Different business models have evolved for providing information on the Internet, including search engines, which make money from advertising; subscription web sites; and free web sites which drive off-line sales. Scholars examine the evolution of this marketplace and its implications for content providers and businesses.
"What this case shows is that digital technologies are asking questions of constitutional law that don’t have clear answers. This is just another illustration of the fact that digital technologies don’t just destabilize or disrupt industries, they destabilize and disrupt settled legal expectations, and they require us to think carefully about how we apply the law to technology." — Neil Richards, Professor of Law, Washington University in St. Louis
"You can offend people, you can draw strong emotion, but it’s protected speech." — Danielle Citron, Professor of Law, University of Maryland
"While private platforms aren’t bound by the restrictions of the First Amendment — generally only the government is — there’s a question about how much discretion they should choose to exercise over what speech they allow to flow through them." — Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law, Harvard University
"Facebook is in the social engineering business. It constantly tries to manipulate our experience and, thus, our perspective on our friends, issues and the world. It does so haphazardly and incoherently, it seems at first. But, in fact, there is a coherent driving force. Facebook wants to maximize something close to “happiness.”" — Siva Vaidhyanathan, Professor of Media Studies, University of Virginia
"What the court’s going to do in a searching way, realizing free speech and anonymous speech is on the line, is ask: Is there a real lawsuit here?" — Danielle Citron, Professor of Law, University of Maryland
"Commercial and political entities are able to exploit the targeting and predictive power of Facebook through its advertising system. Through what we reveal on our profiles, other Facebook users can watch and track us as we build or break relationships with others, move around, recommend and comment on various posts, and express our opinions and preferences. And governments use Facebook to spy on citizens or anyone they consider suspicious, either by establishing Facebook accounts that appear to be those of friends or allies or by breaking through Facebook security to gather data directly." — Siva Vaidhyanathan, Professor of Media Studies, University of Virginia
"Companies making a critical mass of internet-enabled products should be required to post a “networked safety bond” to be cashed in if they abandon maintenance for a product, or fold entirely. Insurers can price bonds according to companies’ security practices." — Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law, Harvard University
"One has to make an argument that consumers were deceived about friend information sharing, and that’s a difficult point to prove." — Chris Hoofnagle, Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley
"In many ways, money will be the least of Facebook’s concerns. With a market capitalization of $485 billion, even hundreds of millions of dollars is just a rounding error for Facebook. Far more damaging could be a new settlement the FTC might bring against the company, one that imposes even stronger conditions on how it can treat users' data – and make money from it – in the future." — William Kovacic, Professor of Law, George Washington University
"It’s clearly a moment where people are saying enough is enough." — Danielle Citron, Professor of Law, University of Maryland
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TAP Academics
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TAP Blog
Discussing contextual integrity as a framework to design, evaluate, and craft regulation for privacy was the focus of last month’s symposium hosted by Princeton’s Center for Information Technology and Cornell Tech’s Digital Life Initiative. Read the summary of the report.
October 22, 2018
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Fact Sheets
Search engines – such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and a variety of other smaller search engines – help users find what they are looking for online by finding web pages that match user-entered keywords. Search engines are free to users, but typically earn revenue through paid advertising.
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Featured Article
This book analyzes the architecture of the internet, how it fosters innovation, and what that suggests for the future.
June 17, 2010
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