AALS Call for Papers: Internet and Computer Law Call for Papers: The Disruptive Rise of the Mobile Internet

The AALS Section on Internet and Computer Law invites short papers or extended abstracts for its program on “The Disruptive Rise of the Mobile Internet” at the Annual Meeting, to be held on Friday, January 3, 2014, from 10:30 A.M. – 12:15 P.M. in New York.

Deadline: September 3, 2013. Submissions should be sent via email to section chair Paul Ohm at paul.ohm[@]colorado.edu. Call for Papers Subcommittee members will select one or two papers from those submitted by blind review. Please redact anything that might reasonably identify the name or affiliation of the author from the paper before submitting. Submitters will be informed of decisions no later than Saturday, September 28, 2013. im

Topic Description. The Internet has perhaps changed more in the past five years than it had in the prior twenty years, since the birth of the web. For the first time, more users connect through mobile devices like smart phones and tablets than through laptop and desktop computers. These devices are more personal and produce data that are more sensitive than the legacy PCs they have replaced. They have given rise to many disruptive new business categories from mobile apps to augmented reality to location-based services. They have empowered the Internet of Things, the “quantified self,” and self-driving cars. They have disrupted incumbent powers in markets for operating systems, computing hardware, and social networking services. They raise new problems of scarcity, interoperability, and interference. These changes have brought about new problems for law. From privacy to antitrust to telecommunications to intellectual property to criminal law, the new Internet may not work like the old. Does mobile represent a fundamental shift or merely a small change from the legacy web? How does the shift from the web to mobile alter old debates about power, intermediaries, regulation, and other topics in Internet and computer law?

Eligibility. Only full-time faculty members of AALS member law schools are eligible to submit a paper. Pursuant to AALS rules, faculty at fee-paid schools, foreign, visiting and adjunct faculty members, graduate students, fellows, and non-law school faculty are not eligible to submit. Submitted papers may already have been selected for publication, so long as the paper will not be published prior to the Annual Meeting. All faculty members presenting are responsible for paying their own annual meeting registration fee and travel expenses.