AI is getting better at performing mass categorization of photos and text. A developer can scrape a bunch of photos from, say, Facebook — either directly, likely violating the terms of service, or through offering an app by which people consent to the access — and then use a well-trained categorizer to automatically discern ethnicity, […]

Jonathan Zittrain: This is Jonathan Zittrain speaking. I’m on the line, wherever that is, with one Eric Kaplan, author of “Does Santa Exist? A Philosophical Investigation,” a book that I had the pleasure of reading and that Eric had the burden of writing—and we thought we would talk about it for a little bit. So, […]

Eric Kaplan is a writer and producer of the Big Bang Theory. He’s also a student and teacher of philosophy. Put the two together and you get Does Santa Exist?, an exploration of metaphysics, life, and ethics, from the point of view of a dangerously smart comedian. Eric and I recorded a conversation about his book, below.  (Spoiler non-alert: […]

  Guest post by Naomi Gilens, J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School [I’m pleased to feature on the blog some of the best work undertaken by HLS students on Internet-related topics. –JZ] In 2002, the FBI used the newly-passed Patriot Act to demand that libraries secretly turn over records of patrons’ reading materials and Internet use. The […]

I’ve written up a piece on Medium on why libraries matter — you can find it here: Vital parts of the Web are censored, poisoned, and lost amidst truthiness. Libraries are our unusual defense. With thanks to Knight Foundation for its new Library Challenge.

The F-T just published a piece I wrote about the implementation of the right to be forgotten in Europe.  Here is a draft from which the op-ed was drawn: Last week Google formally launched a blue-ribbon committee of advisors to help it implement the European Court of Justice’s new “right to be forgotten.” Its work is cut out […]

More than a decade ago, researchers at Boston College interviewed people from both sides of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, promising each contributor to the “Belfast Project” that his or her interview recording wouldn’t be released until the contributor died. In the meantime, the tapes would be deposited at the College’s rare books library under […]

I’ve written an op-ed for the New York Times about the European Court of Justice’s ruling finding a “right to be forgotten.” After that and my initial blog post in reaction to the court’s ruling, I wanted to share some further thoughts on this fascinating and potentially far-reaching development. First, a refresher on the facts: A […]

Today the EU’s highest court interpreted the EU’s 1995 Data Protection Directive to mean that individuals should have a shot at insisting that Google and other search engines remove certain search results found upon a search for their names, not because they are false, or infringe copyright, but because they violate a “respect for private life” […]

I’ve long thought that, as tough as privacy against government intrusion and corporate surveillance are, the most novel and complex privacy challenges will be peer-to-peer. With gov’t and corporate privacy issues, the players to be affected are more known and manageable, and impinging on their freedom to collect on us — or report what they […]