Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery With Daily Postings Since 2002
New York Times: “A new virtual gold rush is underway. Even as Bitcoin, riven by internal divisions, has struggled, a rival virtual currency — known as Ethereum — has soared in value, climbing 1,000 percent over the last three months. Beyond the price spike, Ethereum is also attracting attention from giants in finance and technology, …
The Race Is On to Control Artificial Intelligence, and Tech’s Future By John Markoff and Steve Lohr – “Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft are using high salaries and games pitting humans against computers to try to claim the standard on which all companies will build their A.I. technology.”
Follow up to previous posting – Controversy over free journal access database keeps Sci-Hub in legal and research spotlight – see Wellcome Trust and COAF Open Access Spend, 2014-15: “…Once a year we ask all those institutions in receipt of an open access (OA) grant from the Trust to provide details on how the grant …
Nielsen – “The difference between an 18-year-old and a 34-year-old is often like night and day. From where they live to what they wear to how much discretionary income they take home, a vast array of differences exist within what is often portrayed as a monolithic group of consumers. Likewise, according to Nielsen’s Q4 2015 …
Follow up on previous posting – Database of 48 million pirated research papers is focus of litigious revolt against paywalls – see Sci-Hub: research piracy and the public good – The release of millions of journal papers online reflects impatience with an outdated publishing model, says John Willinsky: “The old economy is the impetus behind …
Hoofnagle, Chris Jay, Assessing the Federal Trade Commission’s Privacy Assessments (2016). Chris Jay Hoofnagle, Assessing the Federal Trade Commission’s Privacy Assessments, 14(2) IEEE Security & Privacy 58–64 (Mar/Apr. 2016). Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2707163 “Consumer protection regulators worldwide share basic problems: the companies that regulators police are so powerful and rich that fines do …
Via LLRX.com – The Mediachain Project: Developing a Global Creative Rights Database Using Blockchain Technology – Alan Rothman’s article focuses on a creative, innovative effort to deploy the blockchain as a form of global registry of creative works ownership – specifically a global rights database for images. The co-founders of a new metadata protocol they …
von Shoshana Zuboff, March 3, 2016: “Governmental control is nothing compared to what Google is up to. The company is creating a wholly new genus of capitalism, a systemic coherent new logic of accumulation we should call surveillance capitalism. Is there nothing we can do?…Google is ground zero for a wholly new subspecies of capitalism …
March 10, 2016: “Chairman Wheeler’s Proposal to Give Broadband Consumers Increased Choice, Transparency & Security With Respect to Their Data – FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has circulated for consideration by the full Commission a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to ensure consumers have the tools they need to make informed choices about how and whether …
DOJ news release, March 7, 2016: ” The U.S. Supreme Court today denied Apple’s petition for certiorari in United States v. Apple Inc., making final lower court decisions that Apple orchestrated a price-fixing conspiracy with five major e-book publishers and substantially raised e-book prices. The Supreme Court’s action triggers Apple’s obligation to pay $400 million …
“National Consumer Protection Week (March 6-12, 2016) highlights the importance of understanding your consumer rights to make informed buying decisions. And it gives you the chance to learn about and share information to protect yourself and others from scams and fraud. Find a wealth of tips and information on a variety of consumer topics: banking, …
Lipman, Rebecca, Online Privacy and the Invisible Market for Our Data (January 18, 2016). Penn State Law Review (2016, Forthcoming). Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2717581 “Consumers constantly enter into blind bargains online. We trade our personal information for free websites and apps, without knowing exactly what will be done with our data. There is …
