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Carsten Ullrich

Is the Era of "Permissionless Innovation" and Avoidance of Regulation on the Internet F... - 0 views

inforrm.org/...er-its-high-time-hugh-stephens

regulation internet duty of care

shared by Carsten Ullrich on 05 Jun 18 - Cached
  • avoidance of regulation that the Silicon Valley platforms
  • It hasn’t been a great couple of weeks for the “Don’t Be Evil” company.
  • The Supreme Court had upheld a lower court ruling requiring Google to delist from its global search results references to a rogue Canadian company that is the subject of an injunction in British Columbia (B.C) f
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  • intellectual property infringement.
  • The Google/Equustek case is not one of permissionless innovation, but is still an example of a large internet intermediary taking the position that it can do as it damned well pleases because, after all, it operates in multiple jurisdictions—in fact it operates in cyberspace, where, according to some, normal regulatory practices and laws shouldn’t apply or we will “stifle innovation”.
  • One innovation that Google has instituted is to tweak its geolocation system
  • The excuse of “it’s not my fault; blame the algorithm”, also won’t fly anymore. Google’s algorithms are the “secret sauce” that differentiates it from its competitors, and the dominance of Google is proof of the effectiveness of its search formulae.
    • Carsten Ullrich
      Carsten Ullrich on 05 Jun 18
       
      courts have become streetwise on the "algorithm"
  • But scooping up every bit of information and interpreting what people want (or what Google thinks they want) through an algorithm has its downsides. A German court has found that Google cannot hide behind its algorithms when it comes to producing perverse search results
  • AI is great, until it isn’t, and there is no doubt that regulators will start to look at legal issues surrounding AI.
  • Companies like Google and Facebook will not be able to duck their responsibility just because results that are potentially illegal are produced by algorithms or AI
  • One area where human judgement is very much involved is in the placing of ads, although Youtube and others are quick to blame automated programs when legitimate ads appear alongside questionable or illegal content. Platforms have no obligation to accept ads as long as they don’t engage in non-competitive trade practices
  • Google has already learned its lesson on pharmaceutical products the hard way, having been fined $500 million in 2011 for running ads on its Adwords service from unlicenced Canadian online pharmacies illegally (according to US law) selling prescriptions to US consumers.
  • Google is a deep-pocketed corporation but it seems to have got the message when it comes to pharmaceuticals. What galls me is that if Google can remove Adwords placements promoting illegal drug products, why, when I google “watch pirated movies”, do I get an Adwords listing on page 1 of search that says “Watch HD Free Full Movies Online”.
  • At the end of the day whether it is Google, Facebook, Amazon, or any other major internet intermediary, the old wheeze that respect for privacy, respect for copyright and just plain old respect for the law in general gets in the way of innovation is being increasingly shown to be a threadbare argument.
  • What is interesting is that many cyber-libertarians who oppose any attempt to impose copyright obligations and publishing liability on internet platforms are suddenly starting to get nervous about misuse of data by these same platforms when it comes to privacy.
  • This is a remarkable revelation for someone who has not only advocated that Canada adopt in NAFTA the overly-broad US safe harbour provisions found in the Communications Decency Act, a provision that has been widely abused in the US by internet intermediaries as a way of ducking any responsibility for the content they make available, but who has consistently crusaded against any strengthening of copyright laws that might impose greater obligations on internet platforms.
  • proponents of reasonable internet regulation
Carsten Ullrich

United Kingdom | OpenNet Initiative - 0 views

opennet.net/...united-kingdom

web-blocking web filtering internet censorship

shared by Carsten Ullrich on 17 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • The U.K., together with the United States, was ranked as one of the worst offenders against individual privacy rights in the democratic world by Privacy International for 2007.52
  • Moreover, certain filtering and tracking practices do take place.
  • he U.K. government, however, has to ensure that blocking practices do not lead to abuse in the absence of external and independent control.
Carsten Ullrich

XY v Facebook Ireland Ltd [2012] NIQB 96 (30 November 2012) - 0 views

www.bailii.org/...format.cgi

defamation privacy intermediary liability filtering duty of care UK

shared by Carsten Ullrich on 11 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • [19] The Order of the Court will incorporate provision for liberty to apply. By this mechanism the Plaintiff, if necessary and if so advised, will be able to seek further relief from the Court if there is any recurrence of the offending publication. Of course, in such eventuality, it will be open to Facebook, acting responsibly and in accordance with the principles and themes clearly expressed in this judgment, to proactively take the necessary removal and closure steps.
  • [20] I refuse the Plaintiff's application for the wider form of interim injunction sought by him. This was to the effect that Facebook be required to monitor the offending webpage in order to prevent republication of the offensive material. In this respect, I prefer the argument of Mr Hopkins that such an order would lack the requisite precision, could impose a disproportionate burden and, further, would potentially require excessive supervision by the Court. See Cooperative Insurance v Argyll [1997] 3AL ER 297, pages 303 – 304, per Lord Hoffman. See also Halsbury's Laws of England, Volume 24 (Fourth Edition Reissue), paragraph 849. The propriety of granting this discrete remedy will, of course, be revisited at the substantive trial, against the backcloth of a fuller evidential matrix, which should include details of how this social networking site actually operates from day to day.
Carsten Ullrich

