Summaries: Law and Technology LLM Tilburg University
Academic Year: 2020-2021
! Disclaimer: Copyright of slides, schemes, pictures belongs to Tilburg University, its lecturers
and/or respective owners !
, 2020/2021
Global E-Commerce and Internet Liability Summary
Lecture 1 Colette Cuijpers – General Introduction
Lecture 2 Colette Cuijpers Tiffany vs Ebay
Lecture 3 Colette Cuijpers Online defamation
Lecture 4 NO LECTURE
Lecture 5 Maurice Schellekens ISP liability
Lecture 6 Maurice Schellekens Grokster
Lecture 7 Lokke Moerel Ecommerce legal framework
Lecture 8 Ronan Tigner Electronic Signatures
Lecture 9 Konrad Borowicz Liability on the Blockchain
Lecture 10 Konrad Borowicz Liability on the Blockchain
Lecture 11 Group Presentations
Lecture 12 Group Presentations
Lecture 13 Lokke Moerel Ecommerce part II
1
, Lecture 1: Liability and the Internet
Literature Review
Digital dilemmas: European regulation and the internet
• The internet challenges ways in which governments approach regulation, because the internet has
the capacity to blur boundaries between various entities
• Becomes harder to: address bullying, coercive behaviour, extremism, disinformation, harmful
activities
2
, • National character of regulatory frameworks
• Disproportionate/poorly designed regulation poses a threat to innovation
• If European standards are imposed on all facets of technology:
§ Could place European tech companies at a disadvantage when competing
§ EU will have to pursue smart policymaking (regulation vs. innovation)
Solutions
1. Multi-stakeholder model
• Stakeholders = users, companies that own digital infrastructure e.tc.
• Requires companies, government bodies, civil society groups to work together in forums to
develop a policy consensus
• The more inclusive the process is, the better its results and its implementation
2. Private sector ownership
• With technology changing so quickly that regulators often fail to keep up, much legislation is
redundant by the time it is implemented.
• Meanwhile, companies and individuals will always be able to find loopholes that allow them
to circumvent existing rules or develop new technologies in a policy vacuum, resulting in a cat-
and-mouse game between regulators and the private sector
• Should involve some government regulation
3. Guiding principles
• Policymakers should define the general set of principles and rules that cover the operations of
tech companies, especially platform economics
4. Transparent algorithms
• Platforms shape the information end-users receive to a significant degree
• Tech companies need to curate online content in a more transparent manner
The regulation of technology: policy tools and policy actors (Charles Raab, Paul de Hert)
• Central tendency in the literature and the practice of privacy protection, as well as in the discourse
on ICT regulation more widely à two instruments preoccupy commentators and practitioners: laws
and technological solutions
Diagram: illustrates both a policy and implementation system or network of functioning agents and
their instruments, and as a political system the distribution of power that would remain to be described
• The main point of the argument is that only by carefully mapping the actors and their interactions
can we more completely understand the effects of the different regulatory instruments that are used
in each field of application.
Lessig’s Analysis of regulatory instruments: criticisms
• Lessig offers the regulation of privacy as an example
of law taming code: the state acting to impose changes
on code in order to increase the ability of the individual
to exercise privacy choices
• This pattern probably sits more comfortably in
contexts such as that of the USA where political and
business resistance to other legislative solutions, and to
non-consumerist, human rights-based conceptions of
privacy, have limited the range of alternative regulatory
solutions in recent years
• European countries: more active roles are found for
collective actors (such as regulatory agencies) to play
key parts in the process by helping to implement
legislation
3
Academic Year: 2020-2021
! Disclaimer: Copyright of slides, schemes, pictures belongs to Tilburg University, its lecturers
and/or respective owners !
, 2020/2021
Global E-Commerce and Internet Liability Summary
Lecture 1 Colette Cuijpers – General Introduction
Lecture 2 Colette Cuijpers Tiffany vs Ebay
Lecture 3 Colette Cuijpers Online defamation
Lecture 4 NO LECTURE
Lecture 5 Maurice Schellekens ISP liability
Lecture 6 Maurice Schellekens Grokster
Lecture 7 Lokke Moerel Ecommerce legal framework
Lecture 8 Ronan Tigner Electronic Signatures
Lecture 9 Konrad Borowicz Liability on the Blockchain
Lecture 10 Konrad Borowicz Liability on the Blockchain
Lecture 11 Group Presentations
Lecture 12 Group Presentations
Lecture 13 Lokke Moerel Ecommerce part II
1
, Lecture 1: Liability and the Internet
Literature Review
Digital dilemmas: European regulation and the internet
• The internet challenges ways in which governments approach regulation, because the internet has
the capacity to blur boundaries between various entities
• Becomes harder to: address bullying, coercive behaviour, extremism, disinformation, harmful
activities
2
, • National character of regulatory frameworks
• Disproportionate/poorly designed regulation poses a threat to innovation
• If European standards are imposed on all facets of technology:
§ Could place European tech companies at a disadvantage when competing
§ EU will have to pursue smart policymaking (regulation vs. innovation)
Solutions
1. Multi-stakeholder model
• Stakeholders = users, companies that own digital infrastructure e.tc.
• Requires companies, government bodies, civil society groups to work together in forums to
develop a policy consensus
• The more inclusive the process is, the better its results and its implementation
2. Private sector ownership
• With technology changing so quickly that regulators often fail to keep up, much legislation is
redundant by the time it is implemented.
• Meanwhile, companies and individuals will always be able to find loopholes that allow them
to circumvent existing rules or develop new technologies in a policy vacuum, resulting in a cat-
and-mouse game between regulators and the private sector
• Should involve some government regulation
3. Guiding principles
• Policymakers should define the general set of principles and rules that cover the operations of
tech companies, especially platform economics
4. Transparent algorithms
• Platforms shape the information end-users receive to a significant degree
• Tech companies need to curate online content in a more transparent manner
The regulation of technology: policy tools and policy actors (Charles Raab, Paul de Hert)
• Central tendency in the literature and the practice of privacy protection, as well as in the discourse
on ICT regulation more widely à two instruments preoccupy commentators and practitioners: laws
and technological solutions
Diagram: illustrates both a policy and implementation system or network of functioning agents and
their instruments, and as a political system the distribution of power that would remain to be described
• The main point of the argument is that only by carefully mapping the actors and their interactions
can we more completely understand the effects of the different regulatory instruments that are used
in each field of application.
Lessig’s Analysis of regulatory instruments: criticisms
• Lessig offers the regulation of privacy as an example
of law taming code: the state acting to impose changes
on code in order to increase the ability of the individual
to exercise privacy choices
• This pattern probably sits more comfortably in
contexts such as that of the USA where political and
business resistance to other legislative solutions, and to
non-consumerist, human rights-based conceptions of
privacy, have limited the range of alternative regulatory
solutions in recent years
• European countries: more active roles are found for
collective actors (such as regulatory agencies) to play
key parts in the process by helping to implement
legislation
3
