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CIS in the news.
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Will your 'driverless' car ever get a traffic ticket?
Date published:December 31, 2012"“Imagine that someone invents a time machine. Does she break the law by using that machine to travel to the past? Whether the new technology is time machines or automated vehicles, the answer is not an automatic yes or no.” The statement opens a recent paper by Bryant Walker Smith, a fellow of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. Professor Smith’s paper deals with the question of “driverless cars.”" Read more » about Will your 'driverless' car ever get a traffic ticket?
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Legal Infrastructure for Driverless Cars, and Comparisons Between the Law and Ethics of Self-Driving Cars and Autonomous Weapon Systems
Date published:December 31, 2012"...Smith (who is a fellow at Stanford’s Center for the Internet and Society) says that as a consequence, ever “since the 1930s, self-driving cars have been just 20 years away.”" Read more » about Legal Infrastructure for Driverless Cars, and Comparisons Between the Law and Ethics of Self-Driving Cars and Autonomous Weapon Systems
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From Internet Uprisings to John McAfee: The Year in Privacy and Security
Date published:December 27, 2012Ryan Calo's Op-Ed mentioned in Wired's top privacy stories of 2012. Read more » about From Internet Uprisings to John McAfee: The Year in Privacy and Security
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The Top Five Most-Read TAP Blogs in 2012
Date published:December 27, 2012One of the top five most-read blogs on TAP in 2012, in Drone Crash, Professor Ryan Calo examines the crash of a drone into a Texas police vehicle and outlines the privacy issues surrounding the use of drones domestically. Read more » about The Top Five Most-Read TAP Blogs in 2012
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Are Driving Laws Fit for Driverless Vehicles?
Date published:December 27, 2012"“One major question remains though,” Smith said. “Will tomorrow’s cars and trucks have to adapt to today’s legal infrastructure, or will that infrastructure adapt to them?”" Read more » about Are Driving Laws Fit for Driverless Vehicles?
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Microsoft, Nokia, Black Rain: Intellectual Property
Date published:December 25, 2012The Electronic Frontier Foundation hired Daniel Nazer as a staff attorney, the San Francisco-based digital rights advocacy group said in a statement. Read more » about Microsoft, Nokia, Black Rain: Intellectual Property
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Found: Secret location of Minneapolis police license plate readers
Date published:December 18, 2012“This study is a good demonstration not only of how much information is collected, but also how much additional information can be extracted through data analysis,” Woodrow Hartzog, a law professor at the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University, told Ars. Read more » about Found: Secret location of Minneapolis police license plate readers
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When is Social Media Use a Crime?
Date published:December 17, 2012Newtown school shooting raises the question of whether someone can be prosecuted for posting false information online.
"What the prosecutors would have to show is that the post or the tweet or whatever it happens to be was done intentionally, was done on purpose, in order to interfere with the investigation, in order to create a public panic, and that's a relatively high bar to show," said CIS Affiliate Scholar Ryan Calo. Read more » about When is Social Media Use a Crime? -
Instagram’s Absurd New Terms of Use Agreement Is Already Being Called Its ‘Suicide Note’
Date published:December 17, 2012"These kinds of terms are pretty common these days, which is unfortunate, because some of them border on the ridiculous," says Woodrow Hartzog, an assistant professor at Samford University law school who writes frequently about law and the internet. Hartzog says that Instagram needs some level of copyright control user images because "many copies of user content are created via ordinary operation of the website." But he adds, "I think it is fair to question the scope of many of these terms as potentially outside of the realm of what is required to operate. Read more » about Instagram’s Absurd New Terms of Use Agreement Is Already Being Called Its ‘Suicide Note’
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Are Odd Electives a Waste?
Date published:December 16, 2012For instance: "Aspects of Autonomous Driving," the course offered at Stanford University Law School.
"We can teach torts through 18th-century English cases, or we can teach torts through modern automotive class actions,'' said Bryant Walker-Smith, who teaches the class. Read more » about Are Odd Electives a Waste? -
Self-driving cars can navigate the road, but can they navigate the law?
Date published:December 14, 2012"Florida, Nevada and California have all passed laws to make the cars street legal, thanks in large part to big lobbying efforts by Google, but according to Professor Smith, those bills only scratch the surface. "They don't really resolve the human driver's obligations behind the wheel," Smith told The Verge. " Read more » about Self-driving cars can navigate the road, but can they navigate the law?
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Microsoft Rankles Advertisers With Web User-Privacy Plan
Date published:December 13, 2012"Microsoft may also be aiming to use privacy as a stick to beat rival Google with, Mayer said." Read more » about Microsoft Rankles Advertisers With Web User-Privacy Plan
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Facebook changes privacy controls again and takes a key one away
Date published:December 12, 2012University of Washington law professor Ryan Calo said “preserving obscurity is the best way to protect privacy. This is an example of a company taking obscurity away.”
“It feels almost as though Facebook is trying to acclimate users -- even recalcitrant ones -- to a world of personal transparency,” Calo said. -
FTC: Apps For Children Raise Privacy Concerns
Date published:December 11, 2012The Federal Trade Commission has released a report taking to task the makers of mobile apps for children. It says apps are not transparent enough about the personal information they collect. It's the latest sign the Obama administration is concerned about children's privacy online.
CIS Affiliate Scholar Ryan Calo interviewed. Read more » about FTC: Apps For Children Raise Privacy Concerns
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Woman Says Cops Looked up Her License 550 Times
Date published:December 7, 2012"It seems in some way the officers involved here were treating the DMV records like their own personal Facebook," says CIS Affiliate Scholar Ryan Calo in this MSNBC story. Read more » about Woman Says Cops Looked up Her License 550 Times
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Who Can Read Your Emails Now?
Date published:December 4, 2012"Law enforcement and civil parties could also get a public email provider to turn over messages with less than a warrant if the email isn't considered "in electronic storage." But what exactly that means has varied between courts, Granick said." Read more » about Who Can Read Your Emails Now?
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The Battle Over Revenge Porn: Can Hunter Moore, the Web’s Vilest Entrepreneur, Be Stopped?
Date published:December 4, 2012"“Under criminal law, state and federal law there exist cyberstalking laws that cover the very activity that [Sarah’s] perpetrator is engaged in, which is repeated online behavior designed with the intent to cause substantial emotional distress,” said University of Maryland law professor and cyberstalking expert Danielle Citron." Read more » about The Battle Over Revenge Porn: Can Hunter Moore, the Web’s Vilest Entrepreneur, Be Stopped?
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Aleecia McDonald Appointed Director of Privacy at the Center for Internet and Society
Date published:December 3, 2012Stanford Law School today announced the appointment of Aleecia M. McDonald as Director of Privacy at the Center for Internet and Society (CIS). McDonald will lead the Center’s work at the intersection of online technologies, privacy, and policy, with a particular focus on: user expression of Internet privacy preferences including Do Not Track, a technology and policy proposal that enables Internet users to opt out of tracking by websites; self-help measures and privacy enhancing technologies; mobile privacy challenges; and global frameworks for privacy rights. Read more » about Aleecia McDonald Appointed Director of Privacy at the Center for Internet and Society
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How to retweet without needing a lawyer
Date published:November 30, 2012"There's nothing special about a user retweeting," Granick said. Read more » about How to retweet without needing a lawyer