Council of Europe - ETS No. 185 - Convention on Cybercrime - 0 views

conventions.coe.int/...185.htm

ETS council europe convention cybercrime human rights collaboration standards surveillance

shared by Carsten Ullrich on 17 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Recognising the need for co-operation between States and private industry
  • need to protect legitimate interests
  • roper balance between the interests of law enforcement and respect for fundamental human rights
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  • right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, and the rights concerning the respect for privacy;
  • United Nations, the OECD
  • European Union and the G8
  • establish as criminal offences under its domestic law,
  • producing child pornography
  •   offering or making available child pornography
  • distributing or transmitting
  • procuring
  • possessing
  • expeditious preservation of traffic data is available
  • expeditious disclosure to the Party’s competent authority,
Carsten Ullrich

Euro Security Experts Deem 'Right to be Forgotten' Impossible | Center for Democracy & ... - 0 views

www.cdt.org/...-right-be-forgotten-impossible

security internet privacy censorship filtering data protection data retention

shared by Carsten Ullrich on 17 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Carsten Ullrich on 17 Oct 17
     
    right to be forgotten
Carsten Ullrich

Algorithm Transparency: How to Eat the Cake and Have It Too - European Law Blog - 0 views

europeanlawblog.eu/...o-eat-the-cake-and-have-it-too

algorithms transparency regulation platform DSA eu Germany

shared by Carsten Ullrich on 11 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • While AI tools still exist in a relative legal vacuum, this blog post explores: 1) the extent of protection granted to algorithms as trade secrets with exceptions of overriding public interest; 2) how the new generation of regulations on the EU and national levels attempt to provide algorithm transparency while preserving trade secrecy; and 3) why the latter development is not a futile endeavour. 
  • most complex algorithms dominating our lives (including those developed by Google and Facebook), are proprietary, i.e. shielded as trade secrets, while only a negligible minority of algorithms are open source. 
  • Article 2 of the EU Trade Secrets Directive
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • However, the protection granted by the Directive is not absolute. Article 1(2)(b), bolstered by Recital 11, concedes that secrecy will take a back seat if the ‘Union or national rules require trade secret holders to disclose, for reasons of public interest, information, including trade secrets, to the public or to administrative or judicial authorities for the performance of the duties of those authorities’. 
  • With regard to trade secrets in general, in the Microsoft case, the CJEU held that a refusal by Microsoft to share interoperability information with a competitor constituted a breach of Article 102 TFEU.
  • Although trade secrets remained protected from the public and competitors, Google had to disclose Page Rank parameters to the Commission as the administrative authority for the performance of its investigative duties. It is possible that a similar examination will take place in the recently launched probe in Amazon’s treatment of third-party sellers. 
  • For instance, in February 2020, the District Court of the Hague held that the System Risk Indication algorithm that the Dutch government used to detect fraud in areas such as benefits, allowances, and taxes, violated the right to privacy (Article 8 ECHR), inter alia, because it was not transparent enough, i.e. the government has neither publicized the risk model and indicators that make up the risk model, nor submitted them to the Court (para 6 (49)).
  • Article 22 still remains one of the most unenforceable provisions of the GDPR. Some scholars (see, e.g. Wachter) question the existence of such a right to explanation altogether claiming that if the right does not withstand the balancing against trade secrets, it is of little value.
  • In 2019, to ensure competition in the platform economy, the European Parliament and the Council adopted Platform-to-Business (P2B) Regulation. To create a level playing field between businesses, the Regulation for the first time mandates the platforms to disclose to the businesses the main parameters of the ranking systems they employ, i.e. ‘algorithmic sequencing, rating or review mechanisms, visual highlights, or other saliency tools’ while recognising the protection of algorithms by the Trade Secrets Directive (Article 1(5)).
  • The recent Guidelines on ranking transparency by the European Commission interpret the ‘main parameters’ to mean ‘what drove the design of the algorithm in the first place’ (para 41).
  • The German Interstate Media Law that entered into force in October 2020, transposes the revised Audio-Visual Services Directive, but also goes well beyond the Directive in tackling automated decision-making that leads to prioritization and recommendation of content.
  • This obligation to ‘explain the algorithm’ makes it the first national law that, in ensuring fairness for all journalistic and editorial offers, also aims more generally at diversity of opinion and information in the digital space – a distinct human rights dimension. If the provision proves enforceable, it might serve as an example for other Member States to emulate. 
  • Lastly, the draft DSA grants the newly introduced Digital Service Coordinators, the Commission, as well as vetted researchers (under conditions to be specified) the powers of data access to ensure compliance with the DSA. The core of this right, however, is undermined in Article 31(6), which effectively allows the platforms to refuse such access based on trade secrecy concerns. 
  • This shows that although addressing algorithms in a horizontal instrument is a move in the right direction, to make it enforceable, the final DSA, as well as any ensuing guidelines, should differentiate between three tiers of disclosure: 1) full disclosure – granting supervisory bodies the right of access, which may not be refused by the IP owners, to all confidential information; 2) limited disclosure – granting vetted researchers the right of access limited in time and scope, with legal guarantees for protection of trade secrecy; and 3) explanation of main parameters – granting individuals information in accessible language without prejudice to trade secrets. 
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