The Patent Office Can’t Ignore Law it Dislikes
Last month, we asked EFF supporters to help save Alice v. CLS Bank, the 2014 Supreme Court decision that has helped stem the tide of stupid software patents and abusive patent litigation. The Patent Office received hundreds of comments from you, telling it to do the right thing and apply...
The Foilies 2019
Recognizing the year’s worst in government transparencyThe cause of government transparency finally broke through to the popular zeitgeist this year. It wasn’t an investigative journalism exposé or a civil rights lawsuit that did it, but a light-hearted sitcom about a Taiwanese American family set in Orlando, Florida, in the late...
The Inextricable Link Between Modern Free Speech Law and the Civil Rights Movement
No excuse is needed to celebrate the civil rights icon Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. But this weekend is an especially appropriate time to recognize his contributions to First Amendment jurisprudence, and the inextricable link between modern free speech law and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. This link...
A Privacy-Focused Facebook? We'll Believe It When We See It.
In his latest announcement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg embraces privacy and security fundamentals like end-to-end encrypted messaging. But announcing a plan is one thing. Implementing it is entirely another. And for those reading between the lines of Zuckerberg’s pivot-to-privacy manifesto, it’s clear that this isn’t just about privacy. It’s...
Tell Congress to Stand Up for Real Net Neutrality Protections
When the FCC announced its intention to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order, Americans spoke up. When the FCC ignored the fact that most Americans support net neutrality, Americans spoke up again, asking Congress to reverse the FCC’s decision. And the Senate listened. This fight continues in...
OpenAI’s Recent Announcement: What Went Wrong, and How It Could Be Better
Earlier this month, OpenAI revealed an impressive language model that can generate paragraphs of believable text. It declined to fully release their research “due to concerns about malicious applications of the technology.” OpenAI released a much smaller model and technical paper, but not the fully-trained model, training code, or...
Facebook Doubles Down On Misusing Your Phone Number
When we publicly demanded that Facebook stop messing with users’ phone numbers last week, we weren’t expecting the social network to double down quite like this: By default, anyone can use the phone number that a user provides for two-factor authentication (2FA) to find that user’s profile....
Congress Invites Industry Advocates to Hearings. Industry Talking Points Ensue.
In back-to-back hearings last week, the House and the Senate discussed what, if anything, Congress should do about online privacy. Sounds fine—until you see who they invited. Congress should be seeking out multiple, diverse perspectives. But last week, both chambers largely invited industry advocates, eager to...
German Data Privacy Commissioner Says Article 13 Inevitably Leads to Filters, Which Inevitably Lead to Internet "Oligopoly"
German Data Privacy Commissioner Ulrich Kelber is also a computer scientist, which makes him uniquely qualified to comment on the potential consequences of the proposed new EU Copyright Directive. The Directive will be voted on at the end of this month, and its Article 13 requires that online communities,...
With FOSTA Already Leading to Censorship, Plaintiffs Are Seeking Reinstatement Of Their Lawsuit Challenging the Law’s Constitutionality
Due to an editing error, a draft version of this article was published prematurely.Internet websites and forums are continuing to censor speech with adult content on their platforms to avoid running afoul of the new anti-sex trafficking law FOSTA. The measure’s vague, ambiguous language and stiff criminal and civil...
