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Category Archives: Legislation

Are YouTube Advertisers Inadvertently Harvesting Data From Millions of Children?

The New York Times [read free]: YouTube Ads May Have Led to Online Tracking of Children, Research Says. “YouTube’s advertising practices on kids’ channels could have resulted in companies tracking children across the web, a report said.This year, BMO, a Canadian bank, was looking for Canadian adults to apply for a credit card. So the… Continue Reading

The Corporatist Foundations of Financial Regulation

Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance. David T. Zaring is the Elizabeth F. Putzel Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. This post is based on his recent paper, published in the Iowa Law Review. “Nobody should feel sorry for banks, necessarily, but they labor under heavy, and in… Continue Reading

An Iowa school district is using AI to ban books

“It certainly didn’t take long for AI’s other shoe to drop, what with the emergent technology already being perverted to commit confidence scams and generate spam content. We can now add censorship to that list as the Globe Gazette reports the school board of Mason City, Iowa has begun leveraging AI technology to cultivate lists… Continue Reading

AI Causes Real Harm. Let’s Focus on That over the End-of-Humanity Hype

Scientific American Opinion: Effective regulation of AI needs grounded science that investigates real harms, not glorified press releases about existential risk. Wrongful arrests, an expanding surveillance dragnet, defamation and deep-fake pornography are all actually existing dangers of so-called “artificial intelligence” tools currently on the market. That, and not the imagined potential to wipe out humanity,… Continue Reading

How Georgia Trump indictment would differ from the federal Jan. 6 case

The Hill: “A sprawling, multi-defendant indictment. An ex-president’s trial televised for the world to watch. Potential charges typically used for organized crime.   Before charges have even been announced, the possible indictment of former President Trump in Georgia — hinging on his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results to remain in power — already… Continue Reading

Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top August 2023

In Custodia Legis – August 2023 – Browse back to the First Congress: “In July, Robert shared news about the new treaty document email alerts. He also shared that we added Browse pages back to the 43rd Congress that included the Bound Congressional Record. We have done a lot of work over the recent months… Continue Reading

Severance Agreements Requiring Employees to Broadly Waive Labor Law Rights

NLRB [this dates from February 2023]: “The Board issued a decision in McLaren Macomb, returning to longstanding precedent holding that employers may not offer employees severance agreements that require employees to broadly waive their rights under the National Labor Relations Act. The decision involved severance agreements offered to furloughed employees that prohibited them from making… Continue Reading

How governments are looking to regulate AI

Economist Intelligence – EIU: The EU has taken the lead with the strictest rules, which will have the biggest impact globally Chinese rules are also strict, but their impact is domestic, and geared towards keeping control and power with the ruling party The US favours innovation, and its political system hinders any attempt at regulation,… Continue Reading

Cory Doctorow is a Bestselling Author, but Audible Won’t Carry his Audiobooks

Editorial by Cory Doctorow: “Audible is a monopolist. The audiobook giant – a division of Amazon – controls more than 90 percent of the audiobook market in most commercially significant categories. Audible built that monopoly the old-fashioned way: by cheating. Audible is part of the Amazon conglomerate. Like all tech giants, Amazon’s growth strategy was… Continue Reading

Biden administration launches new income-driven student debt repayment plan

Fact Sheet via WH: “Federal Student Aid, a part of the U.S. Department of Education, is the largest provider of student financial aid in the nation. At the office of Federal Student Aid, our more than 1,400 employees help make college education possible for more than 10 million students each year. Federal Student Aid is… Continue Reading

EPA Releases New Framework Addressing New Pfas and New Uses of Pfas in The Market

National Law Review: “On Thursday, 29 June 2023, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a new framework (Framework) that will impact manufacturers across the country. The Framework lays out a new process for reviewing and assessing the potential environmental risks posed by new and new uses of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). This PFAS… Continue Reading