Dangerous Corporate First Amendment Overreach: Three Information Trends and a Data Application

[Commentary] Over the last decade, information technology and telecommunications companies have been part of a rising tide of corporate claims to free speech, invoking the First Amendment for everything from broadband service to search engine results to software code. But do some of these theories go too far? It would be a calamity if commercial speech protections evolve into a broad bulwark against legitimate regulations, especially where corporate power threatens online expression and the free flow of information.

[Ellen Goodman is a Professor at Rutgers Law School]