Evan Brown

This Week in Law Episode 243: OKScraping, Mugshot sites, and Big Content Watches You February 7, 2014

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We had a lot of fun recording Episode 243 of This Week in Law webcast with Denise Howell and Evan Brown. Among other stories in our rundown, I found the one about the lonesome computer programmer who “hacked” OKcupid.com to find his girlfriend particularly charming. No, I don’t think he violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, but it’s fun to think about.

It’s also fun to think about the future of Bitcoin, which we also discussed. The two economists who appeared as the guests on This Week in Law 244 (Stan Liebowitz, James Miller) opined that Bitcoin is essentially a shell game until the regulators catch up with it.

But with insider traders like Mathew Martoma sucking value out of the regulated markets $245 million at a time, is it irrational to put one’s trust in those developing the Bitcoin protocol? There is no inherent connection to illegal activity. Transactions would be totally traceable in metadata, unlike with cash, as long as the transactions stay within the US.

Seems more like the bad risks driving out the good, if you view the financial markets as risk pools. We now have other options. I’d accept Bitcoin for services. Would you?

Aaron Swartz, the Greatest Internet Law Hits of 2012, and Chilling Effects. April 29, 2013

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In episode 194 of This Week in Law, Denise Howell, Evan Brown, and newcomer (to me) Kevin Thompson and I had a really on-depth discussion of Aaron Swartz’s prosecution and what it means for the future of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

One hidden gem that I suggest looking at is Evan Brown’s wrap-up of the most interesting internate law cases of last year. It’s a little buried in the show notes but you’ll find it in the bookmark called “PDF Link”.

I noted a disturbing chilling effect on Evan Brown’s comments on TWiL from last Friday in episode 208, “The Devil Wears Prenda.”

It’s very weird to speak openly about the fact that one is not speaking openly, and especially coming from a technology law commentator. Look for a more robust blog post on that score in the near future.

Facebook’s IPO, “Privacy Correctness” and Charlie’s Writing September 27, 2012

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Charlie Cheever is stepping away from his day-to-day role at Quora.

Quora is and always will be a great product. It’s not easy to do a real-time, community-edited, advertising-free collection of the best sources on the Internet for questions.

One of the things I particularly like is Charlie’s style of writing. Quora has one of the most readable “About” pages on the web. I always attributed this to Charlie, because the word “great” showed up a lot in his answers.

I hope Charlie continues to contribute prolifically to Quora, and I look forward to whatever he decides to do next.

Also, here I am discussing Facebook on the day of its IPO with Kashmir Hill, Denise Howell, and Evan Brown on This Week of Law 162. “Privacy correctness” is an interesting idea. I’m generally impressed at how far we’ve come in at least considering the issue since the original Facebook privacy controversy in the Spring of 2010.