Law and Information
type: channel
description: obtaining a better understanding of the information society and law’s role in it.
date: 2012-12-11T20:50:59Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Interop Case Study #4: Electronic Data Interchange Interoperability
items: Interop Case Study #3: Cloud Computing
items: Interop Case Study #2: Bar Code Interoperability
items: Interop Case Study #1: “Fitness Landscapes and the Electrical Grid”
items: Zum Umgang mit Chancen und Risiken der Digitalgesellschaft
items: Interop
items: Born Digital: How To Deal With Online Aggression?
items: How Can Law Foster Innovative Entrepreneurship? A Blueprint for a Research Program
items: Information Quality and Reputation
items: Discussing ‘Born Digital’ with European Students

Interop Case Study #4: Electronic Data Interchange Interoperability
type: item
creator: ugasser
date: 2012-12-11T20:50:59Z
subject: EDI
subject: innovation
subject: interoperability
description: The forth case study in our interop series looks into Electronic Data Interchange interoperability. The case was researched with the help of our wonderful Berkman student fellow Matthew B. Becker. He submitted the following blog post as an introduction to the case: Electronic data interchange (EDI) provides an excellent context for examining how interoperability at the technological and data […]
encoded: The forth case study in our interop series looks into Electronic Data Interchange interoperability. The case was researched with the help of our wonderful Berkman student fellow Matthew B. Becker. He submitted the following blog post as an introduction to the case: Electronic data interchange (EDI) provides an excellent context for examining how interoperability at the technological and data level can also produce profound effects at a higher, institutional level. Originally conceived as a means for speeding up the delivery of invoices and purchase orders by sending them electronically, EDI resulted in significant shifts with regard to retailer-supplier relations that went far beyond transaction efficiency. In tandem with the introduction of bar codes (the subject of another case study in our Interop series), which provided greater insight into sales trends, the use of EDI allowed retailers to automate their purchase orders, increasing inventory replenishment speed and redefining supply chain management; i.e., allowing the merging of Internet technology with JIT (just-in-time), a Japanese manufacturing management method that was developed in the 1970s. Retailers and suppliers who had previously guarded their sales and inventory information and made deals at arms-length, found that they had much to gain by radically integrating their operations and using EDI to share their inventory data immediately and automatically. One of the first and largest adopters of the merged EDI-JIT system were the three major U.S. automakers (GM, Ford, and Chrysler), in which they used electronic “mailboxes” to acquire information on production and non-production parts as well as to manage their order and requests electronically. Retailers such as Wal-Mart and Sears quickly followed suit, in which whenever a sale was made, that information was immediately transferred electronically so that the data could be used to update inventory, calculate sales and create other statistical reports. Wi…

Interop Case Study #3: Cloud Computing
type: item
creator: ugasser
date: 2012-08-16T16:03:55Z
subject: case study
subject: cloud
subject: innovation
subject: interoperability
description: In recent years, the growth of cloud computing has enabled users to utilize storage or processing power from geographically distant locations over the Internet. Cloud technologies have been lauded as a means for enhancing productivity, efficiency, and innovation by allowing on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable networks, servers, applications, and services. According […]
encoded: In recent years, the growth of cloud computing has enabled users to utilize storage or processing power from geographically distant locations over the Internet. Cloud technologies have been lauded as a means for enhancing productivity, efficiency, and innovation by allowing on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable networks, servers, applications, and services. According to a recent IBM study, the number of businesses adopting cloud computing to revamp existing business models will more than double by 2015, as business leaders are starting to view the cloud not just as a way to cut costs but also as a means for fundamental business innovation. Due to the growing ubiquity of cloud computing in the digital world, examining issues of cloud interoperability offers profound insights about the legal, public policy, and technological challenges faced by businesses and other institutions engaged in this field. Berkman student fellow Matthew Becker’s recent case study on the topic, developed as part of our ongoing series on interoperability, suggests that greater scientific and technological reform, balanced with salient consideration of legal and social factors (such as user behavior and expectations), is required for successful interoperability in cloud computing. Financial considerations can often drive small businesses “to the cloud.” Specifically, many businesses with underutilized IT departments have found cloud computing to be highly cost-effective. Simultaneously, on the end-user side, consumers have benefited from and enjoyed free or low-cost software from the cloud, which is becoming available on an increasing number of portable devices. As explored in the case study and our book Interop, there are two integral dimensions to cloud computing interoperability: the vertical dimension and the horizontal dimension. The vertical dimension involves interoperability of software, applications, and data within a single cloud. In other words, from the consumer…

