Dear CHTLJ supporters, we are pleased to announce the publication of Volume 27, Issue 1.  Here is a preview of what is to come:
 
1. Dustin Berger, Balancing Consumer Privacy with Behavioral Targeting.
Dustin Berger discusses behavioral targeting on the Internet, which is commonly facilitated by businesses, network advertisers, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) through various approaches. While acknowledging the risks associated with the practice, particularly those related to the users’ privacy and the consumers’ inability to prevent the potential harm, Berger nonetheless explains the wealth of benefits from the technique and provides recommendations for mitigating its potential harms. Berger notes that the current approaches used to address the growing concern of consumer privacy violations are inadequate and his article proposes a number of solutions the FTC can implement to address the problem- including making the current guidelines a mandatory regulation and imposing periodical audit and publishing requirements from the businesses utilizing behavioral targeting.


2. Mark Burdon, Contextualizing the Tensions and Weaknesses of Information Privacy and Data Breach Notification Laws.
Mark Burdon engages in a comparative analysis of internationally adopted Information Privacy Laws and Data Breach Notification Laws. Burdon provides a historical framework for the legislative development of each concept on federal and state levels and focuses on the tensions that arise from their different origins. He reviews the differences between comprehensive legal frameworks and sector-based legal frameworks, pointing out that while Data Breach Notification Laws are fairly comprehensive, their breadth has been limited to specific circumstances that can give rise to identity theft. He further discusses different enforcement mechanisms and remedies offered by each regime, and illustrates the shared weaknesses of these laws through three illustrative data breach examples. Although he acknowledges that both types of law are predicated on certainty, Burdon recommends that both legal frameworks incorporate the social context of human relationships in to effectively serve their purpose.
 
 
3. Lukas Feiler, Separation of Ownership and the Authorization to use Personal Computers: Unintended Effects of EU and U.S. Law on IT Security.
Lukas Feiler explores the recently emerging patterns of the disconnect between the concepts of ownership and authorization within contract and copyright law in the European Union and the United States and explains the effect of this emergence on the security of personal computers. He addresses the growing trend of third parties restricting technology owners through contract from fully using their personal computers. Feiler points to the existing U.S. and EU contract laws that effectively grant authority to use personal computers to third parties, often software vendors, thereby limiting certain uses by the owners themselves. This shift of authority creates significant negative effects on the security of such personal devices which the owner has limited capabilities to address. He concludes that this transfer of authority places the capability of mitigating the security risks with the third party, who generally has no incentive to mitigate the risks.
 
 
4. Carolyn James, Balancing Interests at the Border: Protecting Our Nation and Our Privacy in Border Searches of Electronic Devices.
Carolyn James addresses the privacy implications that arise from the federal government’s (specifically the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS)) protocols for border searches of electronic devices conducted for the purpose of detecting terrorist activities and confiscating contraband. Under the current Directives DHS is not required to have individualized suspicion or proof that a device crossed the border to search a traveler’s electronic device(s), and such minimal guidelines leave concerns that the traveler’s privacy rights will be infringed upon, especially considering that such devices often hold personal information. James proposes modifying the guidelines and requiring the presence of some reasonable suspicion before the search. James further reasons that since such information can easily be sent from anywhere in the world, via the use of the Internet or email, there is no increased need to search the electronic devices precisely at the borders. James suggests that Congress should commission an annual report of border searches conducted to analyze and balance the security and individual privacy interests, and she also calls for Congress to require all airlines to notify their customers about the current border search practices to allow travelers to mitigate the risks.
 
 
5. Yutian Ling, Upholding Free Speech and Privacy Online: A Legal-based and Market-based Approach for Internet Companies in China.
Yutian Ling addresses the unique dilemma that many Internet companies wanting to do business in China face. Because of China’s firm regulation of Internet content and communication, these foreign and domestic companies are often forced to provide personal data of their customers and site visitors to the government upon demand. In discussing the continuous efforts to resist and bypass China’s policies, Ling notes that corporations could play a vital role in the internet reform movement in China, specifically by creating new methods of communication and establishing strong Internet communities. He opines that laws will not be able to evolve as fast as technological developments that have allowed internet users to create social movements, and Ling predicts these movements will increase competition among domestic Internet businesses, contributing to a freer Internet.