There and Back: Vindicating the Listener\u27s Interests in Targeted Advertising in the Internet Information Economy

Targeted advertising — the process by which advertisers direct their message at a specific demographic — is neither a recent1 nor an irrational phenomenon.2 One industry executive has proclaimed it the “rare win for everyone” because it serves producers, advertisers, and consumers alike. It should be no surprise that the Information sector of the online economy — particularly new and social media platforms with robust access to consumer data — has structured revenue streams to benefit from targeted advertising. These platforms generate “substantially all of [their] revenue from advertising,” which in turn rely on active user engagement. The Internet Information Economy is premised on the free flowing exchange of data and limited barriers to its collection and transmission. New and social media, including Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn, sustain themselves on a quid pro quo exchange of monetizable user data for a wide array of nominally gratuitous services. This free flow of data has revolutionized how marketers reach their desired audiences. Advertisers are willing to pay a premium for targeted advertisements with the expectation that the investment yields dividends. Currently, the technological prowess of new and social media platforms outpaces the existing regulatory landscape. However, these businesses contend with risks relating to the nature of targeted advertising, including the propensity to mislead consumers, and concomitant concerns about user privacy. Acknowledging the ubiquity of targeted advertising and Internet Information Economy participants’ market share and political will, this Note proposes several policies for regulating such data collection and transmission practices. Calls for regulations on targeted advertisements — particularly those linked to new and social media — are likely to be met with claims of a First Amendment violation, and invocations of the Commercial Speech Doctrine. While the core of the Commercial Speech Doctrine captures speech proposing a commercial transaction, it also encompasses “expression related solely to the economic interests of the speaker and its audience.” Targeted advertising hosted on Internet Information Economy platforms poses a unique challenge to this paradigm. Its reliance on consumer data directly implicates the consumer more so than with “traditional” commercial speech

There and Back: Vindicating the Listener’s Interests in Targeted Advertising in the Internet Information Economy

This Note argues first, that the Commercial Speech Doctrine as currently conceived is an ill-fitting tool for resolving difficult free speech questions in the context of data, privacy, and the modern Internet Information Economy. The application of the Commercial Speech Doctrine to a particular economic interaction should not be a nigh-complete bar to the regulation of Internet platforms that profit from data collection and transmission. For this reason, qualified constitutional protection appropriately accounts for the speaker’s interests while not short-changing those of the listener/consumer. This Note proposes that regulators and reviewing tribunals consider the context surrounding the data collection and transmission process, including: method of collection, relationship between miner and mined party, and whether the user has consented to such collection in justifying the relative need for regulation. Second, in order to vindicate the Commercial Speech Doctrine’s initial purposes, more transparency of data collection procedures for use in targeted advertising is warranted and indeed possible as a regulatory hook to protect consumers, despite the Court’s move towards according more protection to commercial speakers. In so doing, this Note builds upon Erin Bernstein and Theresa J. Lee’s Where the Consumer Is the Commodity: The Difficulty with the Current Definition of Commercial Speech, which proposes that the “rise of new non-linear commercial transactions” necessitates a shift in the definition of commercial speech to accommodate the seismic change in the modern online economy. The stakes are not inconsequential: failure to expand the scope of commercial speech would foreclose the use of many tools in a legislature’s arsenal to address current concerns related to consumer privacy and eliminating advertisements that seek to capitalize on discriminatory indicia, among other salient policy issues. Part I details the Court’s jurisprudence regarding both personal solicitations and data practices and considers the shift away from a bifurcated speech paradigm that treats commercial speech as speech of “lesser value.” Part II illustrates the most common forms of data collection and transmission. Part III locates these methods of data collection and transmission within the current commercial speech framework to conclude that qualified constitutional protection is the coherent tier of scrutiny that should apply. Part IV proposes policy recommendations that fit within the Court’s current approach to commercial speech and alternatives that would require a departure from the present doctrine

Lawyer Communications on the Internet: Beginning the Millennium with Disparate Standards

Lawyer communications on the Internet constituting commercial speech are subject to state ethics rules governing lawyer advertising and communication. Because each state operates as a separate entity with its own rules that govern the lawyers of its jurisdiction, the profession is faced with disparate standards on a jurisdictional basis. Of the forty-three states that have adopted the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, four-fifths have standards on lawyer communications that vary from those in the Model Rules. Not only is there variation in the rules themselves, but differences exist in the specific applicability and interpretation of these rules to components of electronic communications. As technology evolves, new features continue to surface that present the profession with questions relating to the propriety of their use. When a lawyer communicates on the Internet, it is unclear which jurisdiction\u27s rules are applicable and to what standard the conduct of lawyers will be held. Technological changes have helped to render state-by-state regulation of lawyer communications both ineffective and obsolete. To enable lawyers to properly conduct themselves in the practice of law and most effectively represent clients, lawyer communications should be regulated by national standards rather than by individual state rules

The Food and Drug Administration\u27s Evolving Regulation of Press Releases: Limits and Challenges

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has developed an informal framework for regulating press releases by drug and medical device companies. FDA asserted jurisdiction over press releases based on its authority over labeling and advertising, and over the past 20 years, the agency has both broadened and scaled back its claims to authority over press statements. Despite a somewhat predictable framework for anticipating how FDA regulates press materials, the agency\u27s approach appears to be in flux. FDA will not tolerate false or misleading statements in press materials, but there are legal and practical limits to its regulation in this area. The agency has had to adjust its approach to account for First Amendment concerns and resource limitations, which has led FDA to cooperate with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and take more creative responses to allegedly violative press materials. This article discusses how FDA has regulated press materials in the past, and how recent developments may signal new directions in the agency\u27s regulatory approach. The article proposes a framework for evaluating whether FDA might assert jurisdiction, and what the rules are if it does. The article considers the legal theories behind FDA\u27s approach and the implications for manufacturers

