Stanford Center for Internet and Society

When it comes to Privacy Law, Europe and the U.S. are not on the same page. What is the problem? This is not the place to give an extensive answer, but here is what I think the difference boils down to:

Cyberlaw Clinic client John Doe and his anonymous speech rights have prevailed in the fight against Global Adhesives company H.B. Fuller. Fuller has withdrawn its subpoena to Yahoo seeking Doe's identity and has requested that the court dismiss Doe's appeal as moot. This is a great victory for our client and for free speech rights online.

Cyberlaw Clinic client John Doe and his anonymous speech rights have prevailed in the fight against Global Adhesives company H.B. Fuller. Fuller has withdrawn its subpoena to Yahoo seeking Doe's identity and has requested that the court dismiss Doe's appeal as moot. This is a great victory for our client and for free speech rights online.

President Bush's Identity Theft Task Force released its final report (pdf) on Monday.

President Bush's Identity Theft Task Force released its final report (pdf) on Monday.

Anyone still in doubt whether user data is valuable? Take a look at the news and learn: User data is worth the double of what Google paid for YouTube –– Google just bought DoubleClick for USD 3.1 bn.

When Nancy Pelosi became the Speaker of the House in January 2007, women all over the country, and certainly female law students, rejoiced at the long-awaited step forward in gender balancing our society. Her election opened a new door for women, and made a successful political career a more viable option for women in general and female law students in particular.

EFF has posted a video of a debate between EFF's Fred von Lohmann and billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban over Viacom v. YouTube and the question of whether the DMCA safeharbors should protect GooTube from being held liable.

EFF has posted a video of a debate between EFF's Fred von Lohmann and billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban over Viacom v. YouTube and the question of whether the DMCA safeharbors should protect GooTube from being held liable.

It is a common mantra both of industry’s and consumers’ advocates that legislation related to radio frequency identification ("RFID") should be technology-neutral.

I am not convinced although the mantra has some merits: A tech-specific act is likely to become useless once there is technological improvement. Also, technology specific regulation might lead to unequal treatment. Further, technology specific regulation can lead to a different perception of several categories of data. This might have the undesired effect that some data is looked at to be worthy of protection while other data starts to be overlooked and gets in fact less protection. And this would disregard the choice of the consumer: What can be cool for one, can be a concern for another one. Legislation should give the consumer the tools so he can determine whether he has a privacy concern or not. And technology specific legislation is less likely to operate on this general level.

However, to me it still looks all right to create and apply technology specific rules if one intends to regulate a pervasive technology.