New Technologies
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The Power of Google, Squared
I wrote, I while ago, about “the power of Google” and its role in the discussion surrounding the “right to be forgotten” ― a person’s right to force search engines to remove links to information about that person that is “inadequate, irrelevant or excessive,” whatever these things mean, even if factually true. Last week, the Continue reading
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Disrupting C-36
The Economist has published a lengthy and informative “briefing” on the ways in which the internet is changing prostitution ― often, although not always, for the benefit of sex workers. As it explains, the effects of new technologies on what is usually said to be the oldest profession are far-reaching, and mostly positive ― insofar Continue reading
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Call Dropped
Yesterday, the Supreme Court delivered its decision on the constitutionality of warrantless searches of cell phones incident to arrest, R. v. Fearon, 2014 SCC 77. By a 4-3 majority, the Court held that such searches are constitutional provided that some limits are respected. The dissent would only have allowed such searches in very limited “exigent Continue reading
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How Much Your Picture?
After skipping a month, I have resumed my sequence of monthly posts for the CBA National Magazine’s blog. Today, I take on two recent Québec cases awarding damages to people whose pictures were published without their consent. One is Hammedi c. Cristea, 2014 QCCS 4564, where the defendant was the editor of a small newspaper who had published Continue reading
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Forgotten Balance
Over at Concurring Opinions, Frank Pasquale has a post defending the EU Court of Justice’s decision that enshrined the “right to be forgotten” in European law. Arguing against “a reflexively rejectionist position” which he sees emerging among some American commentators, prof. Pasquale writes that it fails to “recognize the power of certain dominant firms to Continue reading
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The Power of Google
I seem never to have blogged about the “right to be forgotten” enshrined into European law by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in a judgment issued in May. An interesting recent blog post by Paul Bernal allows me to do offer a few random observations on the matter. Better late than never, right? In Continue reading
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Felix Peccatum
There was an interesting piece in The Atlantic a couple of weeks ago, in which Ethan Zuckerman argued that we should, as the subtitle would have it, “ditch the [internet’s] ad-based business model and build a better web.” Accepting internet content should be free to access, online services free to use, and that the costs of Continue reading
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An Online Bill of Rights?
Just a quick note to let my readers here ― those, that is, who avoid my shameless self-promotion on social media ― know about my new post for the CBA National Magazine’s blog. Taking up Yves Faguy’s invitation (at Slaw) to discuss whether “we need a global digital bill of rights.” Drawing on a paper Continue reading
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Searching Freedom
I have already blogged (here and here) about the debate on whether the output of search engines such as Google should be protected by constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, summarizing arguments by Eugene Volokh and Josh Blakcman. These arguments are no longer merely the stuff of academic debate. As both prof. Volokh and prof. Blackman report, Continue reading
Double Aspect 