AP on Internet Porn Regulation
By Eric Goldman Associated Press runs a retrospective/status report on Congress’ battle against Internet porn. Believe it or not, this battle recently entered its second decade–Congress’ first effort, the Communications Decency Act, was passed in February 1996. After that law…
Congress Is Lovin’ the Internet…to Death?
By Eric Goldman Congress has an unresolved love-hate attitude towards the Internet. Through the 1990s, Congress frequently said that the Internet should be left alone from a regulatory standpoint. Indeed, in some cases, Congress affirmatively deregulated the Internet; 47 USC…
Marquette’s Link to the Father of Spam
By Eric Goldman You may recall the story of the first spam. A guy named Gary Thuerk worked for Digital Equipment Company. In 1978, he sent unsolicited emails to over 400 Internet users inviting them to attend a demonstration of…
Peering Agreement Dispute Between Level 3 and Cogent
By Eric Goldman Peering agreements rarely get much attention, even though they are the Internet’s infrastructure. Through peering agreements, Internet access providers (IAPs) agree to exchange packets directly with another IAP. These exchanges are usually for no money with the…
Fall 2005 Cyberlaw Syllabus
It’s hard to believe that this is going to be my 11th year teaching Cyberlaw. I’ve posted my newest syllabus for Fall 2005. The material I’ve assigned for the first time this year: Copyright * BMG v. Gonzalez (confirming direct…
Kevin Kelly on the Web’s Past, Present and Future
Kevin Kelly writes a fantastic essay at Wired on the Internet circa 1995, 2005, and 2015. It’s an excellent read, so I won’t spoil all of the fun. However, two passages of particular note. First, he hits the nail on…
More on .kids.us
In critiquing the .xxx TLD, I took a brief swipe at the .kids.us debacle. Meanwhile, during my trip, Reuters ran a good retrospective article on the complete failure of the domain. As the article says: “while Congress and administrator NeuStar…
BBSs and History
A new documentary called BBS: The Documentary is out, and it inspired a retrospective on BBSs at Wired. I haven’t seen the documentary yet, but the Wired article definitely took me back to my first flirtations with cyberspace. I got…
Internet Explorer Market Share Dips Below 90%
Microsoft’s share of the browser market has dipped below 90%. On my blogs, the numbers are even less favorable for Microsoft. Consider my blog stats in the month of May (so far): “Unknown” 50.9 % (I believe this includes RSS…
ICANN’s Domain Name Tax on .Jobs and .Travel
I missed this before—perhaps I wasn’t the only one. ICANN has repeatedly attempted to impose a “tax” on domain names. This was first proposed back in 1999 and again at the end of 2004. Now, at the end of March,…