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District Court Rules on Key Copyright and Computer Law Issues in Online Coupon Distribution Case

July 7, 2008 - Last week, a district court in California ruled on several important copyright and computer law issues affecting the ability of software consumers to customize and modify programs on their personal computers. Two Samuelson Clinic students, Hari O’Connell and Domenic Ippolito, with help from Clinic faculty, Jennifer Lynch and Jason Schultz, filed an amicus brief in the case, on behalf of client Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), that was critical to the outcome of the ruling.  read more »

Samuelson Clinic Featured in Press for Efforts to Fix Sallie Mae's Flawed Security Practices

The Samuelson Clinic was recently featured in the Contra Costa Times for its investigation into Sallie Mae’s poor security practices. Clinic student intern Kathleen Lu and Clinic Fellow Jennifer Lynch were both quoted in the article, available online here.

Samuelson Clinic Reveals Sallie Mae’s Flawed Security Practices

Students at the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law recently accused Sallie Mae—the nation’s largest student lender—of placing millions of its customers at risk of identity theft through improper and potentially illegal authentication practices. Although Sallie Mae revised its authentication practices this spring after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the Clinic, law students say the new practice remains flawed and leaves student borrowers vulnerable to identity theft.  read more »

Samuelson Clinic Featured on Wired Threat Level Blog for Amicus Brief Filed in Support of Accused Coupon Hacker

Samuelson Clinic student interns Hari O’Connell and Domenic Ippolito, with help from Clinic faculty Jennifer Lynch and Jason Schultz, filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Elecronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in support of accused “coupon hacker” John Stottlemire’s motion to dismiss in the case Coupons, Inc. v. Stottlemire in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The Clinic argued that Coupons, Inc’s DMCA claims and common law trespass to chattels and conversion claims constitute a strained and improper interpretation of the law and should be dismissed.  read more »

Clinic Accepting Applications for Summer, Fall 2008

The Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic has openings for several summer research assistants for a broad range of legal and public policy projects. Topics may include: privacy, cyber-security, IP considerations in developing health technologies and medicine for the developing world, consumer protection, video surveillance, synthetic biology, personal genetic information, patent reexamination and opposition processes, injunctions in 1st Amendment cases, fair use, and the DMCA safe harbors. Full and part-time paid positions are available.  read more »

Clinic and BioBricks Collaborate to Promote Free Access to Standard Biological Parts

The Clinic has teamed up with the BioBricks Foundation to develop and promote intellectual property tools to facilitate the use of BioBricks standard biological parts. Clinic members made a presentation at the 2nd BioBricks Foundation Technical & Legal Standards Workshop on March 1st at UCSF.

Clinic Researcher Recommends Privacy-Strenthening Tips

January  30,  2008 

Clinic researcher Jennifer King recommended some tools for consumers to strengthen their privacy settings online in a Wall Street Journal article “It’s Hard to Hide From Your ‘Friends.’” The article discusses how several online services, such as Facebook and Google, have allowed anyone to access personal information about people they know. Whereas the concern used to be about companies sharing personal information with other companies, the debate is now centering on whether consumers want their information shared with their friends without their consent.  read more »

Privacy and the Network of You

December  22,  2007 

Clinic Director Deirdre Mulligan participated as a panelist in the “Privacy and the Network of You” discussion hosted by Sun Microsystems. Deirdre Mulligan discusses how privacy is not just a matter of regulation but that it is also a matter of creating markets that allow for technological innovations: “…privacy is something that is expected as part of the fabric in this environment.”

View Press Kit  read more »

Safeguarding Privacy on the Public Internet

December  3,  2007 

“Safeguarding Privacy on the Public Internet,” published by the New Jersey Law Journal, discusses expectations of privacy when it comes to email and other internet-related activities. The article points out several Supreme Court cases that dealt with expectations of privacy in the second half of the 20th century. The issue now is whether people can have the expectation of privacy when using their email.  read more »

Ask.com Puts a Bet on Privacy

December  11,  2007 

Senior staff attorney Chris Jay Hoofnagle commented on Ask.com’s new privacy feature in a New York Times article. The article, “Ask.com Puts a Bet on Privacy,” discusses how ask.com has added a new feature to its search engines that allows users to make their searches private. Ask.com claims that it erases search information if AskEraser is turned on. However, privacy experts doubt that this new feature will give a competitive edge to ask.com, as it only accounts for 4.7% of all searches in the United States.  read more »

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