I was pleased to be interviewed last night on BBC America World News (live!) about the convictions of three senior Google executives by an Italian court for privacy violations.  The case involved a video uploaded to Google Videos (before the acquisition of YouTube) that showed the bullying of a person with disabilities. (See “Larger [...]

Larry is speaking this week as part of TTI Vanguard’s “Shifts Happen” conference in San Francisco. Check out the remarkable list of participants and speakers.

I don’t usually blog “personal” stories, but this one is irresistible.  It raises disturbing questions at the border of digital and physical life, and legal problems of trademark and the emerging issues of cloud computing and data liability.
EBay, as everyone knows, has been struggling to improve its customer experience in the light of disappointing results [...]

I write today on CNET (see “Gripes over Google Books go Technical”) about the Department of Justice’s filing last week in the Google Books case.  The Amended Settlement Agreement (ASA), released in November, will be discussed by the parties at a fairness hearing on Feb. 18th.
The DoJ continues to object to the settlement, but now [...]

My talk at Microsoft Research in October is now available for viewing on the Microsoft Research website.
This was one of the first talks I gave introducing “The Laws of Disruption.” It was followed by a spirited Q&A on a variety of current events in technology law and policy.

“First Friday Book Synopsis”, Robert Morris, Jan. 28, 2010. An excerpt from Larry’s interview with Robert Morris, business book review extraordinaire.

“NHPR: Word of Mouth”, New Hampshire Public Radio, Feb. 1, 2010. Larry spoke with Word of Mouth’s Virginia Prescott about the failing relationship between innovation and the legal system.

“Authors @ Google: Larry Downes”, Google, Mountain View, Jan. 12, 2010. Larry’s talk at Google headquarters on “The Laws of Disruption” is available on YouTube.

After attending last week’s Federal Trade Commission online privacy roundtable, I struggled for several days to make some sense out of my notes and my own response to calls for new legislation to protect consumer privacy. The result was a 5,000 word article—too long for nearly anyone to read. More on that later.
Even [...]

Larry was interviewed on Feb. 1 for the New Hampshire public radio program “Word of Mouth.”  Larry spoke with host Virginia Prescott about the accident-prone intersection of innovation and the law, and discussed recent cases including eBay v Tiffany. You can listen to the interview here.