Christopher Hoofnagle Directs UC Grads’ Study on Privacy Policies and Flash Cookies

Wired, August 10, 2009 by Ryan Singel
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/

The study comes as Congress and federal regulators are looking at ways of reining in the online tracking and advertising industry…. Soltani led a summer research team at Berkeley, under the direction of Chris Hoofnagle, the Director of Information Privacy Programs at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. The team tested the top 100 sites to see what their privacy policies said, what their tracking technology actually does and what happens if a user blocks the Flash cookie.

Goodwin Liu Says Class Added Due to High Demand, Not Objections to Prof Yoo

SF Weekly, August 10, 2009 by Peter Jamison
http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-08-12/news/the-torture-memos-and-berkeley-s-law-school-schedule/

In a statement last week in response to questions from SF Weekly, associate dean Goodwin Liu said the change was made to accommodate student demand for the course. “Student objections to taking the course with Professor Yoo played no part in the decision,” he said…. According to Liu, the professor’s fall section is currently oversubscribed, with 34 students on the waitlist.

Nancy Lemon Rebuts Criticism of Her Textbook, Domestic Violence Law

The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 10, 2009 by Nancy D. Lemon
http://chronicle.com/article/Domestic-Violence-a/47940/print

Sommers seems to have made a career out of attacking other academics and researchers and disagreeing with their findings, citing the same assertions repeatedly over at least the last 15 years, even in the face of evidence contradicting her claims. It seems I have the honor of being her most recent target…. It is important for students to receive accurate information; good scholarship requires nothing less.

Pamela Samuelson Remarks on ″Audacity″ of Google Book Search Settlement

-The Huffington Post, August 10, 2009 by Pamela Samuelson
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pamela-samuelson/the-audacity-of-the-googl_b_255490.html

Why did Google decide to settle instead of to fight? Inspired perhaps by Rahm Emanuel, who has observed “you never want a serious crisis go to waste,” Google recognized that AAP and the Guild would be willing to settle their lawsuits by vastly expanding the plaintiff class to all persons with a U.S. copyright interest in one or more books. The settlement could then give Google a license to commercialize all books owned by the class.

-Library Journal, August 11, 2009 by Norman Oder
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6675916.html

Samuelson contends that Google, which had a good case that its scanning was fair use, chose to settle with the plaintiffs, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Authors Guild (AG), because it could then get access to the universe of books. And the APP and AG would be willing to settle because they’d get a privileged position as representatives of the larger classes.

Christopher Edley and Marjorie Shultz Support Alternative to Law School Admission Test

UC Berkeley News, August 4, 2009 by Carol Ness
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/08/04_lawschool.shtml

“I can’t overstate the potential of this work to transform the way law schools conduct selected admissions and, perhaps, the way law firms think about training and evaluating young attorneys,” says Edley.

In addition, while research indicates that standardized tests that focus on academic skills put minority candidates at a substantial disadvantage, Shultz says “there is not a race or ethnicity difference in performance on our tests. That’s why I say fairness demands that you have a system that’s a bit broader than the one currently used to pick applicants,” she adds.

Alan Auerbach Predicts Steep Federal Deficits

The Christian Science Monitor, August 3, 2009 by Mark Trumbull
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/08/03/read-their-lips-mixed-signals-from-obama-team-on-taxes/

The federal deficit “is projected to average at least $1 trillion per year for the 10 years after 2009, even if the economy returns to full employment and the stimulus package is allowed to expire in two years,” economists William Gale of the Brookings Institution and Alan Auerbach of the University of California, Berkeley, concluded in a study earlier this year.