Status: Briefing underway.
Summary: In prominent marketing offers, including onboard napkins and large airport displays, AA promises “first checked bag free” if customers get certain AA-partner credit cards. But AA denies that benefit on itineraries that are completely or partially international — a restriction nowhere mentioned in initial marketing offers.
Status: Pending
Summary: AA delayed an intercontinental flight by 27 hours, but in email notification didn’t say what flight was delayed or by how long. AA’s staff offered contradictory statements of passenger rights and rebooking options, including multiple supposed rules untethered to the Tariff.
Status: Pending.
Summary: Federal regulation favors private resolution of disputes between passengers and airlines. But Southwest’s “class waiver” disallows passengers from gathering together with a single set of lawyers and experts for efficient, cost-effective group resolution of their complaints.
Complaint. Answer. Reply. Surreply.
Status: Pending.
Summary: Governing regulation requires an airline to provide the exact price for a passenger’s first and second checked bag within the text of an eticket confirmation email, but Alaska did not do so. Furthermore, the regulation requires bag allowance and price information in a booking summary page, but again Alaska did not. Meanwhile Alaska’s Manage Trip page provided an incorrect statement of baggage benefits and fees.
Complaint. Answer. Reply. Surreply.
Status: Pending.
Summary: The American Airlines Business Extra site misrepresented carrier surcharges as “tax” in violation of governing regulation and prior DOT consent decrees. Furthermore, the site listed “approx” charges rather than the exact amount to be paid. And contrary to governing regulation, the site entirely omitted carrier surcharges from initial fare quotes.
The Brookings Institution‘s Global Goliaths: Multinational Corporations in the 21st Century Economy includes my chapter Multinationals in the Digital Economy. The lead paragraph:
Modern digital services largely come from multinational corporations (MNCs) whose size and scope are unprecedented. It has not always been this way. Just a few decades ago, users typically turned to local firms for most kinds of information technology (IT). And, historically, software was known for its low barriers to entry and the quick rise of startups and small firms. This chapter examines the forces contributing to the rise of digital MNCs, as well as the challenges they face.
Revisiting Barlow’s Misplaced Optimism, Symposium for John Perry Barlow, 18 Duke L. & Tech. Rev. 97.
As part of Duke Technology Law Review‘s Symposium for John Perry Barlow, I reflected on the perspective of early Internet luminary John Perry Barlow, the vision he offered, and what I see as the most promising sources of accountability for online behavior. My piece begins:
Barlow’s A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace calls for a “civilization of the mind in cyberspace,” and he says it will be “more humane and fair” than what governments have created. Barlow’s vision is unapologetically optimistic, easily embraced by anyone who longs for better times to come. Yet twenty years later, it’s easy to see some important respects in which reality fell short of his vision. Alongside the Internet’s many pluses are clickbait, scams, hacks, and all manner of privacy violations. Ten thousand hours of cat videos may be delightful, but they’re no civilization of the mind. With a bit of hindsight, Barlow’s techno-utopianism looks as stilted as other utopianism—and equally far removed from reality.
Beyond being overly optimistic about how perfectly the ‘net would unfold, Barlow was also needlessly skeptical of plausible institutions to bring improvements. He writes: “The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule.” But the moral suasion—and practical effectiveness—of the Golden Rule presupposes participants of roughly equal power and status. It is no small feat to meaningfully consider what Joe User might want from Mega Social Network if the tables were turned and Joe owned the goliath. As a practical matter, any claim a user has against a goliath requires state institutions to adjudicate and enforce. When Barlow wrote A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, tech goliaths were much smaller. Plus, the Internet’s early users were in a certain sense more sophisticated than the mainstream users who eventually joined. So the gap from little to big was much narrower then, arguably making governments less important in that era. But as the big get bigger and as the Internet attracts average users who lack the special sophistication of early adopters, governments play key roles—adjudicating disputes, enforcing contracts and beyond.