Harvard University

Harvard Law School

Wilson High School

economics + strategy + policy + product

Practical, actionable advice about a variety of questions at the intersection of software, strategy, economics, and public policy.  I combine these subjects to advise a variety of Microsoft teams on questions of economics and strategy, with a focus on devising new products and features with sound economics and sustainable competitive advantage.

Microsoft

Chief Economist for Web Experiences, Strategy, and Policy

Studied and taught about the economics of online markets — combining software engineering with legal and economic analysis, aiming to understand both how online markets function and also how they might improve.   

Highlights:
* Among the earliest skeptics of Google's dominance, its market power, and its harm to both advertisers and publishers.
* Wrote the first game-theoretic analysis of sponsored search auctions (Google AdWords and kin), now with >2000 citations.  
* Designed an experiment that proved widespread discrimination at Airbnb, leading to the "Airbnb while black" movement and compelling Airbnb to make improvements.
* Wrote the first academic analysis of Bitcoin economics -- early to question Bitcoin's benefits, identify cheaper and more efficient alternatives, and flag its irreversibility and lack of dispute resolution as serious impediments to mainstream use.
* Taught over one thousand HBS MBAs and advised over two hundred student entrepreneurial ventures.
* Wrote 25 HBS teaching cases (plus abridgments, translations, and supplements), including multiple best-sellers and award-winners.

Harvard Business School

Associate Professor

Assistant Professor

Class action litigation on behalf of small businesses and consumers.  Representative matters: 
* Caught a top-three ad platform that widely charged advertisers for low-quality traffic they hadn't agreed to pay for.  Collected direct-observation caught-in-the-act proof of violations.  Put together a team of attorneys to bring first-of-its-kind advertiser class action litigation, which succeeded in forcing the ad platform to let advertisers opt out of the unwanted placements.
* Flagged app stores and in-app-purchases that told kids and parents that "all sales are final" and systematically rejected refund requests.  Litigation required the marketplaces to provide refunds to all users who so requested.  This first-of-its-kind case prompted follow-up cases by the FTC against other marketplaces engaged in similar practices.
* Uncovered airline IT flaws that caused the largest airline in the world to charge passengers to check bags the airline had promised would be free.  For most affected passengers, litigation yielded full refunds plus interest.  Legal work called "exemplary" by a judge ordinarily skeptical of class actions, who found that the team earned higher-than-normal fees.

Law Offices of Benjamin Edelman

Owner

Original research about Internet architecture, systems and policy, with a focus on filtering, domain names, and pop-up ads.

Berkman Center for Internet & Society

Student Fellow

Consulting about all manner of Internet systems and software including security, forensics, and accountability.  Representative consulting engagements:
* For dozens of top-tier advertisers plus select ad networks, I audited affiliate traffic and banner ad placements, providing direct-observation caught-in-the-act proof of malfeasance.  
  - I caught Shawn Hogan and Brian Dunning, who stole $20m+ from eBay's affiliate marketing program -- sparking an FBI investigation, criminal charges, and jail time.
  - For a top-five US affiliate merchant, I proved that nine of its top ten marketing affiliates were engaged in fraud.  My finding positioned the merchant to shift its focus to legitimate affiliates who delivered genuine ROI.
* Multiple "red team" dissections of harmful sites and software to uncover their engineering and legal vulnerabilities, including who they targeted and how to make them stop.
* Webcast the first twelve ICANN public meetings (in eleven cities on five continents) and made them available for remote public participation.
* For ARIN, designed market mechanisms to encourage IPv6 migration and mitigate IPv4 scarcity.

Representative litigation engagements: 
* Qualified as an expert in federal court at age 19, giving testimony (on behalf of the NFL) that led to a preliminary injunction shutting down the "pirate TV" streamer iCraveTV -- the first well-known .com shut through litigation.
* Built automation to find thousands of false-positives from "adult" filters used in libraries and public schools (on behalf of ACLU).  Based on my analysis, a three-judge panel found it unconstitutional for federal law to require such filters.
* Explained the installation and operation of early adware that replaced publisher ads with its own ads and covered publisher sites with pop-ups (on behalf of publisher alliance including New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post).

Edelman Consulting

Original research about Internet filtering, domain names, and streaming media.  Operational responsibility for Berkman Center network, including webcasts and special events.

Ben Edelman