Deeplinks Blog

Deeplinks Blog by Mitch Stoltz | April 26, 2018

Defenders of Copyright Troll Victims Urge Congress to Reject the "Small Claims" Bill

A dedicated group of attorneys and technologists from around the U.S. defend Internet users against abuse by copyright trolls. Today, they wrote to the House Judiciary Committee with a warning about the CASE Act, a bill that would create a powerful new “small claims” tribunal at the U.S...

Deeplinks Blog by Nathan Sheard | April 26, 2018

Oakland Should Ensure Community Control of Surveillance Technology

Public safety requires trust between government and the community served. To ensure that trust, Oakland needs a participatory process for deciding whether or not to adopt new government surveillance technologies, and ongoing transparency and oversight of any adopted technologies.

Deeplinks Blog by David Ruiz | April 26, 2018

Axon’s Ethics Board Must Keep the Company in Check

EFF, together with 41 national, state, and local civil rights and civil liberties groups, sent a letter today urging the ethics board of police technology and weapons developer Axon to hold the company accountable to the communities its products impact—and to itself. Axon, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, is responsible for...

Deeplinks Blog by Jillian C. York | April 26, 2018

Facebook Inches Toward More Transparency and Accountability

Facebook took a step toward greater accountability this week, expanding the text of its community standards and announcing the rollout of a new system of appeals. Digital rights advocates have been pushing the company to be more transparent for nearly a decade, and many welcomed the announcements as...

Deeplinks Blog by Corynne McSherry, India McKinney | April 25, 2018

Platform Censorship Won't Fix the Internet

The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on “The Filtering Practices of Social Media Platforms” on April 26. Public attention to this issue is important: calls for online platform owners to police their members’ speech more heavily inevitably lead to legitimate voices being silenced online. Here’s a quick...

Deeplinks Blog by Amul Kalia | April 25, 2018

California Can Build Trust Between Police and Communities By Requiring Agencies to Publish Their Policies Online

If we as citizens are more informed of police policies and procedures, and we can easily access those materials online and study them, it’ll lead to greater accountability and better relations between our communities and the police departments that serve us. EFF supports a bill in the California legislature which...

Deeplinks Blog by Katitza Rodriguez | April 25, 2018

A Tale of Two Poorly Designed Cross-Border Data Access Regimes

On Tuesday, the European Commission published two legislative proposals that could further cement an unfortunate trend towards privacy erosion in cross-border state investigations. Building on a foundation first established by the recently enacted U.S. CLOUD Act, these proposals compel tech companies and service providers to ignore critical privacy...

Deeplinks Blog by Daniel Nazer | April 24, 2018

Supreme Court Upholds Patent Office Power to Invalidate Bad Patents

In one of the most important patent decisions in years, the Supreme Court has upheld the power of the Patent Office to review and cancel issued patents. This power to take a “second look” is important because, compared to courts, administrative avenues provide a much faster and more efficient means...

Deeplinks Blog by Katitza Rodriguez | April 24, 2018

Stop Egypt’s Sweeping Ridesharing Surveillance Bill

The Egyptian government is currently debating a bill which would compel all ride-sharing companies to store any Egyptian user data within Egypt. It would also create a system that would let the authorities have real-time access to their passenger and trip information. If passed, companies such as...

Deeplinks Blog by Amul Kalia | April 24, 2018

California Bill Would Guarantee Free Credit Freezes in 15 Minutes

After the shocking news of the massive Equifax data breach, which has now ballooned to jeopardize the privacy of nearly 148 million people, many Americans are rightfully scared and struggling to figure out how to protect themselves from the misuse of their personal information. To protect against credit fraud, many...

Deeplinks Blog by Katharine Trendacosta | April 23, 2018

Net Neutrality Did Not Die Today

When the FCC’s “Restoring Internet Freedom Order,” which repealed net neutrality protections the FCC had previously issued, was published on February 22nd, it was interpreted by many to mean it would go into effect on April 23. That’s not true, and we still don’t know when the previous net...

Deeplinks Blog by Joe Mullin | April 23, 2018

Stupid Patent of the Month: Suggesting Reading Material

Online businesses—like businesses everywhere—are full of suggestions. If you order a burger, you might want fries with that. If you read Popular Science, you might like reading Popular Mechanics. Those kinds of suggestions are a very old part of commerce, and no one would seriously think it’s a patentable technology...

Deeplinks Blog by Jason Kelley | April 20, 2018

We’re in the Uncanny Valley of Targeted Advertising

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, thinks people want targeted advertising. The “overwhelming feedback,” he said multiple times during his congressional testimony, was that people want to see “good and relevant” ads. Why then are so many Facebook users, including leaders of state in the U.S. Senate...

Deeplinks Blog by Aaron Mackey | April 20, 2018

Minnesota Supreme Court Ruling Will Help Shed Light on Police Use of Biometric Technology

A decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday will help the public learn more about how law enforcement use of privacy invasive biometric technology. The decision in Webster v. Hennepin County is mostly good news for the requester in the case, who sought the public records as part...

Deeplinks Blog by Katitza Rodriguez, Aaron Mackey | April 19, 2018

Dear Canada: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

Canadian authorities should drop charges against a 19-year-old Canadian accused of “unauthorized use of a computer service” for downloading thousands of public records hosted and available to all on a government website. The whole episode is an embarrassing overreach that chills the right of access to public records and threatens...

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Deeplinks Blog

Deeplinks Blog

Defenders of Copyright Troll Victims Urge Congress to Reject the "Small Claims" Bill

Oakland Should Ensure Community Control of Surveillance Technology

Axon’s Ethics Board Must Keep the Company in Check

Facebook Inches Toward More Transparency and Accountability

Platform Censorship Won't Fix the Internet

California Can Build Trust Between Police and Communities By Requiring Agencies to Publish Their Policies Online

A Tale of Two Poorly Designed Cross-Border Data Access Regimes

Supreme Court Upholds Patent Office Power to Invalidate Bad Patents

Stop Egypt’s Sweeping Ridesharing Surveillance Bill

California Bill Would Guarantee Free Credit Freezes in 15 Minutes

Net Neutrality Did Not Die Today

Stupid Patent of the Month: Suggesting Reading Material

We’re in the Uncanny Valley of Targeted Advertising

Minnesota Supreme Court Ruling Will Help Shed Light on Police Use of Biometric Technology

Dear Canada: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

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