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Once Again for the First Time: What is Net Neutality?
Not surprisingly, FCC Commissioners voted 3 to 2 yesterday to open a Notice of Inquiry on changing the classification of broadband Internet access from an “info…
Larry Downes
Recent articles
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The Criminalization of E-Personation
I was interviewed yesterday for the local Fox affiliate on Cal. SB 1411, which criminalizes online impersonations (or “e-personation”) under certain circumstanc…
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"Legally Defensible" Security and the (Surprisingly Lacking) Right to Privacy
I participated last week in a Techdirt webinar titled, “What IT needs to know about Law.” (You can read Dennis Yang’s summary here, or follow his link to wat…
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Congress Moves on Broadband Regulation--But to Where?
The announcement yesterday from key Senate Democrats of an effort to reform the Communications Act put me in a nostalgic mood. Here follows one of my longest ef…
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The First National Broadband Plan
Over the weekend, I published an op-ed in The Des Moines Register encouraging the FCC to heed the lessons of the first national broadband plan, the one Secretar…
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ECPA and the Law of Disruption
I write in “The Laws of Disruption” of the risk of unintended consequences that regulators run in legislating emerging technologies. Because the pace of change…
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The New York Times swings and misses on broadband "reclassification"
I have a long opinion piece on CNet today, arguing that much of the talk of “reclassifying” or “relabeling” broadband Internet access to bring it under the FCC’…
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eBay's Win is a Matter of Economic Necessity
As the Wall Street Journal is already reporting, today eBay sustained an important win in its long-running dispute with Tiffany over counterfeit goods sold thro…
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Google v Everyone
I had a long interview this morning with the Christian Science Monitor . Like many of the interviews I’ve had this year, the subject was Google. At the incr…
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The Under and Overhyping of HTC v. Apple
I'm quoted briefly in a story today in E-Commerce Times (see “Apple’s Patent Attack: This Too May be Overhyped” by Erika Morphy) about the patent lawsuit fi…
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The Italian Job: The Real Reason the Google Convictions are Bad Precedent
I was pleased to be interviewed last night on BBC America World News (live!) about the convictions of three senior Google executives by an Italian court for pri…
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Amazon Marketplace: Liability in the Cloud?
I don’t usually blog “personal” stories, but this one is irresistible. It raises disturbing questions at the border of digital and physical life, and legal pro…