Can I Tell You the Truth? A Comparative Perspective on Regulating Off-Label Scientific and Medical Information

American pharmaceutical manufacturers are under siege. Even casual observers of this sector recognize the severe challenges to the prevailing business model: declining research productivity; heightened regulatory focus on safety and comparative outcomes with a correspondingly low number of new product approvals; decreasing market capitalization of mature companies; increasing product liability claims; evolving price restraints in the face of increasing managed care market power; and the looming uncertainty of the effects of federal health care reform. But, in fact, the single greatest threat to the pharmaceutical industry may be the policy environment within the United States, which is restricting the ability of companies to speak truthfully with physicians about their products. During the past decade drug companies have endured intrusive government investigations of their business practices, particularly with respect to the marketing and promotion of their products. Firms face extraordinary civil and criminal liability if they discuss or otherwise attempt to influence prescribing other than for the indications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). There are now well more than one hundred ongoing civil and criminal investigations involving the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and units of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as well as associated investigations run by state attorneys general. Billions of dollars in civil and criminal penalties have been paid to date for alleged wrongdoing, and many billions more surely will be paid in the coming years, on top of the costs of the investigations themselves and the potential further liability that may stem from related private class actions brought by plaintiffs\u27 counsel. The concomitant media and political scrutiny has irreparably harmed the reputation of the industry. If the history of Western civilization may be seen as one long battle pitting order against freedom, the government\u27s effort to curtail off-label speech might be dismissed as a minor skirmish on the outskirts of town. However, this issue is anything but minor in policy terms. The eventual outcome will have significant implications for the practice of medicine, the development of new drugs, and the public health

Blockchain Oracles

Plokiahelatehnoloogia on osutunud paljude tööstusharude potentsiaalseks lammutajaks ning on saanud eraldiseisvate üksuste jaoks turvalise ja detsentraliseeritud toimimise võimaldajaks. Sellest hoolimata ei ole plokiahelatehnoloogia iseenesest väliste andmeallikatega otseselt seotud. Vajalikke väliseid andmeid vahendatakse oraaklite abil. Selle magistritöö eesmärk on uurida seoseid plokiahela võrkude ja oraaklite vahel ning töötada välja raamistik, mis aitab plokiahela arendajaid ja otsuste langetajaid nende plokiahela projektides millestki juhinduda. Mõnedes olemasolevates oraakliprojektides on kirjeldatud sarnaseid püüdluseid, kuid seni pole nende autorid süstemaatiliste ülevaadeteni jõudnud. Lõputöös esitatud raamistik on välja töötatud olemasolevate oraaklitega seotud plokiahela projektide süstemaatilise kirjanduse ülevaate põhjal. See hõlmab selliseid komponente nagu oraaklite poolt kogutud informatsiooni tüübid, plokiahelavõrgud, millega nad suhtlevad, ning ka oraaklite ja andmeallika vahelise suhtluse krüptimine. Lisaks mängib plokiahela oraakli projektides olulist rolli ka oraaklite otsuste tegemine, mis kajastab teabe edastamist oraaklile, nende andmete kontrollimist ja meetodeid, kuidas oraakleid integreeritakse plokiahela võrkudega. Läbivaatamise tulemused näitavad, et plokiahela oraaklid on keerulised lahendused, mis hõlmavad paljusid komponente ja aspekte. Need võivad olla immateriaalsed või materiaalsed ning edastada andmeid vastavalt veebist või anduriseadmetest. Oraakleid saab kasutada igat tüüpi plokiahela võrkudes ja integreerida erinevates formaatides, sealhulgas nutikates lepinguliidestes, või otse teiste plokiahela-sõlmedega. Neid saab otsustusprotsessides tsentraliseerida või detsentraliseerida ja nad suudavad kasutada andmete õigsuse üle otsustamiseks mitmesuguseid olemasolevaid nõuandemehhanisme või usaldada lihtsalt välist andmepakkujat. Need uurimise tulemused aitavad plokiahela arendajatel demüstifitseerida oraaklite potentsiaalset kasutamist või rakendamist oma plokiahela projektides ning aitavad ületada lõhet plokiahela virtuaalse maailma ja väliste keskkondade vahel.Blockchain technology has emerged as a potential disruptor of multiple industries and became an enabler for separate entities to trans-act in a secure and decentralized manner. Nevertheless, the blockchain technology in itself does not directly interact with the external data sources. External data, that is needed, is transferred by means of oracles. The research goal of this thesis is to explore the relationship between blockchain networks and oracles and develop a framework to help guide blockchain developers and decision makers in their blockchain projects. Few of the existing oracle projects have described similar efforts in their papers, but no systematic review has been made by authors. The framework, presented in the thesis, is developed based on Systematic Literature Review of existing blockchain projects involving oracles. It includes components such as type of information oracles collect, blockchain networks with which they interact as well as encryption of communication between the oracles and the data source. Additionally, oracle decision making, which captures how the information is passed to the oracle, along with the verification of that data and methods of integration of oracles with blockchain networks, play an important role in blockchain oracle projects. The results of the review demonstrate that blockchain oracles are complex solutions involving multiple components and aspects. They can be intangible or tangible and transport data from web or sensor devices respectively. Oracles can be used in all types of blockchain networks and integrated in different formats including custom smart contract interfaces or directly with blockchain nodes. They can be centralized or decentralized in terms of decision making and utilize various existing consensus mechanisms to decide on correctness of the data or simply trust the external data provider. These findings will help the blockchain developers demystify the potential usage or implementation of oracles in their blockchain projects and help bridge the gap between the virtual world of blockchain and the external environments