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Hearsay Culture shows #98 and #99 -- Profs. Jacqui Lipton and Elizabeth Townsend-Gard -- posted, and #100 coming up!
I am pleased to post two more new Hearsay Culture shows. The first is Show # 98, October 14, my interview with Prof. Jacqui Lipton of Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
FTC to Bloggers: Drop that Sample!
The Federal Trade Commission has announced plans to regulate the behavior of bloggers. Unfortunately, not their terrible grammar, short attention spans or inexplicably short fuses.
Instead, the FTC announced updates to its 1980 policy regarding endorsements and testimonials, first developed to reign in the use of celebrity endorsers with no real connection or experience with products they claimed to use and adore.
The proposed changes require bloggers who recommend products or services to disclose when they have a “material connection” to the provider—that is, that they were paid to write positive reviews or given freebies to encourage them to do so. (The FTC, of course, is limited to activities in the U.S.)
For more, see http://larrydownes.com/ftc-to-bloggers-drop-that-sample/
More Fallout and Falling Out Over Net Neutrality
The fallout continues from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s promise to initiate new rulemaking to implement Net Neutrality principles promised by candidate Obama during the campaign.
The bottom line: what proponents wish with all their hearts was a simple matter of mom and apple pie (“play fair, work hard, and get ahead” as Craiglist’s Craig Newmark explains it) is in fact a fight for leverage among powerful interests in the communications, software, and media industries. Net neutrality, if nothing else, is turning out to be a complex technical problem—technical in both the engineering and regulatory sense.
For the gory details, see:
http://larrydownes.com/net-neutrality-debate-the-mistake-that-keeps-on-g...
EFF Warns Texas Instruments to Stop Harassing Calculator Hobbyists
One of my new projects is defending researchers and bloggers discussing how to put custom operating systems on TI calculators. The press release and explanatory blog post are on the EFF site.
Pokes, Tweets, And Legally Significant Notice
An Australian court rules that a mortgage company can issue notice of a lien over Facebook. A court in the UK permits an injunction to be served via Twitter. A woman is arrested in Tennessee for “poking” someone over Facebook in violation of a protective order. Meanwhile, a 1978 provision of the Bankruptcy Code still provides that notice shall “be published at least once a week for three successive weeks in at least one newspaper of general circulation.” New forms (and norms) of communication are both expanding and contracting the avenues for legally meaningful notice. Just how do we know, in this uncharted new landscape, when notice is enough?
10/28: Jonathan Zittrain - Civic Technologies and the Future of the Internet
End: October 28, 2009 2:00pm
Join us for a talk on Civic Technologies and the Future of the Internet by Jonathan Zittrain, Visiting Professor.
Co-hosted by the Robert Crown Law Library and the Center for Internet & Society.
Snacks & Home-baked sweets served! Feel free to bring a brown bag lunch.
IBM Back in the Antitrust Crosshairs: Deja Vu Mixed with Vertigo
Sources cited by The New York Times indicate the U.S. Justice Department has once again opened an antitrust investigation against IBM.
Remember IBM?
The new investigation concerns allegations that the company has refused to license mainframe software products to third parties. A refusal to license isn’t necessarily an illegal form of competition, but may be if coupled with other anticompetitive practices.
IBM has come under the gun from anticompetition regulators throughout its history.
Ironically, the case that it won did the most damage. In 1983, the government dropped an investigation that started in 1969. But by then IBM had already made significant and possibly life-altering modifications to its operations. See:
http://larrydownes.com/not-again-ibm-back-in-antitrust-crosshairs/
Invitation -- Social Networks: Friends or Foes?
On October 23, 2009, the UC Berkeley School of Law will host an all-day conference at the Bancroft Hotel to explore some of the most pressing legal challenges, ethics issues, and policy questions related to the use of social networking websites by the public and the legal profession. I'm speaking at the event, and so is Lauren Gelman.
It's My Browser, and I'll Auto-Click if I Want To
In It's My Browser, and I'll Auto-Click if I Want To, Fred blogs about how EFF is representing SkipScreen, a Firefox browser add-on that helps users avoid ads and unnecessary wait times when downloading files from hosting sites.
PATRIOT Act: Last Refuge of Scoundrels
“Patriotism,” as Samuel Johnson famously said, “is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” In that sense, perhaps the USA PATRIOT Act is appropriately named after all.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, most people (though not everyone) agreed that the government should be given additional investigative powers to reduce the risk of more terrorist attacks. The fact that perfectly good intelligence was already available and ignored before 9/11 was considered water under the bridge. The attacks signaled a new era in national defense.
Electronic communications bore the brunt of government complaints that the enemy had outpaced the government in an information arms race, and not surprisingly some of the most contentious features of the PATRIOT Act involved provisions to expand government powers of surveillance, information collection, and secrecy:
http://larrydownes.com/the-patriot-act-last-refuge-of-scoundrels/
Spotlight on CIS
Securing Privacy in the Internet Age
Edited by Anupam Chander, Lauren Gelman, and Margaret Jane Radin.
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CIS Fellow Elizabeth Townsend Gard
Non-resident fellow Dr. Elizabeth Townsend-Gard is an Associate Professor of Law at Tulane University Law School. With the help of her students, Elizabeth has developed the "Durationator," an online tool and accompanying study that tracks copyright duration in the U.S. and abroad. A beta version is expected to be released in January 2009. Their progress can be followed on her blog.
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