:: Cybertelecom :: Federal Internet Law and Policy ::

Ken Burns Prohibition: Olmstead
Do you have an expectation of privacy in electronic communications? Olmstead 1928: No. Katz 1967: Yes. ECPA 1986: Yes. Facebook 2011: M'eh??

In a Time When Email Costs 26c and Takes Two Days to Deliver
The USPS is rumored to be running ads attacking email, attempting to install fear in the public that email is "insecure." This is not the first time the USPS felt threatened by email. In the late 1970s the USPS attempted to solved the email problem by suggestion that there ought to be a law against it.

In Which We Learn the Difference Between "Being Slow" and "Bad Faith"
A guy becomes a real estate franchisee and sets up some websites. But then the franchisee agreement lapses. Those websites with the plaintiff's trademark pointed to the guy's new real estate website. Was he just slow to take down his old website, or was it "bad faith"?

In Which We Learn Whether a Sour Relationship Constitutes a Breach of Contract or a Violation of the AntiCybersquatting Consumer Protect Act
So a guy hirers a web designer to build a web site, which the web designer does. And everything is good, until, of course, the relationship between the guy and the web designer "sours." And the web designer says, "okay, pay me what you owe me, and I will turn over the website and the domain name to you." Pop Quiz: Did the web designer just violate the Anti Cybersquatting Consumer Protect Act? No really, that's a serious question.

The Wayward AntCybersquatter Consumer Protection Act
The Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) has lost its way. The ACPA was passed in an era of domain name land grabs, where nefarious individuals would register and warehouse oodles of valuable domain names, and then extract ransom from bewildered-trademark owners. These nefarious individuals are known as " cybersquatters ", and, according to the ACPA , they are bad.

The Threat From Within
The security vendor-phobe at the head of the conference bangs on the podium with his shoe declaring that "The greatest threat comes from within! (buy our product for your network's salvation)."

Cybersquatting Bad!
The first of a series of posts on the Anti Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, starting with a review of the ACPA's legislative history. "On-line extortion in any form is unacceptable and outrageous. Whether it's people extorting companies by registering company names, misdirecting Internet users to inappropriate sites, or otherwise attempting to damage a trademark that a business has spent decades building into a recognizable brand, anyone engaging in cyber-squatting activity should be held accountable for their actions." --Sen. Abraham, Sponsor of the ACPA

In Which We Learn the Cost of Letting a Domain Name Expire During a Litigation
If you let a domain name expire during a pending Anti Cybersquatter Consumer Protection Act case, and are ordered to transfer that domain name to plaintiff, is now impossible for you to transfer the expired domain name? Apparently not.

October is CyberSecurity Month
"National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM), conducted every October since 2004, is a national public awareness campaign to encourage everyone to protect their computers and our nation's critical cyber infrastructure. Cyber security requires vigilance 365 days per year. However, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), the primary drivers of NCSAM, coordinate to shed a brighter light in October on what home users, schools, businesses and governments need to do in order to protect their computers, children, and data." See CT's information on Cybersecurity.

WHOIS Dat who say WHOIS Dat when I say WHOIS Dat?
Using WHOIS a discovery technique to discover who is messing with you, and learning the subpoena's used in limited discovery generally wont get you full server logs.

ReTweet ReLawsuit?
If Joe comes to my Web 2.0 site and posts a defamatory comment about Jane, I am not a publisher of that comment pursuant to Sec. 230 even though it is on my site, and therefore am not liable. But what happens if I retweet Joe's comment?

A Hack. A Scrape. A Crash. A Lawsuit. Snap-On Business Solutions, Inc., v O'Neil Associates, Inc., (ND Ohio April 16, 2010)
In today's story , we hear a tale of a business deal gone sour, the alleged hacking and crashing of a computer system, data that are free except when it's not, and words that don't always mean what they appear to mean. Can Daffy's access to a database be unauthorized if Thurston controls who has access, and Thurston gave Daffy permission to access? Does Thurston violate copyright law when the data in the database is his, and he makes a copy of it? This sounds like a case for Motion-to-Dismiss-Man and his somewhat incredible superpowers!

