The Law in Cyberspace
Jon Weinberg
Fall 2006

I've divided up these paper topics, as a general guide, into twelve broad categories. Please be aware, though, that the categories are rough and overlapping; many of the topics could easily be placed in more than one of these pigeonholes.

A. Old wine in new bottles

• Common law trespass to computers and networks
• Virtual property
• Liability of Internet service providers for their subscribers' actions
• Applying the Stored Communications Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to Internet communications

B. Internet governance and the domain name system

• ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and the domain name system
• Domain names and the Uniform Dispute Resolution Procedure
• The domain name system and alternate roots
• Legal status of the .US country-code top level domain
  

C. Free speech

• Bad speech: Regulation of porn, indecency, hate speech, etc.
  
• Regulation of spam
• Bloggers and journalist privileges
  
• The first amendment and restrictions on disseminating computer code
• Responses to the Internet in China, Singapore and elsewhere

D. Privacy

• Data privacy and online profiling
• Data security
  
• Anonymity and pseudonymity
• Biometrics, unique global identifiers, and identification technologies
• RFID
  
• Data protection in the EC; conflicts between US law and EC privacy protections
  
• Encryption, government access to keys, and export control
• Privacy of online searches
  

E. Jurisdiction and choice of law

• Where does jurisdiction lie over an Internet actor? (If I set up a website in Michigan, where might I be subject to suit for, say, defamation?)
• What power do states have over outsiders' Internet activities? (Can Michigan enact a law banning California actors from setting up sexually explicit websites visible to Michigan residents? From sending spam to Michigan residents?)
• Cross-border enforcement and extraterritorial application of national laws: the Yahoo case and beyond

F. Copyright and quasi-copyright

• After Napster: the future of peer-to-peer file transfer networks
• Search engine copyright liability
• Google book search
• Webcasting
• Music licensing in a digital environment
  
• Digital rights management; circumvention of technical protections blocking access or copying
• Trusted computing

• Internet business method patents
• Trademark infringement online
• Gripe sites
  

H. Cybersecurity, homeland security, and beyond

• Cybersecurity
• Mandatory data retention
  
• Government surveillance of online communications
• CALEA
  

I. Building the Internet infrastructure and reshaping the communications infrastructure

• Net neutrality
• Municipal wi-fi
• Internet telephony
• Internet broadcasting (and television)
  
• Broadcast flag
  
• Location filtering

J. Doing business on the Net

• Enforceability of clickthrough or browsewrap contracts
• Click fraud
  
• Taxation of Internet transactions

K. E-government

• Electronic voting
  
• Electronic participation in administrative agency decisionmaking
• Electronic provision of government services
  

L. Regulation of Internet-mediated activity

• Social networking sites
• Gambling online