""This is a kind of a novel problem," says Ryan Calo, who teaches cyber and privacy law at the University of Washington’s school of law. Usually, a digital platform isn’t responsible for what its users do — whether it’s something as mild as posting inflammatory comments on a message board or as extreme as following an explosives recipe on a website. Neither is a game. But Pokémon Go isn’t just offering information, it’s actively creating a system that encourages people to visit certain locations to participate. "This is a situation where in order to play the game, individuals have to physically travel," says Calo. And if large numbers of them end up on private property, someone could allege that Niantic showed negligence in setting up the game’s locations."
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.