{"id":2823,"date":"2019-01-30T13:51:49","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T13:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/?page_id=2823"},"modified":"2025-10-30T12:16:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T12:16:23","slug":"digital-structure","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/digital\/digital-structure\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital structure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: for antitrust and digital media, see Antitrust and digital media, section 12.4,\u00a0 on this site.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

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Net neutrality\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n

Net neutrality involves the principle that internet service providers (ISPs) be compelled to operate without discriminating against consumers.\u00a0 The argument is that they are essentially \u201ccommon carriers<\/a>\u201d and should charge equally for the same services to everyone.<\/p>\n

In common law countries, regulations about common carriers (such as planes, trains, wagons, canal barges, phone lines and all other public means of conveyance) have specifically forbidden discrimination for many centuries.<\/p>\n

The concern about net neutrality is that consumers would be pushed in the direction of services that the ISPs would prefer (for commercial or ideological reasons).\u00a0 Liberals believe that consumers need protection;\u00a0 conservatives believe government regulation may hold back innovation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Net neutrality has been a political football since at least 2010, when the Obama era FCC passed a regulation “Preserving the Open Internet” (25 FCCR 17905,\u00a0 Dec 23, 2010.)\u00a0 After some regulatory and legislative maneuvering, a\u00a0 followup regulation, the FCC\u2019s\u00a0 2015 orders favoring net neutrality,<\/a> passed during the Obama administration. It was challenged by the big telecommunications companies in US Telecom Assoc. v FCC, 2016.<\/strong><\/a> a victory for liberals that the New York Times<\/a>\u00a0called \u201ca sweeping decision clearing the way for more rigorous policing of broadband providers and greater protections for web users.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0The US Supreme Court decided, in November 2018<\/a>, not to review the case, essentially leaving a pro-consumer regulation from the Obama era in place.<\/p>\n

However, the Trump FCC reversed the FCC’s\u00a0 net neutrality stance in 2017<\/a>.\u00a0 and the Trump Justice Dept. sued the state of California, which passed its own net neutrality standards.<\/p>\n

The Biden Administration dropped the suit against California and the\u00a0 FCC’s new chair, Jessica Rosenworcel,\u00a0 began a process to reinstate net neutrality rules<\/a> in Sept. 2023,<\/p>\n

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Search engine rankings\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Another controversy<\/strong> involves the extent to which a simple search engine ranking can boost or bust a business. Two attempts to challenge Google’s search ratings failed, and that scores generated by computer algorithms are not defamatory.<\/p>\n

Search King v Google,<\/a>\u00a02003 \u2014 A search engine optimization company sued Google after its clients search rankings were lowered. \u00a0\u201cPageRanks are opinions of the significance of particular web sites as they correspond to a search query,\u201d said a federal court. \u201cOther search engines express different opinions, as each search engine\u2019s method of determining relative significance is unique. The Court simply finds there is no conceivable way to prove that the relative significance assigned to a given web site is false.\u201d<\/p>\n

KinderStart v Google, 2006 \u2013<\/a>\u2013 The children\u2019s search engine KinderStart claimed that Google lowered its ranking which reflected\u00a0\u00a0\u201cpervasive monopolistic practices\u201d and\u00a0denial of the KinderStart\u2019s free speech rights.\u00a0 The suit was dismissed, and the judge\u2019s opinion noted that the pagerank\u00a0score reflects Google\u2019s opinions. The judge also said a\u00a0score generated by a computer algorithm is\u00a0probably not defamatory.\u00a0But if KinderStart\u00a0could show there was \u201cmanual intervention\u201d by someone at Google, there might be a stronger basis for a complaint.<\/p>\n

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Domain Name Services\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In 2016, the US handed over control of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN\u00a0<\/a>) to an independent agency organized under the United Nations.\u00a0 \u00a0Some American conservatives called it a \u201csurrender\u201d<\/a> although there are others who believe that the ICANN affiliation is a non-issue. \u00a0The issue is muddied by the notion that copyright pirates are creating their own domains,\u00a0<\/a>at least, according to the MPAA.<\/p>\n

One of\u00a0 ICANN’s major jobs is to resolve trademark and URL disputes. For example, in 2019, ICANN decided that the Seattle based Amazon corporation would own the \u00a0amazon.com<\/a> registration instead of the\u00a0 Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Software & copyright<\/h3>\n

Oracle America v Google Inc.,2021 <\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>\u2014 An API in an operating system used by Google Android had a structure and order of operations copied from Oracle, but was that a copyright violation or a fair use?\u00a0 Jurors agreed that Oracle\u2019s copyright to Java software had not been infringed when Google created a parallel programming language designed to work with Java and named some of the new language\u2019s API functions in ways that were similar to Oracle\u2019s Java. \u00a0\u00a0Although the lawsuit only involved a fraction of Google\u2019s revenues, a victory for Oracle would have meant that courts would be backing a legal theory that would have\u00a0 hampered\u00a0\u00a0software compatibility.<\/p>\n

In April 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Google.<\/strong> In\u00a0 a 6\u20132 decision, they said that Google’s use of the Java APIs fell within the four factors of fair use, bypassing the question on the copyrightability of the APIs. The decision reversed the Federal Circuit ruling and remanded the case for further review.<\/p>\n

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Commercial versus municipal broadband<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A coalition of municipal broadband supporters has reported significant roadblocks.<\/a>to development\u00a0 of\u00a0 independent\u00a0 municipal\u00a0 broadband\u00a0 services. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: for antitrust and digital media, see Antitrust and digital media, section 12.4,\u00a0 on this site.\u00a0 Net neutrality\u00a0 Net neutrality involves the principle that internet service providers (ISPs) be compelled to operate without discriminating against consumers.\u00a0 The argument is that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":1665,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2823","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2823"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6858,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2823\/revisions\/6858"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}