Budget Legal Advice | Published News | Stanford Law School

Backseat Driving

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:58:35 EST

Nevada. Florida. Hawaii. Arizona. Oklahoma. As legislators move to expressly regulate automated driving, I'll be tracking state-by-state developments on this wiki and discussing themes on this blog.I'll begin that discussion with a basic legal question: Who drives an automated vehicle? The answer might be no one-a truly driverless car in the legal and technical senses. It might be a natural perso

10 Vote(s)

Arizona Legislators Introduce Autonomous Driving Bill

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:57:32 EST

And now Arizona, with the introduction of HB 2679.

9 Vote(s)

CIS Is Going Dark To Stop SOPA

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 05:57:55 EST

A wave of opposition has crashed over the House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate's Protect I.P. Act (PIPA) based on the tremendous threat they pose to free speech and innovation online. It appears the House may be poised to abandon SOPA after the White House issued a statement making clear it would not support the bill. But the Senate is still pressing ahead with PIPA's most dangero

16 Vote(s)

New Year, New Job

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:57:51 EST

Happy new year, Friends. It is starting out to be a great 2012 for me. I've taken a position as General Counsel for Worldstar LLC and its flagship website worldstarhiphop.com (WSHH), voted top hip hop and urban culture website two years running by BET. In addition to the website, Worldstar operates a talent agency, video production company, dating site and is growing rapidly. They were a clie

15 Vote(s)

Privicons Released: A User-to-User Email Privacy Tool

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 05:57:45 EST

We're thrilled to announce the release of Privicons for Google Chrome, a tool for helping users deal with email carelessness: innocent misunderstandings and omissions about email privacy, like unwanted forwards or reply-alls, that embarrass the person whose email is passed along without permission.The Privicons project is an international collaboration among lawyers, privacy researchers, computer

8 Vote(s)

Stop Censorship: The Problems With SOPA

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 05:58:39 EST

Today Congress held hearings on the latest IP legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). We are taking part in American Censorship Day to help spread the word and stop this bill. We've outlined five of the most important problems with SOPA. 1. Violates due process. Under SOPA, any private copyright or trademark owner can cut-off advertising and payments to any website by alleging that the o

17 Vote(s)

A Brief Overview of the Supplementary DAA Principles

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 05:58:21 EST

Yesterday the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) announced a supplementary set of self-regulatory principles for third parties on the web (pdf, press release). This post is a brief — and far from comprehensive — overview of improvements, continued deficiencies, and procedural issues.Improvements1. Several sensitive uses of third-party web tracking data are now completely prohibited: a

14 Vote(s)

From Public Squares to Platforms: Free Speech in the Networked World

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 04:59:21 EDT

14 Vote(s)

Nevada Releases Draft Autonomous Driving Regulations

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 04:59:06 EDT

In June, CIS reported Nevada's enactment of AB 511, which directs the state's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to "adopt regulations authorizing the operation of autonomous vehicles on highways within the State of Nevada." Pursuant to this mandate, the DMV has now issued draft regulations. After holding a series of public workshops and hearings (not yet posted) and submitting its proposed regul

10 Vote(s)

To Track or “Do Not Track” – that is the Question

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 04:59:19 EDT

This blog post is re-posted with permission from the Center for Democracy & Technology blog (see here). Jules Polonetsky, Co-chair and Director of the Future of Privacy Forum, and I are delighted to announce that our paper, "To Track or ‘Do Not Track': Advancing Transparency and Individual Control in Online Behavioral Advertising", has been accepted for publication in the Fall 2011 issue of t

11 Vote(s)

Will Microsoft Own Crowdsourcing?

