The Global Internet

Overview

Thursday, September 8, 1:30pm-2:30pm
Format: Lecture, featuring guest respondents
Leads: Herbert Burkert and Urs Gasser
Participants: Susan Crawford, Juan Carlos de Martin, Catharina Maranke, and others

In the global online space, traditional legal frameworks, such as public international law and international private law, come together with new developments, such as evolving Internet law (focused on new regulations addressing international Internet issues), to create different models for, and forms of, digital governance. Processes and structures, such as online dispute resolution systems, Terms of Use policies, and other mechanisms also shape user activity and permissible behavior. Actions and interventions by private actors, NGOs, and international organizations, also exert control, by defining use and activity, permitting or denying access, and facilitating policy making—all with varying degrees of harmonization, conflict, and evolution. Through a series of case studies, the attributes, influence, and evolution of these mechanisms will be explored in the context of e-commerce, media and free expression, technical and organizational infrastructure, and other values.

Required Readings

Enforcement and User-created Content

• Jonathan Zittrain, Be Careful What You Ask For: Reconciling A Global Internet And Local Law, available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=395300
• Daniel Rosenthal, Assessing Digital Preemption (and the Future of Law Enforcement?), New Criminal Law Review Fall 2011, available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1735479
• Rachel Donadio, “Larger Threat Is Seen in Google Case”, The New York Times, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/technology/companies/25google.html
• “Supreme Court rejects Tiffany trademark appeal vs Ebay”, Reuters, available at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AS3YJ20101129
• “Google wins Louis Vuitton trademark case”, The Guardian, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/23/google-louis-vuitton-search-ads
• “eBay not obliged to protect trade marks, says High Court”, The Register, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/27/ebay_loreal/
• “Advocate General advises ECJ that eBay should not be held liable for users’ breach of trademark”, TTLF Technology Law & Policy News, available at http://ttlfnews.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/advocate-general-advises-ecj-that-ebay-should-not-beheld-liable-for-users%E2%80%99-breach-of-trademark/
• Grant Gross, “RIAA tells FCC: ISPs need to be copyright cops”, Computer World, available at http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9145198/RIAA_tells_FCC_ISPs_need_to_be_copyright_cops?taxonomyId=13&pageNumber=1
• Michael Geist, “Putting Together the ACTA Puzzle: Privacy, P2P Major Targets”, available at http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3660/125/

Competition

• Urs Gasser, "Regulating Search Engines: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead." 9 Yale Journal of Law & Technology 124, available at www.yjolt.org/files/gasser-8-YJOLT-201.pdf
• “Antitrust: Commission probes allegations of antitrust violations by Google,” available at http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/1624
• Court of Justice of the European Union Press Release: “Google has not infringed trade mark law by allowing advertisers to purchase keywords corresponding to their competitors’ trade marks,” available at http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2010-03/cp100032en.pdf

Recommended Readings

The State of Online Business

• Dion Hinchcliffe, "The app store: The new ‘must-have’ digital business model," available at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe/?p=1172.
• Donnie Dong, “Ten Websites Lead You Understanding the Features of Cinternet”, available at http://english.blawgdog.com/2010/01/ten-websites-leads-you-understanding.html
• Andrew Keen, Why We Must Resist the Temptation of Web 2.0, in in Berin Szoka and Adam Marcus (Eds.), The Next Digital Decade (2010), available at http://nextdigitaldecade.com/ndd_book.pdf#page=52