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Scholars propose mechanisms for regulating augmented reality technology.
To what extent will gamers go to “catch ‘em all”?
To the dismay of residential homeowners and property owners, mobile gaming applications are encouraging gamers to explore uncharted territory. Increased traffic, noise, and pollution attributable to augmented reality applications have affected individual property owners, neighborhoods, and municipalities alike.
In a recent paper, two researchers on the University of Ottawa propose that cities adopt latest regulations to combat the scourges of augmented reality technology.
The basic problem, writes Elizabeth F. Judge, a professor on the University of Ottawa, and Tenille E. Brown, a Ph.D. candidate there, is that gamers are intruding upon private property without consent from property owners. The developers of those games use digital maps to superimpose content on the actual world as seen through a gamer’s camera lens. For example, the Pokémon Go application uses real-world positioning to create digital scavenger hunts in various locations, including residential properties.
Homeowners have unsuccessfully sued Pokémon Go’s developers for encouraging gamer traffic on their properties and into their neighborhoods. They have complained that Pokémon Go players have blocked their driveways, wrecked their landscaping, and peered into their homes. Although the lawsuits claiming virtual reality trespass failed, digital mapping technologies proceed to fuel controversy. Moreover, courts haven’t yet definitively decided whether property owners have the best to regulate whether virtual content appears on their property through an augmented reality application.
In Boring v. Google, homeowners sued Google for entering their property to take photographs for the Google Maps database. The court dismissed the invasion of privacy claim and didn’t hold Google chargeable for including the plaintiff’s property on the map. But it did find Google chargeable for a claim of trespass because Google personnel physically entered the property. According to Judge and Brown’s recent paper, since tort claims don’t adequately address the results of digital technology—versus physical intrusions—on property owners’ rights, the federal government should regulate how developers implement the digital maps into applications.
Judge and Brown acknowledge the privacy and security-related reasons to exclude properties like women’s shelters, memorials, and spiritual sites from mainstream digital maps. But in addition they recognize the utility and efficiency of digital maps and applications. Although Judge and Brown conclude that the general public interest in having accurate spatial data outweighs privacy concerns, they argue that digital maps should be regulated to guard especially vulnerable localities.
Judge and Brown endorse augmented reality regulation. They caution against over-regulation, nevertheless, because they recognize the advantages related to bringing gamers outdoors and the general public interest in digital mapping generally. They realize that granting homeowners the best to opt out of digital maps would decrease the accuracy and usefulness of digital maps to consumers. Permitting property owners to opt out of virtual maps could also expose applications like Google Maps, Four-Square, Waze, and MapQuest to virtual trespass litigation for providing consumers with basic location information.
Judge and Brown’s regulatory scheme would allow different municipalities to have different standards based on their unique concerns. For example, some cities might apply existing promoting regulations to augmented reality promoting, while other cities might decide to create regulations specific to augmented reality advertisements. Since there isn’t a “right” option to regulate augmented reality, say Judge and Brown, regulations may differ based on the technology’s impact on each city.
One option to tailor regulations to every unique region, Judge and Brown note, could be to create zones inside cities through which the augmented reality rules would differ. In addition to creating geographic boundaries, regulators could require developers to acquire permits allowing them to make use of augmented reality technology in certain public spaces. A permit system would allow property owners and regulators to filter applications based on their content. For example, regulators could filter applications with adult content from operating inside school zones.
Judge and Brown observe that the Canadian federal government catalogs trademark and copyright information in a national database. Similarly, they recommend that the federal government create a repository for augmented reality applications, requiring developers to discover the geographic scope and properties featured in the applying.
Property owners could then search the repository for his or her address to discover which applications cover their respective area. Judge and Brown argue that requiring application developers to submit information to a centralized database would relieve property owners from the burden of downloading and searching each application to locate their property.
Property owners could also charge application developers or individual players for using their property, Judge and Brown say. One company already charges Pokémon Go for everyone that visits its property using the applying. Judge and Brown encourage city officials to make use of the funds collected from the usage of public property to support municipal projects, resembling restoring public resources like waterways, historic sites, or public parks.
Alternatively, Judge and Brown advise regulators to implement a compulsory licensing scheme allowing property owners to license out their land and choose what forms of content could also be shown there. Judge and Brown would caution property owners to make sure that their licensing schemes comply with existing content-based municipal zoning rules.
Ultimately, a mixture of Judge and Brown’s really useful zoning mechanism, digital catalog system, and market-based licensing scheme would address property owners’ grievances about augmented reality applications.
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