February 1st 2010
Last week I asked UsefulArts.us readers what they think may online law trends for 2010. Here’s the first of what looks like a half dozen responses to that question. The Coulrophobia Epidemic of 2010: trademark owners’ fear of clowns may be rational. When a competitor uses your mark and pretends to be your company, that’s […]
January 23rd 2010
My still germinating collection of 2010 predictions will have to include one of this blogs repeated themes, the impending rise of regulation of digital marketing. (See my post “Regulation is Headed Toward Digital Marketing, Do Something.“) Now that the FTC has staked out a requirement for bloggers to prevent the false appearance of independence if […]
November 7th 2009
Discussions of regulating digital marketing were just below the surface at New York Ad:Tech. My last post gave an overview of efforts to regulate digital marketing. Now, here’s an interview at Ad:Tech by reporter David Spark with Ted Murphy, CEO of Izea, the company that makes the paid blogging service Social Spark. Ted’s been in […]
November 5th 2009
Nobody Has Noticed, But Regulation is Nearer Than You Might Imagine Earlier this year, the FCC signaled its intent to regulate the Internet. States such as Massachusetts have considered a prohibition against tracking users between sites. And the FTC has strongly suggested that ad networks require users to opt-in, rather than opt out. Interactive marketers […]
October 8th 2009
Online Marketers Who Collect Visitor Data Are Potential Targets of Regulation in 2010. Law and health care practices are required to protect personally identifiable information (PII). However, in many cases they are encouraged to circulate so-called anonymous data. It turns out the distinction between the anonymous and the personally identifiable isn’t all that real. Latanya […]
August 20th 2009
Adam Thierer and Berin Szoka at the Tech Liberation Front have outlined a first draft defining what it is to be a cyber-libertarian: Cyber-libertarians believe true “Internet freedom” is freedom from state action; not freedom for the State to reorder our affairs to supposedly make certain people or groups better off or to improve some […]
July 13th 2009
Funny and Unusual Punishment Before we had state identification, mug shots were used to establish identity. They still fill that role, but now they also punish, entertain, deter, and transfix a growing, voyeuristic audience in print and online. The Christian Science Monitor points out the popularity of a crop of sensationalist pulp magazines with names like […]
July 4th 2009
We’ve seen governments monitor private citizens through video surveillance and increased access to electronic records. Here’s a proposal for citizens, and their media, to use some of these same tools to follow the work of their representatives in government. Massachusetts’ Open Meeting Law and Public Record Law may be expanded by S1458 to provided better access […]
June 30th 2009
Why should speech traveling down Comcast’s wire to my computer enjoy better protection than that arriving via the same wire to my television? Consider this fact pattern: A group of consumers, looking to stop GM from using bankruptcy to escape current and future product liability claims, seeks to make its cast to the administration via […]
May 5th 2009
Technology and ambition fills our lives. As parents, professionals, friends and members of gyms, the edict to “Be All You Can Be” is a self-escalating puzzle. Simplicity and transparency have emerged as important brand promises in promoting political candidates, financial services, packaged goods and foods, and technology. It is easy to recall recent cases in […]
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