Interop Case Study #2: Bar Code Interoperability
type: item
creator: ugasser
date: 2012-07-16T14:03:42Z
subject: case study
subject: collective action
subject: industry collaboration
subject: interoperability
description: The second case studies in our interop series looks into Bar Code interoperability, a great case that highlights the aspects inter-industry cooperation as well as collective action problems. The case was researched by incoming Berkman student fellow Matthew B. Becker. He submitted the following blog post as an introduction to the case: When approaching the subject […]
encoded: The second case studies in our interop series looks into Bar Code interoperability, a great case that highlights the aspects inter-industry cooperation as well as collective action problems. The case was researched by incoming Berkman student fellow Matthew B. Becker. He submitted the following blog post as an introduction to the case: When approaching the subject of interoperability, bar codes were an immediate interest of mine. Practically ubiquitous today, bar codes can be found on nearly every package, and are increasingly common in many other applications beyond retail. It is precisely this prevalence that made me wonder how such a technology came to be implemented so widely. In hindsight, the value of bar codes seems obvious, and it can be difficult to imagine that there might have been a time when their adoption was anything but certain. However, as this study demonstrates, the history was far more complex. Both retailers and manufacturers recognized that implementing bar codes could reduce costs and increase the efficiency of their operations, but only if they were adopted by the majority of manufacturers and a very large number of retailers. As such, few businesses wanted to incur the costs of implementation without assurance that there would be a return on their investment, and for a time, bar codes were thought to have failed. This issue has been called a “chicken-and-egg” adoption problem, where there is a question as to “who should go first.” Similarly, it might also be considered a collective action problem, as it demonstrates a situation where the common interests of all parties were impeded by the immediate concerns and actions of the individuals themselves. Collective action problems appear to be quite common when exploring the subject of interoperability, which by nature requires the participation of various entities. What makes this example particularly interesting is that the collective action problem was solved without significant government int…

Interop Case Study #1: “Fitness Landscapes and the Electrical Grid”
type: item
creator: ugasser
date: 2012-07-08T17:11:47Z
subject: case study
subject: interoperability
subject: smart grid
description: As previously noted, “Interop” is part of a series of experiments regarding the format of a book. In the case of Interop, we publish it along with a set of case studies that have served as the raw data for the analysis and theory we present in the book version. As our early case studies on […]
encoded: As previously noted, “Interop” is part of a series of experiments regarding the format of a book. In the case of Interop, we publish it along with a set of case studies that have served as the raw data for the analysis and theory we present in the book version. As our early case studies on digital music, digital identity systems, and mash ups, all the materials are freely available online, via SSRN. Over the next few weeks, we will introduce some of the more recent case studies, several of them authored by wonderful research assistants on our Interop research team. Today – in time with the very high temperatures outside and the increased energy consumption – we would like to introduce the case study on the “smart grid” written by Paul Kominers. Paul submitted the following abstract to introduce the case he researched with us: Imagine a mountain climber without a map. Rather than going downwards to return to town as might be sensible, he wants to find the highest point in the entire mountain range. But due to a blizzard, he cannot see very far; he can only tell whether a certain direction takes him higher or lower, and he has to stop every fifty yards or so to reevaluate and pick a new direction. We can imagine many things happening to this mountain climber. He might find a path to the very highest point on the range. But he easily might not. If he finds himself near the top of the second-highest peak, he will probably follow the path to the top of that peak. In fact, if he finds himself approaching any peak, he will probably follow the path up to the top of the peak, unless the blizzard clears and he can see that he is on a lower peak. If he can see where the higher peak is, he might go down far enough to get onto a path that takes him up the higher peak, and then go straight up. Alternately, he might be lazy. He might find himself somewhere that gives him a vantage point to see where the highest peak is, but decide that he does not want to expend the effort to go f…

