Tenth Circuit Misses Opportunity to Affirm the First Amendment Right to Record the Police
We are disappointed that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit this week dodged a critical constitutional question: whether individuals have a First Amendment right to record on-duty police officers.EFF had filed an amicus brief in the case, Frasier v. Evans, asking the court to affirm...
EFF to Court: Don’t Let Pseudo-IP Thwart Speech, Innovation, and Competition
The threats to online expression and innovation keep coming. One that’s flown under the radar is a misguided effort to convince the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to allow claims based on the “right of publicity,” (i.e., the right to control the commercial exploitation of your persona) because some people...
Schools Can’t Punish Students for Off-Campus Speech, Including Social Media Posts, EFF Tells Supreme Court
Washington, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the Supreme Court to rule that when students post on social media or speak out online while off campus, they are protected from punishment by school officials under the First Amendment—an important free speech principle amid unprecedented, troubling ...
Google Is Testing Its Controversial New Ad Targeting Tech in Millions of Browsers. Here’s What We Know.
Update, April 9, 2021 : We've launched Am I FLoCed, a new site that will tell you whether your Chrome browser has been turned into a guinea pig for Federated Learning of Cohorts or FLoC, Google’s latest targeted advertising experiment. Today, Google launched an “origin trial” of Federated...
Crowdfunding Legal Fees Is Not a Crime
A piece in USA Today describes how a number of Capitol Hill rioters are utilizing online fundraising platforms to raise funds to cover legal fees, only to find their accounts shut down. This is prompting an online discussion not only about when and how tech companies should shutter online...
Local Franchising, Big Cities, and Fiber Broadband
In 2005, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) made a foundational decision on how broadband competition policy would work with the entry of fiber to the home. In short, the FCC concluded that competition was growing, government policy was unnecessary in deference to market forces, and that the era of communications...
Stupid Patent of the Month: Telehealth Robots Say Goodbye
Before COVID-19, people living in rural and isolated areas urgently needed to access health care services remotely; now we all do. Thanks to decades of innovation in computing and telecommunications, more essential health care services are available electronically than ever before. But there’s no guarantee they will always be as...
Even with Changes, the Revised PACT Act Will Lead to More Online Censorship
Among the dozens of bills introduced last Congress to amend a key internet law that protects online services and internet users, the Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act (PACT Act) was perhaps the only serious attempt to tackle the problem of a handful of dominant online services hosting people’s...
Dystopia Prime: Amazon Subjects Its Drivers to Biometric Surveillance
Free as in Climbing: Rock Climber’s Open Data Project Threatened by Bogus Copyright Claims
Rock climbers have a tradition of sharing “beta”—helpful information about a route—with other climbers. Giving beta is both useful and a form of community-building within this popular sport. Given that strong tradition of sharing, we were disappointed to learn that the owners of an important community website, MountainProject.com, were...
