Computer Law Commons^™

Home—The Final Frontier: Why Privacy Means Protecting Workers' Rights To Time And Space, Joshua Fairfield, Amanda Reilly

Scholarly Articles

This article critiques the failure of current privacy frameworks to protect workers—especially teleworkers—from the growing encroachment of employer surveillance into their homes. It argues that prevailing privacy regimes, including notice-and-choice models and the GDPR, inadequately address the systemic power asymmetries in the employment relationship, often enabling rather than restricting invasive monitoring. Drawing from labor law traditions, the authors propose a rights-centered framework that views time and space as essential for human dignity and autonomy. They call for a non-negotiable floor of protections, including surveillance-free periods, bans on data commodification, and the establishment of an enforcement inspectorate. By reframing privacy not …

We Just Want To Play The Game: Anti-Cheat Software Risks In Videogames, Kevin Du

Loyola Consumer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Through A Glass Darkly: How Securities Disclosures Give A Distorted View Of The Economy, Gerald F. Davis

Seattle University Law Review

Our understanding of the American economy often relies on stylized facts derived from mandatory disclosures by listed corporations. Data vendors like Standard & Poor’s vacuum up 10Ks and proxy statements into databases, and scholars distill these into tentative maps. This may have been adequate for a postwar economy centered on asset-heavy manufacturers, but it is increasingly out of step with an information-based economy. Companies listed on the stock market are fewer in number and less representative than they were, light in tangible assets and people, and heavy on IP. Basic facts such as what industry they are in are increasingly …

What Is Copywritable In Software?, Charles Duan

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Fireside Chat: Ai In Canada And The United States, Mark Schaan, Elham Tabassi, Christopher Sands

Canada-United States Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Supreme Sidestep: The Justices' Artful Dodge On Platform Immunity, Leslie Y. Garfield Tenzer

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The foiled ISIS plot to attack Taylor Swift concerts, coordinated by teens on social media platforms with a significant US presence, illustrates the dangerous consequences of unchecked online content. This incident, coupled with other tragic cases such as the sexual exploitation of a minor lured through Facebook and Tyler Clementi 's suicide following a privacy violation on Twitter highlights the urgent need to reassess 47 U.S.C. § 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Enacted in 1996, this law provides broad immunity to interactive computer services, including social media platforms, shielding them from liability for user generated content. While initially celebrated …

Shoot The Messenger: Why Section 230 Does Not Shield Suggestive Content Delivery, Alexander Heinkele

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

Internet companies have frequently relied on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 to avoid liability for third-party content hosted on their platforms. However, over time, companies began to take advantage of the broad cover of Section 230 in circumstances outside the statute’s original scope. This Note advocates for a more nuanced interpretation of the statute as it applies to suggestive algorithms and offers a proposal for amending Section 230 to better reflect the modern digital landscape.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Corporate Scenarios: Drawing Lessons From History, Madison Condon

Seattle University Law Review

As corporations are increasingly pressed to reveal information about their exposure to climate-related risks, they are often asked to undertake and disclose the outcome of “scenario analysis.” In this exercise, corporations, including financial institutions, examine how their business would fare under different pathways the future may take. One oft-used scenario, for example, is the International Energy Agency’s “Net-Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Energy Sector.” This Essay presents a history of the use of scenarios as a corporate planning tool, particularly in the oil industry, arguing that it is key for understanding our present moment and the role of …

Shareholder Expression In A Time Of Heightened Political Tension, Aaron A. Dhir

Seattle University Law Review

In this article, I provide context for my forthcoming research project on shareholder proposals and racial equity audits. Since the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, progressive shareholder actors have increasingly used the proposal mechanism to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice-related goals. These proposals have frequently gone beyond requesting the usual corporate fare of diversity trainings, intersectionality workshops, affinity groups, etc. Instead, a more ambitious type of proposal asks corporate America to conduct racial equity audits, defined as “an independent, objective and holistic analysis of a company’s policies, practices, products, services and efforts to combat systemic racism …

Corporate Governance Speech, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

The State has always regulated the intra-firm communications that make corporate governance possible, most commonly by mandating disclosures of information by a corporation to its shareholders. Some such laws are labeled “securities regulation,” but securities regulation is a broad category that extends to speech by actors who are outside the corporate enterprise as well. Also, the conventional securities regulation category does not capture all such laws; other examples, including informationforcing mandates, can be found in state corporate law. This Article uses the term “corporate governance speech” to describe the communications among shareholders, directors, and officers through which corporate governance is …

Dark Accounting Matter, Colleen Honigsberg

Seattle University Law Review

Physicists calculate that approximately 85% of the matter in the universe is composed of “dark matter” that “does not absorb, reflect, or emit electromagnetic radiation and is therefore difficult to detect.” The S&P 500 currently trades at a price-to-book value of 4.2, suggesting that book value accounts for less than 20% of the S&P 500’s market value. The remaining 80% appears nowhere in these firms’ balance sheets—it is invisible to contemporary accounting techniques and constitutes “dark accounting matter.”