Zum Umgang mit Chancen und Risiken der Digitalgesellschaft
type: item
creator: ugasser
date: 2012-06-18T11:26:45Z
subject: generativity
subject: Internet policy making
subject: interoperability
subject: jurisdiction
subject: policy
subject: privacy
description: I had the pleasure to deliver a keynote last Friday in Berlin at the first Congress on Internet Policy organized by the German SPD-Bundestagsfraktion and discuss principles of good Internet policy making with Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Please find the manuscript of my speech below (in German). Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, Ich freue mich sehr, heute […]
encoded: I had the pleasure to deliver a keynote last Friday in Berlin at the first Congress on Internet Policy organized by the German SPD-Bundestagsfraktion and discuss principles of good Internet policy making with Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Please find the manuscript of my speech below (in German). Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, Ich freue mich sehr, heute mit Ihnen Gedanken zur Frage des angemessenen Umgangs mit den vielgestaltigen Herausforderungen und Chancen der digital vernetzten Gesellschaft auszutauschen. Mein Argument geht im Kern dahin, dass der längerfristig erfolgreiche – mithin politisch erfolgreiche – Umgang mit der digitalen Revolution von drei wesentlichen Faktoren und ihrem Zusammenspiel abhängt: (1) Der erste Faktor betrifft unsere Bereitschaft und Fähigkeit, das Phänomen Internet und seine Auswirkungen auf die verschiedenen Gesellschaftsbereiche besser zu verstehen – oder genauer: verstehen zu lernen. Dabei geht es zunächst einmal um ein verbessertes Verständnis der Funktionsweise digitaler Technologien, aber auch um die Erforschung der humanen, organisationellen, und institutionellen Zusammenhänge. Dabei wird in Zukunft die Interoperabilität zwischen Forschung und Politik wesentlich zu erhöhen sein. Ich werde diese Herausforderung im Folgenden als die gemeinsame analytische Herausforderung in der Digitalgesellschaft bezeichnen. (2) Die mit dem Internet einhergehenden tektonischen Verschiebungen durchdringen fast alle Lebensbereiche. Ihre Komplexität wird zusätzlich gesteigert, indem sie mit anderen gesellschaftlichen Umwälzungen interagiert. Zu erwähnen sind insbesondere die Ausbildung eines netzwerkorientierten Individualismus und die globale mobile Revolution. Diese Veränderungsprozesse, die in einem neuen „gesellschaftlichen Betriebssystem“ resultieren, fordern nicht nur bestehende Normsysteme und damit Institutionen wie etwa das Recht heraus. Sie gehen auch mit einer Verschiebung der Bewertungsgrundlagen selbst einher. Zusammengenommen stehen wir als …

Interop
type: item
creator: ugasser
date: 2012-06-06T07:29:33Z
subject: interoperability
description: John Palfrey and I have a new book out: Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems. The book is part of a larger research initiative at the Berkman Center with focus on interoperability – or the art and science of working together. It synthesizes six years of research and builds upon previous work, […]
encoded: John Palfrey and I have a new book out: Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems. The book is part of a larger research initiative at the Berkman Center with focus on interoperability – or the art and science of working together. It synthesizes six years of research and builds upon previous work, including a white paper and a series of case studies written with the help of a fantastic team of student researchers, which we will release over the next few weeks. For a preview, check out our SSRN series. I care deeply about this book, and even more so than about previous things I have written. I believe that the questions addressed in Interop are fundamental in nature as we are trying to build a better world. At its core, the book tells the story of an increasingly interconnected digital society and explores how much interconnectivity we need among systems and their components to solve the biggest challenges we face in today’s society – from the health care crisis to global warming. Importantly, we do not argue in favor of unlimited interoperability. While we have evidence that interop is generally a sound public policy goal as it usually drives innovation (with important caveats) and economic growth, makes systems more efficient, and increases user autonomy, we acknowledge important downsides and costs of interconnectedness. The book is an attempt to build a theory of interoperability, by weaving together a rich set of case studies, that provides initial insight in how we can design optimum levels of interconnectedness. And indeed, the question of appropriate speed-bumps and “digital breakwaters” is among the most pressing and difficult issues we need to address. As pointed out in the Nature review of Interop, we still have a long way to go to provide final answers to this set of hard questions. But we hope that the book introduces a helpful analytical framework and offers key normative considerations as we work together towards optimum levels o…

