Olivier Sylvain
Professor of Law
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Olivier is a Professor of Law at Fordham University and a Senior Policy Research Fellow at Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute. His research is on information and communications law and policy. His most recent writing, scholarship, commentary, and congressional testimony are on online intermediary liability, commercial surveillance, and artificial intelligence. His forthcoming book, Reclaiming the Internet: How Big Tech Took Control—and How We Can Take It Back, will come out in March 2026. In December 2025, the ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science published his book chapter, "Middleware and the Illusory Promise of End-User Control."
The National Science Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation have awarded him grants to support this work. He was a Senior Advisor to the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission from 2021 to 2023.
Olivier teaches Legislation & Regulation, Administrative Law, Information Law, U.S. Data Protection Law and Privacy, and information technology related courses.
Olivier is a member of the Council for Responsible Media and on the Academic Advisory Board of the Open Markets Institute. He has served on a range of boards, as a president and a member.
Before entering academia, Olivier was a Karpatkin Fellow in the National Legal Office of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York City and a litigation associate at Jenner & Block, LLC, in Washington, D.C.
Education
- Williams College, BA
- Georgetown University Law Center, JD
- Columbia University, PhD
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Representative Publications
Reclaiming the Internet: How Big Tech Took Control—and How We Can Take It Back (forthcoming book 2026)
Middleware and the Illusory Promise of End-User Control, chapter in ANNALS volume on "Platform Governance," eds., Tracey Meares & Sudhir Venkatesh (2025)
Recovering Tech's Humanity, 119 Colum. L. Rev. Forum 252 (2019)
The Market for User Data, 29 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 1087 (2019)
Integrative Information Platforms: The Case of Zero-Rating, 2 Georgetown Law & Technology Review 360 (2018)
Intermediary Design Duties, 50 Connecticut Law Rev.203 (2018)
Network Equality, 67 Hastings L. J. 443 (2016)
Disruption and Deference, 74 Maryland L. Rev. 715 (2015)
Legitimacy and Expertise in Global Internet Governance, 13 Co. Tech. L. J. 31 (2014)
Wireless Localism, 20 Mich. Telecomm. & Tech. L. Rev. 121 (2013)
Broadband Localism, 73 Ohio St. L. J. 795 (2012)
Internet Governance and Democratic Legitimacy, 62 Fed. Comm. L. J. 205 (2010)