governance, Vasudev Devadasan Mr.

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

The push for greater regulation of online platforms has led to calls to re-evaluate the statutory immunities granted to online intermediaries for hosting unlawful third-party content (i.e., safe harbour). This paper argues that greater accountability for online platforms need not interfere with existing (and indeed strengthened) safe harbour protections. However, to achieve this outcome, legislators must recognise the difference in enforcement approaches between secondary liability and platform governance regimes. This paper argues the types of obligations that can be imposed as pre-conditions to safe harbour are different from those that can be imposed as direct statutory obligations. This is because …