Born Digital: How To Deal With Online Aggression?
type: item
creator: ugasser
date: 2008-08-26T19:41:32Z
subject: aggression
subject: Born Digital
subject: bullying
subject: digital media
subject: digital natives
subject: safety
subject: violence
description: Almost synchronously with the release of Born Digital in the U.S., the Swiss conservative party CVP has made headlines with a position paper that outlines actions to proactively deal with the problems associated with online aggression in Switzerland. The strategy proposed by the conservative party focuses on youth and addresses Internet violence (including cyberbullying) in […]
encoded: Almost synchronously with the release of Born Digital in the U.S., the Swiss conservative party CVP has made headlines with a position paper that outlines actions to proactively deal with the problems associated with online aggression in Switzerland. The strategy proposed by the conservative party focuses on youth and addresses Internet violence (including cyberbullying) in general and violent games in particular. Among the measures suggested in the position paper are: Introduction of a nation-wide, harmonized rating and classification system for movies, games and MMS services, analogous to the Dutch NICAM model; Amendment of the Swiss Penal Code, sec. 135, in order to ban the sale and making available of games with violent or (other) adult content to children and teenagers; Incorporation of a federal Media Competence Center for electronic media that would administer the classification system, run information and prevention campaigns to educate parents, teachers, etc., and study online addiction, among other things; Commission and release of a study on cyberbullying by the Swiss Federal Council; Formalized collaboration among the Swiss cantons in order to protect youth from violent content; Mandatory inclusion of media literacy classes into the curriculum at public schools (including sessions on the effects of extensive use of media); Information campaign to educate parents and teachers; Conversations between teachers and parents in cases of under-performance of school children due to excessive media usage. We’ve discussed several of these strategies in Born Digital, chapter 9. The summary paragraph of our analysis reads as follows: The best regulators of violence in our society, whether online or not, are parents and teachers, because they are the people closest to Digital Natives themselves. Parents and teachers have the most time with kids—and, ideally, their trust. As in other contexts, parents and teachers need to start by understanding what their Digital Nativ…

How Can Law Foster Innovative Entrepreneurship? A Blueprint for a Research Program
type: item
creator: ugasser
date: 2008-02-11T16:07:21Z
subject: entrepreneurship
subject: futurology
subject: Gruter Institute
subject: innovation
subject: law and economics
subject: new institutional economics
subject: policy
subject: reputation
description: I just got back from a conference on “Legal Institutions and Entrepreneurship” at Stanford, organized by the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Science and the Kauffman Foundation. Experts from various disciplines, including biology, neuro-economics, zoology, and business studies, among others, discussed the question how innovative entrepreneurship (in the Schumpeterian sense) can be facilitated by […]
encoded: I just got back from a conference on “Legal Institutions and Entrepreneurship” at Stanford, organized by the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Science and the Kauffman Foundation. Experts from various disciplines, including biology, neuro-economics, zoology, and business studies, among others, discussed the question how innovative entrepreneurship (in the Schumpeterian sense) can be facilitated by legal institutions and alternative institutional arrangements like, for instance, reputation systems. In my contribution, I presented the idea of a “legal lab” analogous, for instance, to the MIT’s media lab, which would be devoted to the study of innovations within the legal/regulatory system itself and would experiment with innovative institutional regimes (e.g. using virtual worlds such as Second Life as rich social environments). Together with my St. Gallen collaborators Herbert Burkert and Patrick Gruendler as well as with my colleagues and friends at the Berkman Center, John Palfrey and Colin Maclay, I’ve been working on this idea for some months, and I’m thrilled that several conference participants – including Judith Donath and Oliver Goodenough – will help us to work towards a project proposal in the weeks to come. In my formal presentation, I attempted to frame the main research topics at the heart of the law & entrepreneurship debate by offering an initial mental map, consisting of three related, but analytically distinct clusters of research. 1. The first cluster deals with a set of rather fundamental questions concerning the basic relationship between the legal system and entrepreneurship. Traditionally – and in the US in particular – law has been perceived as a constraint on behavior. Entrepreneurs, in contrast, are in the rule-breaking business. Entrepreneurship is very much about creative anarchy, as Deborah Spar eloquently described it, and from this angle law is usually perceived as an obstacle to innovation and entrepreneurship. However, a number o…

