Internet Governance
Net Neutrality Rollback: The chairman of the FCC released his plan to roll back the FCC’s rules prohibiting ISPs from treating online traffic in a discriminatory manner and, shortly after, judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to rehear the case en banc that upheld the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet Order.
UK Crackdown: UK government issued a warning that sellers and consumers will face severe penalties and possibly jail time if they sell or purchase Kodi boxes, media players that permit third party add-ons which allow a user to stream illegally copied films and TV shows.
Privacy
Transparency in New York: A privacy group sued the New York Police Department over its failure to release documents related to its use of facial-recognition technology.
Silent Trackers: Researchers found that over 200 Android apps use ultrasound cross-device tracking, technology that embeds high-frequency tones in advertisements which are detected by devices that reveal information about the ads a user watches.
Information Security and Cyberthreats
Do Not Click: Google is investigating a phishing email scam that affected as many as one million users; recipients of the email that clicked on a shared Google document risked giving the sender access to their Google contact lists and Google Drive.
What’s Your Number? In 2016 the National Security Agency collected more than 151 million records about Americans’ phone calls despite a law passed last year intended to curb bulk surveillance.
Intellectual Property
Up Next: Music Lawsuits: The Eagles are suing a hotel for trademark infringement for using the name “Hotel California” and Eminem’s lawsuit begins this week against a New Zealand political party for using his song “Lose Yourself”.
Free Expression and Censorship
Hiring Content Cops: Facebook announced a plan to hire 3,000 new employees to screen and remove inappropriate content and graphic videos, such as live videos of murders or suicides.
On the Lighter Side
Trolling Apple Fans: The dictionary entry for Merriam-Webster’s newest word: “sheeple”, meaning people who are easily influenced, uses Apple fans as an example.
Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law and Founding Academic Director, CLIP
N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP
Fellow, CLIP
Elizabeth Martin