As you probably all know already, on Tuesday Judge Chin (SDNY) rejected the Google Books settlement agreement. [The order and opinion are here] To be honest, I’m not sure I know how I feel about this development. I’ve followed the wrangling over the settlement during the past couple of years, though only out of the […]
Archive | Internet
Northwestern University School of Law Panel on Democracy and Technology
This Friday, I will be taking part in a panel at the Northwestern University School of Law on the implications of accelerating technological development for democracy. The panel will be held from 3:30 to 5 PM in the Atrium. It will focus on Northwestern law professor John McGinnis’ forthcoming book Accelerating Democracy, in which John […]
The Broadening of the Libertarian Movement
Like my George Mason colleague Bryan Caplan, I gave two talks at the Students for Liberty International Conference this weekend. And I emphatically agree with Bryan’s observation that the SFL students I met had vastly better social skills and are generally much more socially “normal” than were the young libertarians of my own generation (I […]
Reasonable words about Wikileaks:
Clay Shirky has, as he often does, a very thoughtful and reasonable take on the Wikileaks Affair. I’ve been working on writing something of my own, but for now, Shirky’s hit most of the things I wanted to say . . .
Kill Calder v. Jones!
By David Post on November 19, 2010 12:25 pm in Constitutional Law, Cyberspace Law, Internet, Judicial Power
It sounds like a good Civ Pro 101 (or, perhaps, Cyberlaw 101) exam hypothetical : “Your client, Scott Roberts, a Virginia resident, purchased a Pontiac engine block from Kauffman Racing Equipment, L.L.C., an Ohio-based company that builds automotive equipment and sells it to the public. Roberts purchased the engine block after viewing it on Kauffman’s […]
Jefferson’s Moose and . . . Cricket?
Though faithful readers of the VC will realize that my fondest wishes will come true only when someone explains how my book (on Thomas Jefferson and the Internet) really explains the world of soccer, I’m pretty happy with the connections Samir Chopra draws, over at ESPN, with the world of cricket . . .
Internet “Censorship,” part 2 — Google, Verizon, and Net Neutrality
[Update: AARGH. Mea culpa — I had been working on some documents regarding the VIACOM -Google lawsuit, and then I started work on this posting about the VERIZON-Google announcement about “net neutrality,” and so my initial posting erroneously talked all about the “Google-Viacom announcement,” as many of the commenters pointed out … My apologies for […]
Internet “Censorship,” part 1:
No, this is not about the Verizon-Google deal — I’ll be posting about that momentarily. This is a somewhat more mundane illustration of a different phenomenon (though one that is related, perhaps obliquely, to the issue of “net neutrality” at the heart of the Viacom-Google kerfuffle). It turns out — at least if this story […]
The Iceland of the Internet, Cont’d
Several months ago I posted an item about efforts underway (organized by some of the folks at wikileaks.org) to “put together what sounds like a reasonably serious proposal to prepare a jurisdictional “safe haven” for information on the global network, a set of highly-protective laws for anonymity protection, free expression, immunities for information providers, and […]
The Future of Privacy: Facial Recognition, Public Facts, and 300 Million Little Brothers
It’s been a pleasure to blog this week. I hope you’ve enjoyed this conversation and I’d love to continue it. If you’re interested in reading more, check out our book, Wild West 2.0. It is the most-discussed Internet policy book of 2010 (Jimmy Wales called it “an invaluable guide” to the “brave new world of […]
Fixing the CDA 230 Subsidy While Preserving Online Anonymity
Thanks again for the great responses in comments. I’ve learned a lot about how people think about the Internet of 2010 and whether it fits the “Wild West 2.0” model. On Monday, we discussed why the Internet of 2010 resembles the closing of the Wild West frontier. On Tuesday, we talked about whether CDA 230 […]
Internet Freedom of Expression Guaranteed:
And by the Chinese, no less! How do I know this? Because the Chinese government has released its first “White Paper” on the Internet, and it says so. Entitled “The Internet in China” and released by the Information Office of the State Council — the full text is available here; a story in the China […]
Google Changed Reputation and Privacy Forever
In the early Internet, it was impossible to find isolated references to people, places, and things. Many users navigated using directories like the original Yahoo, and early search tools like Gopher (structured documents) and Archie (FTP) were limited . The search engines changed everything. Starting with Lycos and AltaVista, information was freed from obscurity. Suddenly, […]
The Communications Decency Act of 1996 Meets the Closed Frontier
By David Thompson on June 8, 2010 12:15 pm in Anonymity, Cyberspace Law, Freedom of Speech, Internet
(Thanks for the great comments! I’ll be speaking in Las Vegas this afternoon 3:45 pm today at the EduComm conference at the Mirage, Ballroom D.) Anonymous and pseudonymous speech dates back at least to the early days of the printing press. Anonymous online speech has been a powerful force for change in situations ranging from […]
The Closing of the Internet Frontier?
A gold rush. A wide-open anything-goes frontier. Prostitution. Gambling. Drugs. Lax law enforcement. Vigilantism and mob justice. Petty scammers at every turn. The subject? Not the dusty Wild West of American history, but instead the Internet of just 10 years ago. In the last decade, the Internet has gone from open frontier populated by a […]