Showing archive for: “US Constitution”
The Myth of the Cyber Barons
During last week’s antitrust hearing, Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) provided a sound bite that served as a salvo: “In the 19th century we had the robber barons, in the 21st century we get the cyber barons.” But with sound bites, much like bumper stickers, there’s no room for nuance or scrutiny. The news media has ... The Myth of the Cyber Barons
Big Tech and the Parable of the Broken Window
A boy throws a brick through a bakeshop window. He flees and is never identified. The townspeople gather around the broken glass. “Well,” one of them says to the furious baker, “at least this will generate some business for the windowmaker!” A reasonable statement? Not really. Although it is indeed a good day for the ... Big Tech and the Parable of the Broken Window
Senator Hawley’s Unconstitutional, Unconservative Attack on the Internet
Twitter’s decision to begin fact-checking the President’s tweets caused a long-simmering distrust between conservatives and online platforms to boil over late last month. This has led some conservatives to ask whether Section 230, the ‘safe harbour’ law that protects online platforms from certain liability stemming from content posted on their websites by users, is allowing ... Senator Hawley’s Unconstitutional, Unconservative Attack on the Internet
Setting Up a Fair System for Determining Police Misconduct: Towards A Law & Economics Analysis of Qualified Immunity
Yet another sad story was caught on camera this week showing a group of police officers killing an unarmed African-American man named George Floyd. While the officers were fired from the police department, there is still much uncertainty about what will happen next to hold those officers accountable as a legal matter. A well-functioning legal ... Setting Up a Fair System for Determining Police Misconduct: Towards A Law & Economics Analysis of Qualified Immunity
First Amendment Conflict of Visions Redux: The Case of Facebook’s Oversight Board and the Threat of Antitrust Action
In the wake of the launch of Facebook’s content oversight board, Republican Senator Josh Hawley and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, among others, have taken to Twitter to levy criticisms at the firm and, in the process, demonstrate just how far the Right has strayed from its first principles around free speech and private property. For ... First Amendment Conflict of Visions Redux: The Case of Facebook’s Oversight Board and the Threat of Antitrust Action
The Negative Externalities of Protecting Privacy
The public policy community’s infatuation with digital privacy has grown by leaps and bounds since the enactment of GDPR and the CCPA, but COVID-19 may leave the most enduring mark on the actual direction that privacy policy takes. As the pandemic and associated lockdowns first began, there were interesting discussions cropping up about the inevitable ... The Negative Externalities of Protecting Privacy
Privacy in the Time of Covid-19
I type these words while subject to a stay-at-home order issued by West Virginia Governor James C. Justice II. “To preserve public health and safety, and to ensure the healthcare system in West Virginia is capable of serving all citizens in need,” I am permitted to leave my home only for a limited and precisely ... Privacy in the Time of Covid-19
COVID-19 Exposes the Shallowness of Our Privacy Theories
The importance of testing and contact tracing to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus and resume normal life is now well established. The difference between the communities that do it and the ones that don’t is disturbingly grim (see, e.g., South Korea versus Italy). In a large population like the U.S., contact tracing and ... COVID-19 Exposes the Shallowness of Our Privacy Theories
There is No Cure for Government Incompetence
The pandemic is serious. COVID-19 will overwhelm our hospitals. It might break our entire healthcare system. To keep the number of deaths in the low hundreds of thousands, a study from Imperial College London finds, we will have to shutter much of our economy for months. Small wonder the markets have lost a third of ... There is No Cure for Government Incompetence
Putting COVID Emergency Response on War Footing
[TOTM: The following is part of a blog series by TOTM guests and authors on the law, economics, and policy of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The entire series of posts is available here. This post is authored by Robert Litan, (Non-resident Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution; former Associate Director, Office of Management and ... Putting COVID Emergency Response on War Footing
The FTC Still Has a Long Way to Go on its “Common Law” of Data Security
Since the LabMD decision, in which the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals told the FTC that its orders were unconstitutionally vague, the FTC has been put on notice that it needs to reconsider how it develops and substantiates its claims in data security enforcement actions brought under Section 5. Thus, on January 6, the FTC ... The FTC Still Has a Long Way to Go on its “Common Law” of Data Security
Rybnicek: The Draft Vertical Merger Guidelines Would Do More Harm Than Good
In an area where it may seem that agreement is rare, there is near universal agreement on the benefits of withdrawing the DOJ’s 1984 Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines. The 1984 Guidelines do not reflect current agency thinking on vertical mergers and are not relied upon by businesses or practitioners to anticipate how the agencies may review ... Rybnicek: The Draft Vertical Merger Guidelines Would Do More Harm Than Good
