2023 Internet Law Year-in-Review

2023 Internet Law Year-in-Review

My roundup of the top Internet Law developments of 2023: 10) California court bans targeted advertising (?). Regulators have sought to suppress online targeted advertising for years, with only minimal success. Then, in Liapes v. Facebook, a California appeals court…

I Filed an Amicus Brief Against New York's Editorial Transparency Law

I Filed an Amicus Brief Against New York’s Editorial Transparency Law

Earlier this week, TechFreedom (led by Corbin Barthold and Andy Jung) and I filed an amicus brief with the Second Circuit against N.Y. General Business Law Section 394-ccc, the 2022 law that requires social media platforms to disclose their editorial…

Two Separate Courts Reiterate That Online Age Authentication Mandates Are Unconstitutional

Two Separate Courts Reiterate That Online Age Authentication Mandates Are Unconstitutional

[I will blog the NetChoice v. Bonta ruling very soon.] Many state legislatures draft Internet regulations without any genuine concern for whether or not the laws violate the First Amendment. This isn’t a partisan thing; both Democrats and Republicans do…

Web Scraping for Me, But Not for Thee (Guest Blog Post)

Web Scraping for Me, But Not for Thee (Guest Blog Post)

by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy There are few, if any, legal domains where hypocrisy is as baked into the ecosystem as it is with web scraping. Some of the biggest companies on earth—including Meta and Microsoft—take aggressive, litigious approaches to…

Announcing the 2023 Edition of My Internet Law Casebook

Announcing the 2023 Edition of My Internet Law Casebook

I’m pleased to announce the 2023 edition (14th edition) of my Internet Law casebook, Internet Law: Cases & Materials. The book is available as a PDF at Gumroad for $10, a Kindle ebook for $9.99, a softcover version for $20, and a hardcover…

2022 Internet Law Year-in-Review

2022 Internet Law Year-in-Review

Three dynamics combined to make 2022 a brutal year for Internet Law. First, the techlash is taking its toll. There is widespread belief that the major incumbents are too big, too rich, and too capricious to avoid pervasive government control….

My Trustcon 2022 Keynote Talk

My Trustcon 2022 Keynote Talk

In September, I attended Trustcon, the first annual membership conference for the Trust & Safety Professional Association (TSPA), followed by Stanford Internet Observatory’s first Trust & Safety Research Conference (co-sponsored by the Trust & Safety Foundation). For more on Trustcon,…

New Paper: “Assuming Good Faith Online”

As part of a symposium, I was asked to write a short paper about how the Internet has changed since the mid-1990s when Section 230 was adopted. I chose to address the 1990s stereotype that most early Internet users were…

Five Ways That the California Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC/AB 2273) Is Radical Policy

Five Ways That the California Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC/AB 2273) Is Radical Policy

When a proposed new law is sold as “protecting kids online,” regulators and commenters often accept the sponsors’ claims uncritically (because…kids). This is unfortunate because those bills can harbor ill-advised policy ideas. The California Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC / AB2273,…

Wrapping Up the "Lessons from the First Internet Ages" Project (New Content Alert!)

Wrapping Up the “Lessons from the First Internet Ages” Project (New Content Alert!)

Last year, I was appointed a “Knight Visiting Scholar” along with Prof. Mary Anne Franks at the University of Miami. Working with John Sands and a team from the Knight Foundation, we assembled a major conference and an essay package…