1910 Navy Radio Station in Arlington, VA
This short history story comes from Arlington Virginia, home town of the 1910 US Navy Radio station. Back in the day, before broadcast radio - before the Federal Communications Commission - heck even before the Federal Radio Commission -- folk were interested in "wireless" as a means for ship-to-shore communications. Marconi monopolized commercial wireless telegraph service to shipping - while the US Navy took interest in the ability to communicate with the fleet at sea. The first federal agency to exercise regulatory spectrum authority was in fact not the FCC but the US Navy . Anyway, on with this great story....

Virtual Banishment and the First Amendment: Estavillo v. Sony Computer Entertainment of America
Many of us host or sponsor online communities of one form or another. On occasion, this means we must engage in moderation of the discourse in that community, and, as chance may arise, on occasion, we must give some chap the boot from the community for violating the AUP or the TOS. Inevitable, the booted chap screams "First Amendment Violation," to which we must respond, "The First Amendment restrains government actors - we are not government actors." Apparently, we are correct.

Speaking of Cyber Security, OnGuard Online has just released its new guide NetCetera: Talking to Kids About Online Safety. "In Net Cetera: Chatting With Kids About Being Online, OnGuard Online gives adults practical tips to help kids navigate the online world. Kids and parents have many ways of socializing and communicating online, but they come with certain risks. This guide encourages parents to reduce the risks by talking to kids about how they communicate - online and off - and helping kids engage in conduct they can be proud of. Net Cetera covers what parents need to know, where to go for more information, and issues to raise with kids about living their lives online."

"Steal More WiFi!", Cybertelecom Research Paper #8, v 0.9 (Discussion Draft) (released Jan. 26, 2009)

In Which We (Once Again) Consider: Is it Legal to Link? Plaintiff Voldemort demands that Blockshopper, a real estate news site, stop linking to Plaintiff - and objects to the mere mention of Plaintiff's name. Better do as Voldemort says! Dont link to plaintiff and dont mention plaintiff's name!

In Which We Explore the Federal Laws that Apply to Cyberstalking Cyberstalking is a tragedy to which current law responds poorly. The solution is (A) rewrite local law in order to cover the Internet, (B) attempt to jam an unfortunate event into a law that was not designed to cover the event, or (C) look to enforcement of annoying federal laws? Fortunately, the feds have some clear advice for us on this matter.

History Teaches Us Nothing: If there is one thing we learn from history, it is that we learn nothing from history! I love communications history. So frequently with our narrow vision of the present we presume that we are in an era of innovation and dramatically new paradigms - when so much of what is, already has been. I stumbled upon a wonderful government history, Captain Linwood S. Howeth, USN (Retired), History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy, Bureau of Ships and Office of Naval History (1963) (Govt Work: public domain), which talks about such things as Marconi refusing to deliver messages because the transmitting radio station was not using Marconi radio equipment. Hum, where I have I heard of that problem before. Select portions of this text have been uploaded to the history section.

Steal More Wifi, part 2! Charlie the Unicorn pulls up to parking lot of the local coffee house driving his convertible Mustang (what else would he be driving). He opens his laptop, finds an open WiFi network, and searches eBay in the hopes of finding that new kidney that he so desperately needs. Pop quiz: What law has Charlie broken?

NSFNET: The Partnership that Changed the World

On November 29 & 30, in Washington DC was an NSFNET Celebration. It was an oral history project. Almost all of the primary people from the primary organizations (NSF, MERIT, IBM, MCI) were present, retelling the NSFNET Story. I was fascinated. It is, like so many things, like looking a picture in black and white, and then seeing the same picture in color. So much was added to my understanding of the history. Things like - the "network of network?" - that was NSFNET. NSFNET established the network hierarchy and "tiers." The roots of NSF's use of "cooperative agreements" and how that created the foundation of future policy struggles. This was not, after all, a simple R&D and transfer of technology project that NSF funded. This was, as the NSFNET Final Report stated, communications infrastructure, vital to the success of our economy and culture. At any rate, all this led to significant revisions to CT's history section. Take a look; give feedback!

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