Some “dark accounting matter” is composed of factors commonly described as components of “ESG.” Human capital, for example, is an intangible asset …

The Employees’ Dilemma: Balancing Internal Reporting, Whistleblowing, And Insider Trading Risks, Geeyoung Min

Seattle University Law Review

The Essay examines how recent developments in insider trading regulations and whistleblower reward programs can lead to unintended and counterproductive results of discouraging employees from using internal reporting channels within corporate compliance programs. While the presence of a robust and well-functioning corporate compliance program is a critical factor both in mitigating the level of public enforcement actions against companies and in protecting corporate managers from liability in private litigation, these programs often provide little incentive for employees to report potential misconduct internally.

Corporate compliance programs are designed to promote the upward information flow within the company, which is essential for …

How The Antidiscrimination Law Of Commercial Transactions Really Works, Helen Norton

Seattle University Law Review

A variety of businesses now cite 303 Creative when seeking First Amendment protection for their refusal to serve certain customers based on those customers’ protected class status. How this litigation will play out remains to be seen. But future courts need not, and should not, repeat the 303 Creative Court’s misunderstanding of how the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions actually works.

Part I of this Essay explains the Court’s longstanding understanding of the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions, and then describes the Court’s failure to engage with this precedent in 303 Creative. Part II then identifies the 303 Creative decision’s …

Policing In Pixels, Lea Cazaudumec Lucas

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming border security and law enforcement, with facial recognition technology (FRT) at the forefront of this shift. Widely adopted by U.S. federal agencies such as the FBI, ICE, and CBP, FRT is increasingly used to monitor both citizens and migrants, often without their knowledge. While this technology promises enhanced security, it’s early-stage deployment raises significant concerns about reliability, bias, and ethical data sourcing. This paper examines how FRT is being used at the U.S.-Mexico border and beyond, highlighting its potential to disproportionately target vulnerable groups and infringe on constitutional rights.

The paper provides an overview of …

Fighting The Hypothetical: Why Law Firms Should Rethink The Billable Hour In The Generative Ai Era, Nancy B. Rapoport, Joseph R. Tiano Jr.

Scholarly Works

“Fighting the Hypothetical: Why Law Firms Should Rethink the Billable Hour in the Generative AI Era” analyzes how the emergence and adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) will fundamentally disrupt the traditional billable hour model that has dominated the industry since the 1960s. Professor Rapoport and Mr. Tiano contend that GenAI’s ability to perform routine legal tasks quickly and accurately will force law firms to shift away from billing structures based primarily on time spent (or inputs) and toward models that better reflect client value (or outputs).

The authors interviewed law firm leaders to gain an “in the trenches” view …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Voting Matters: Materiality Considerations And The Shareholder Vote, Renee M. Jones

Seattle University Law Review

For the shareholder franchise to have meaning, shareholders must have access to relevant information to inform their voting decisions. The securities laws’ disclosure requirements play an essential role in informing the shareholder vote.

This Essay focuses on the question of the materiality of information in the context of shareholder voting. It addresses the question of whether ESG-related information is material, positioning the materiality inquiry within the context of shareholders’ voting decisions. It explores the definition of materiality with a focus on the “reasonable investor” concept embedded within the definition. The Essay argues that the implicit expectations of many commentators that …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Understanding The Big Three’S Wavering Support Of Environmental And Social Shareholder Proposals, Jeff Schwartz, Jefferson Jensen

Seattle University Law Review

Because of their substantial equity portfolios, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street (the Big 3) are central players in corporate governance. It is, therefore, critical to understand how they vote. One puzzle is that their support for shareholder proposals on environmental and social matters appears to waiver. In 2020, for instance, BlackRock supported 11.1% of environmental proposals at S&P 500 firms. In 2021, it seemingly reversed course, supporting 55.2%. It then flipped again, supporting 32.1% in 2022. Such statistics suggest that the Big 3 are constantly changing their views on these topics. This Article seeks to better understand whether this is …