Telecommunications and Internet Policy (732-1)
Instructors
James B Speta
312/503-8470
RB231
Meeting Info
Rubloff Building 180: Mon 2:35PM - 4:25PM
Overview of class
This 2-credit class addresses issues of internet regulation, broadly speaking: laws and regulations specifically designed to address communications and internet services and the companies that provide them, plus a few laws of general application that provide an important role in structuring Internet markets and services. (NOTE: This has sometimes been taught as a seminar, but this year it will be a more traditional class.)
More specifically, we will focus most of our attention on the issues raised today by internet platforms, such as their dominance of certain markets, their acquisition and use of enormous amounts of consumer data (that is, privacy regulation), and their potential for serious effects on our speech ecosystems (such as their carrying false information and their alleged discrimination against certain individuals and viewpoints). Should Google be broken up? Should Amazon? Should social media be subject to nondiscrimination rules (as Texas law currently provides)? Should privacy regulation be enhanced? Should Section 230 immunities for hosting user-generated content (even very toxic content) be limited? To address these and other questions, the course covers both the history and theory of communications regulation and the communications industry, broadly speaking. While we are in a new era of communications, dominated by several of the world's most valuable companies (Microsoft, Amazon, Tencent, Alibaba, and Facebook), many of these policy questions have strong historical precedents.
In addition to questions of internet policy, this course will provide the tools to understand a vast swath of regulation: historic, current, and potential. A significant number of industries have been regulated in the same manner as telecommunications, including railroads, electricity, airlines, natural gas, and others. Some of these industries are today completely deregulated and some only partially. But the regulation debate has (and will) include expansion as well as contraction, and industries such as pharmaceuticals, health care, education, and local transportation (think ridesharing) are all subject of a vigorous debate over regulation. The lessons from telecommunications and internet regulation apply to these debates as well.
Registration Requirements
There are no prerequisites for the course, and students do not need to have any technical background - just an interest in studying the appropriate policy responses to these hard issues.
Evaluation Method
The class grade will depend on a combination of class participation, a brief mid-semester reaction paper, and a final exam.
Class Attributes
Constitutional Law or Procedure an element
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: MSL Students are not eligible to enroll