Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

I’ve Joined the Editorial Board of the Technology & Regulation Journal

I’m proud to be part of the editorial board committee of the brand new Journal of Technology and Regulation (TechReg), housed at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT) at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

Technology and Regulation (TechReg) is an international journal of law, technology and society, with an interdisciplinary identity. TechReg provides an online platform for disseminating original research on the legal and regulatory challenges posed by existing and emerging technologies (and their applications) including, but by no means limited to, the Internet and digital technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning, robotics, neurotechnology, nanotechnology, biotechnology, energy and climate change technology, and health and food technology. We conceive of regulation broadly to encompass ways of dealing with, ordering and understanding technologies and their consequences, such as through legal regulation, competition, social norms and standards, and technology design (or in Lessig’s terms: law, market, norms and architecture).

We aim to address critical and sometimes controversial questions such as:

  • How do new technologies shape society both positively and negatively?
  • Should technology development be steered towards societal goals, and if so, which goals and how?
  • What are the benefits and dangers of regulating human behavior through technology?
  • What is the most appropriate response to technological innovation, in general or in particular cases?

It is in this sense that TechReg is intrinsically interdisciplinary: we believe that legal and regulatory debates on technology are inextricable from societal, political and economic concerns, and that therefore technology regulation requires a multidisciplinary, integrated approach. Through a combination of monodisciplinary, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary articles, the journal aims to contribute to an integrated vision of law, technology and society.

We invite original, well-researched and methodologically rigorous submissions from academics and practitioners, including policy makers, on a wide range of research areas such as privacy and data protection, security, surveillance, cybercrime, intellectual property, innovation, competition, governance, risk, ethics, media and data studies, and others.

TechReg is double-blind peer-reviewed and completely open access for both authors and readers. TechReg does not charge article processing fees.

Posted in AI, Personal, Readings | Comments Off on I’ve Joined the Editorial Board of the Technology & Regulation Journal

Democrats Have Found Their Harold Stassen

News that (long-ago) former Senator Mike Gravel is joining the scrum that is the Democratic Presidential primary made me think not just of the GOP’s Harold Stassen, but also provides an occasion for me to re-run what just might be the all-time zaniest Presidential campaign video, from the Gravel campaign a dozen or so years ago:

Bonus fact: This time, Gravel’s, er, unorthodox campaign is run by an orthodox Jewish teenager.

Posted in 2020 Election | Comments Off on Democrats Have Found Their Harold Stassen

Real or Onion? (Gator Edition)

Vacationers Find Alligator Lounging on Alligator Pool Float at Their Miami Airbnb
Continue reading →

Posted in Onion/Not-Onion | Comments Off on Real or Onion? (Gator Edition)

Modified Legal Writing Tips

I’ve been tweaking my student legal writing tips again.  Comments and suggestions for improvement are always welcomed.

Posted in Law School | 2 Comments

Firefox Borks Almost all Extensions, Fix Coming

Late yesterday something happened to Firefox that disabled almost all extensions. According to Mozilla, it was something about the certificate they used to sign extensions, they know about it and are fixing it:

Late on Friday May 3rd, we became aware of an issue with Firefox that prevented existing and new add-ons from running or being installed. We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to people who use Firefox.

Our team has identified and rolled-out a fix for all Firefox Desktop users on Release, Beta and Nightly. The fix will be automatically applied in the background within the next few hours. No active steps need to be taken to make add-ons work again. In particular, please do not delete and/or re-install any add-ons as an attempt to fix the issue. Deleting an add-on removes any data associated with it, where disabling and re-enabling does not.

Please note: The fix does not apply to Firefox ESR or Firefox for Android. We’re working on releasing a fix for both, and will provide updates here and on social media.

They also describe a way to get the fix faster, but I tried it and it has yet to work for me….

Update: 5/5/19 – the fix, using the “studies” option is working for me today.

Posted in Software | 1 Comment

Miami is #1!

…. in fraud. And according to a report from the Federal Trade Commission last year Florida was home to 18 of the country’s top 50 cities for consumer fraud.

This is both unsurprising and misleading.  It’s unsurprising because something about the Florida lifestyle seems to attract smooth-talking grifters (the less smoothing-talking ones go into local politics).  But it’s misleading because it only measures garden variety consumer fraud; to do fraud on an epic scale requires a bank.  Places like California (Wells Fargo) and New York (Wall St.) surely have us beat six ways from Sunday in that department. Unless of course the FTC counts those by victims too in which case we could well be #1 after all…

Posted in Law: Criminal Law | Comments Off on Miami is #1!