As Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, recently wrote: "'Authorization' gives great power to the computer system owner. That entity may unilaterally decide what is right and wrong on their system, and the [Computer Fraud and Abuse Act] brings the full force of federal law behind it. Yet outside of the computer context, crimes punish social wrongs, not merely offenses to personal or business preferences."
The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School is a leader in the study of the law and policy around the Internet and other emerging technologies.