The Law in Cyberspace
Jon Weinberg
Winter 2003

I've divided up these paper topics, as a general guide, into ten 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

• Liability of Internet service providers for their subscribers' actions
• Civil and criminal liability for viruses and hacks
• The Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Internet
• Common law trespass to computers and networks
• Internet gambling

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
• ICANN and the country-code top level domains (such as .US, or .JP)
  

C. Free Speech

• National sovereignty and regulation of Internet speech: The Yahoo case and beyond
• Responses to the Internet in China, Singapore and elsewhere
• Regulation of spam
• Private spam-blocking services and the law
• The first amendment and restrictions on disseminating computer code
  

D. Privacy

• Anonymity, pseudonymity, biometrics and unique global identifiers
• FTC protection of information privacy
• Online profiling
• Data mining and information aggregation
• Data privacy: The EU Data Directive and the United States safe harbor
• Encryption, cryptography and export control
• The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
  

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?)
• International choice of law and the Hague Conference on Private International Law's proposed Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters
  

F. Intellectual Property

• Internet business method patents
• After Napster: Aimster, Gnutella, and other peer-to-peer file transfer networks Internet business method patents
• Circumvention of technical protections blocking access or copying: Johanson, Elcomsoft and beyond
• The proposed Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act
• Liability for linking
• Copyright fair use online
• Online music services
• Self-help and the Berman bill
• Trademarks on the Web

G. Cybersecurity, Information Warfare and Beyond

• The White House "National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace"
• Government surveillance of online communications
• The Total Information Awareness initiative
• Information warfare
  

H. Building the Internet Infrastructure

• Open access to broadband infrastructure
• Connecting schools and libraries via the E-rate
• Location filtering
  

I. Doing Business on the Net

• Electronic payment systems
• Regulation of online securities trading
• Taxation of Internet transactions
• Digital signatures
  

J. Miscellaneous or Cross-Cutting

• Internet telephony
• Internet broadcasting
• The Council of Europe draft Treaty on Cybercrime