Browsing by Subject "Google"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Algorithms, Machine Learning, and Speech: The Future of the First Amendment in a Digital World
    (2017-06) Wiley, Sarah
    We increasingly depend on algorithms to mediate information and thanks to the advance of computation power and big data, they do so more autonomously than ever before. At the same time, courts have been deferential to First Amendment defenses made in light of new technology. Computer code, algorithmic outputs, and arguably, the dissemination of data have all been determined as constituting “speech” entitled to constitutional protection. However, continuing to use the First Amendment as a barrier to regulation may have extreme consequences as our information ecosystem evolves. This paper focuses on developing a new approach to determining what should be considered “speech” if the First Amendment is to continue to protect the marketplace of ideas, individual autonomy, and democracy.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Aligning Online Privacy Protection with Reasonable Expectations of Privacy: How Joffe Can Be Used to Modernize the Wiretap Act
    (Minnesota Journal of Law, Science and Technology, 2014-05) Mason, Matthew
    Between May 2007 and 2010, as part of its popular Street View project, Google collected an enormous amount of Wi-Fi data transmitted from unencrypted networks throughout the United States and over thirty countries worldwide. After initially denying the collection of any payload data, Google publicly acknowledged that fragmented samples of payload data were collected from open Wi-Fi networks due to a code mistakenly included in its Street View software. Several months later, however, Google admitted that the data collected was not just fragmentary in nature; in some instances the full content of e-mails, URL searches, passwords, and financial transactions were collected. In response to what has been called a “big brother-like . . . invasion of privacy,” investigations have been launched in the United States and abroad. In a private action against Google, the Northern District of California denied Google’s motion to dismiss a claim alleging that Google’s collection of payload data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks violated the Wiretap Act. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that Wi-Fi communications do not constitute an “electronic communication . . . readily accessible to the general public” under the Wiretap Act, and thus are not exempt from liability. The Ninth Circuit’s ruling in Joffe v. Google, Inc. raises a number of important issues that may have significant implications on privacy protections for Internet and other electronic communication. Joffe exposed our current privacy protection framework as inadequate for new technologies and advancements in communication. Such inadequacy raises the question as to what extent, and in what way, Congress must update the Wiretap Act to accommodate a changing communication landscape since the enactment of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) in 1986. Furthermore, it becomes necessary to consider whether users of unsecured Wi-Fi networks have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their transmitted electronic communications. As a corollary, it is important to examine how offline Fourth Amendment principles may be applied to an increasingly online society to protect an individual’s electronic and Internet communications. This Comment seeks to examine how Congress, and the courts, might use Joffe as a springboard to bring privacy protections up to date with technological and communication advances. This Comment analyzes the reasoning and holding advanced by the Joffe court, placing Joffe in context with the current state of the law, and argues that Congress and courts should use Joffe to align the reality of users’ knowledge of Wi-Fi technology and reasonable expectations of privacy with the Wiretap Act. This Comment concludes that Congress should amend the ECPA to expressly protect both encrypted and unencrypted Wi-Fi transmissions, and that courts should adapt offline Fourth Amendment principles to protect online and other electronic communications.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Grandpa Sherman Did Not See Google Coming: Necessary Evolutions in Antitrust to Regulate Data Aggregating Firms
    (2022-05) Kinane, Michael
    Four years have passed since the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, and scrutiny of Big Tech based on antitrust and anticompetitive behavior grounds has only grown. But neither the courts nor Congress have produced meaningful regulation—although not for lack of trying. In essence, antitrust law enforcement agencies like the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have failed to regulate Big Tech firms like Google because: (1) their actions frame target firms in the most narrow relevant market possible, instead of using the more accurate relevant market, data aggregation; and (2) before enforcement agencies can properly enforce antitrust law, Congress must amend the law to reinvigorate the goals of antitrust and to ensure consumers can understand the cost of Big Tech product usage. Although the Internet Age has ushered in many useful innovations, the American people are dissatisfied with the conduct of data aggregating firms and the government. Over fifty-five percent of Americans now think major technology companies should be regulated more, believe these firms have too much power and influence in the economy, and cite competition as the justification for restricting even the growth of technology companies that follow current law. Roughly six in ten Americans say they do not think it is possible to go through daily life without having data collected about them by companies. Sixty-nine percent of Americans do not feel confident that data-collecting companies will use customers’ data in ways that people would feel comfortable with and seventy-five percent of Americans are not confident that government will hold companies accountable when they misuse data.14 What is more, the opinions of Americans are well supported, as 2021 set the record for data breaches, impacting nearly 294 million people. The crisis of confidence in private business and government is overwhelmingly clear, perhaps acting as the main driver to recent Congressional debate around antitrust reform in the technology sector.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    MapHappy: A User-Centered Interface to Library Map Collections Via a Google Maps “Mashup”
    (Journal of Map And Geography Libraries, 2009-07-01) Johnston, Lisa R; Jensen, Kristi L.
    Providing users with the best possible access to the unique cartographic materials found in libraries has been a constant challenge formap librarians. In a Web 2.0 world, existing mapping APIs make it possible to extend the library OPAC past the text-based search and enable users to locate maps using a familiar interface, such as Google Maps. This article describes how librarians at the University of Minnesota developed MapHappy, a “mashup” of their existing map MARC records into a geospatial Web application providing unique access to the print maps in their collections. As expected, this project raised many questions and produced a new set of challenges and opportunities; two such problems, the issue of missing or faulty map coordinates and aligning the interface design with user expectations, are discussed. And while still in beta, a variety of future plans are considered for further development and improvement of MapHappy. This project demonstrates that the representation of library records in a geospatial format provides a more intuitive and streamlined method of identifying maps and makes accessible a wide range of data previously meaningless or invisible to users.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Oral history interview with Susan Landau
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2024-01-30) Landau, Susan
    This oral history interview is sponsored by NSF 2202484 “Mining a Useable Past: Perspectives, Paradoxes, and Possibilities with Security and Privacy,” at the Charles Babbage Institute. Professor Susan Landau begins with her experience at Bronx Science High School, and its strong influence on her. She then moves on to her undergraduate days at Princeton. She relates how she shifted from Math to Computer Science during her graduate studies at Cornell and then went on to MIT to earn her Ph.D. in Theoretical Computer Science. Landau comments on the gendered environments and sexism at these schools. It is a theme in her later discussing her motivation for founding the ResearcHers email list. Landau became an Assistant Professor of Computer Science within the Math Department at Wesleyan. She discusses the evolution of her research during her early years as an academic—this includes the Landau’s Algorithm for “de-nesting” radicals. Landau provides context for her thought about mathematical applications to cryptography, the state of art of privacy with regard to cryptography in the mid-1970s, the book Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption co-authored with Whitfield Diffie, and her book People Count. Landau then turns to her years at Sun Microsystems in the 1990s, including the establishment of the principles for Digital Rights Management and DRM Project DReaM. Landau discusses her transition to Radcliffe Institute, Google, Worcester Polytech, and finally, her long tenure and current home at Tufts University. This includes her elaborating on founding a Master’s Program in Cybersecurity and Public Policy there. She highlights recollections of her encounter with famed physicist Joseph Rotblat and his influence on her life. She also relates her longtime collaboration with Steve Bellovin and Matt Blaze at the intersection of tech, security and privacy, policy, and law. She contextualizes her testimony before Congress with the Apple 2015, 2016 (Encryption Dispute—should Apple be forced to unlock its encryption to authorities/FBI) case. And she also comments on a variety of issues including state-sponsored hacking capabilities, the great importance of communicating with broader audiences, and her style and approach in mentoring graduate students.