Information Quality and Reputation
type: item
creator: ugasser
date: 2007-12-08T14:33:26Z
subject: digital institutions
subject: information quality
subject: peer collaboration
subject: reputation
description: Heavily influenced by the work of Jean Nicolas Druey and Herbert Burkert, among others, I’ve been working on information quality issues in various contexts for the past 8 years or so. Today, I have the pleasure to attend the Yale Information Society Project’s conference on Reputation Economies in Cyberspace and contribute to a panel on […]
encoded: Heavily influenced by the work of Jean Nicolas Druey and Herbert Burkert, among others, I’ve been working on information quality issues in various contexts for the past 8 years or so. Today, I have the pleasure to attend the Yale Information Society Project’s conference on Reputation Economies in Cyberspace and contribute to a panel on reputational quality and information quality. Essentially, I would like to share three observations that are based on previous research projects. The three points I will talk about later today are: From both a theoretical and empirical viewpoint, information quality is a horse that is difficult to catch. As a complicating factor, information quality in the context of reputation systems is a meta-question, concerning the quality of statements about the qualities of a person, service, advice, or the like. As such, it is important to be specific about the particular aspect of the quality challenge that is up for discussion in a given quality discourse. A taxonomy of quality problems/issues in the context of online reputation might be a good first step. Such a taxonomy needs to conceptualize informational quality of reputation as a composite of syntactic (data), semantic (meaning), and pragmatic (effects) factors. [We will present an initial draft of such a taxonomy at the conference] While addressing specific quality issues, it’s important to consider the full range of possible approaches (“tools”) that are available. The role of market-based approaches (“pricing”, “incentives”) has already been explored in detail in the context of reputation systems. We also have a growing understanding about the social norms at work (research on online identity). As far as technology (“platform design”) is concerned, insights from social signaling theory might be a source of inspiration (e.g. conditions to foster honest signaling). Largely unexplored, by contrast, is the substantive (e.g. privacy) or procedural (e.g. due process) role that law may play…

Discussing ‘Born Digital’ with European Students
type: item
creator: ugasser
date: 2007-12-03T15:56:19Z
subject: Born Digital
subject: digital natives
description: John Palfrey and I are getting tremendously helpful feedback on the draft v.0.9 of our forthcoming book Born Digital (Basic Books, German translation with Hanser) from a number of great students at Harvard and St. Gallen Law School, respectively. Last week, John and I had an inspiring conversation about the current draft with our first […]
encoded: John Palfrey and I are getting tremendously helpful feedback on the draft v.0.9 of our forthcoming book Born Digital (Basic Books, German translation with Hanser) from a number of great students at Harvard and St. Gallen Law School, respectively. Last week, John and I had an inspiring conversation about the current draft with our first readers on this side of the Atlantic: a small, but great and diverse group of law students here at www.unisg.ch. The students, coming from Switzerland, Germany, France, Singapore, and the U.S., were kind enough to share their feedback with us based on reaction papers they’ve drafted in response to assigned book chapters. Today, the second session took place. John and I are currently revisiting the final chapter of the book. The “final” chapter, of course, is by no means “final” – even not if it once becomes a chapter of the printed book. What we’re trying to do is simply to synthesize some of the things we’ve said so far, and to look ahead once again and ask ourselves how the digital world will look like for our kids given the things we know – and we don’t know – about their digital lives. In this spirit, the last chapter of the book in particular is an open invitation to join the discussion about the promises and challenges of the Internet for a population that is born digital. Against this backdrop, we prepared three discussion questions for today’s session here in St. Gallen. First, what do you think is the greatest opportunity for Digital Natives when it comes to digital technologies? Second, what are you most concerned about when thinking about the future of the Internet? Third, what approach – generically speaking – seems best suited to address the challenges you’ve identified? Here are the students’ thoughts in brief: Greatest opportunities: Democratizing effect of the net: DN can build their own businesses without huge upfront investments (Rene, Switzerland) ICT enables networking among people across boundaries (Catrine, Switz…