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 04:59:18 EDT

The patent application has a simple title: Crowdsourcing. Filed on May 18, 2009, the application is assigned to Microsoft and claims a "computer-implemented" crowdsourcing method. The claims seem very broad. Folks have noticed that Facebook has a pending application for crowdsourced translations. But Microsoft's application for crowdsourcing itself has, at least so far, slipped under the radar

7 Vote(s)

Israeli court says no to forum selection clause in clickwrap agreement

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 04:59:04 EDT

In a highly important decision, the Tel Aviv District Court annulled this week a forum selection clause in a clickwrap contract, holding the user was not sufficiently aware of the choice of foreign forum nor of the fact he was contracting with a foreign company; and has not clearly consented to such choice. In Civ. (Tel Aviv) 1963-05-11 Malka v. Ava Financial, defendants moved for summary judgmen

19 Vote(s)

Tracking the Trackers: Self-Help Tools

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 04:59:40 EDT

A number of technologies have been touted to offer consumers control over third-party web tracking. This post reviews the tools that are available and presents empirical evidence on their effectiveness. Here are the key takeaways:Most desktop browsers currently do not support effective self-help tools. Mobile users are almost completely out of luck.Self-help tools vary substantially in performanc

18 Vote(s)

Great Network in the Sky Giveth, Taketh Away

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 04:58:05 EDT

Isn't it great that when your car, or phone, or laptop gets lost or stolen, you can use modern technology to find your stuff and get it back? One might think only paranoid Luddites or the thieves themselves would oppose such an innovation. But the joy of a ubiquitous communications/tracking network is tempered by the threat to privacy - and potential liability - for enlisting SkyNet to peer into

7 Vote(s)

The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Or: Why Weak AI Is Interesting Enough

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 04:58:30 EDT

Not many people in the legal academy study artificial intelligence or robotics. One fellow enthusiast, Kenneth Anderson at American University, posed a provocative question over at Volokh Conspiracy yesterday: will the Nobel Prize for literature ever go to a software engineer who writes a program that writes a novel?What I like about Ken's question is its basic plausibility. Software has alread

13 Vote(s)

Why German Privacy Officials Don’t Like Facebook’s “like” Button

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 04:58:19 EDT

Schleswig-Holstein is a small German state located at the very northern tip of the Federal Republic. It is home for enchanting cities such as Kiel and Lübeck, long coastlines overlooking the Baltic See to the east and the North See to the west. Other than scenic landscape, rich culture and a border with Denmark, Schleswig-Holstein also has a dynamic privacy commissioner. Dr. Thilo Weichert heads

11 Vote(s)

Tracking the Trackers: The AdChoices Icon

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 04:58:00 EDT

(Jovanni Hernandez and Akshay Jagadeesh are the first authors of this study.)Responding to pressure from the Federal Trade Commission, in mid-2009 the largest advertising industry trade groups joined forces to develop a new self-regulatory program for behavioral advertising: the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA). Like the parallel self-regulatory program for advertising networks,

15 Vote(s)

Like Zombies, Newfangled Cookies, Lawsuits Respawn

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 04:57:51 EDT

This past weekend we saw another volley of rounds fired in the ongoing digital privacy wars. As with previous battles, this one started with the publication of an academic study and culminated in a class action lawsuit filed in the federal court in San Francisco.The academic study was authored by U.C. Berkeley researchers (including my personal friends Chris Hoofnagle and Ashkan Soltani). It upda

18 Vote(s)

New Hearsay Culture shows with Prof. Archon Fung and Micah Sifry posted

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 04:57:20 EDT

The focus of much of my research and writing is the role of secrecy in intellectual property and its impact on governmental operations and society. Thus, I'm very pleased to post two more shows for the summer quarter, part of a three-part secrecy series for the summer. The first show, Show #143, July 13, is my interview with Prof. Archon Fung of the JFK School of Government at Harvard Universit

10 Vote(s)

Netflix, Facebook and the law

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 04:57:49 EDT

Ryan Calo, Director of the Consumer Privacy Project at CIS, discusses the effect of the Video Privacy Protection Act on the Facebook/Netflix deal.Listen to this American Public Media Marketplace story.

5 Vote(s)