About

Scott Jordan is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at UC Irvine's Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences. His research has focused on Internet quality of service issues, including traffic management and resource allocation in both wired and wireless networks. His current research interests encompass Internet policy issues such as net neutrality, privacy, interconnection, data caps, zero rating, and device attachment. Professor Jordan has also contributed to policy and technological discussions through his service as an IEEE Congressional Fellow in 2006, working in the United States Senate on communications policy issues. Additionally, he served as the Chief Technologist at the Federal Communications Commission from 2014 to 2016, advising on technological issues including the 2015 Open Internet Order and the 2016 Broadband Privacy Order. His educational background includes a Ph.D., M.S., B.S., and A.B. from the University of California, Berkeley, in fields related to electrical engineering, computer science, and applied mathematics.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Computer Security
• World Wide Web
• Computer network
• Business
• Industrial organization
• Telecommunications

Selected publications

• Who Pays for Internet Traffic? Navigating the Economics of ISP and Content Provider Interconnections

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• DiffAudit: Auditing Privacy Practices of Online Services for Children and Adolescents

  2024-11-01 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  Children's and adolescents' online data privacy are regulated by laws such as the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Online services that are directed towards general audiences (i.e., including children, adolescents, and adults) must comply with these laws. In this paper, first, we present DiffAudit, a platform-agnostic privacy auditing methodology for general audience services. DiffAudit performs differential analysis of network traffic data flows to compare data processing practices (i) between child, adolescent, and adult users and (ii) before and after consent is given and user age is disclosed. We also present a data type classification method that utilizes GPT-4 and our data type ontology based on COPPA and CCPA, allowing us to identify considerably more data types than prior work. Second, we apply DiffAudit to a set of popular general audience mobile and web services and observe a rich set of behaviors extracted from over 440K outgoing requests, containing 3,968 unique data types we extracted and classified. We reveal problematic data processing practices prior to consent and age disclosure, lack of differentiation between age-specific data flows, inconsistent privacy policy disclosures, and sharing of linkable data with third parties, including advertising and tracking services.

  PublisherDOI

• Limb Shaking Transient Ischemic Attack in Patient with Moyamoya Disease (P11-5.003)

  Neurology · 2024-04-09

  article1st authorCorresponding

  N/A

  PublisherDOI

• Regulating Paid Peering: A Two-Sided Market Perspective

  IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society · 2024-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Discussions over paid peering and usage fees have become a global phenomenon, with ISPs insisting content providers pay for the substantial downstream traffic they generate, while content providers argue for settlement-free agreements, citing that consumers already pay ISPs for content delivery and content providers reduce costs for ISPs by delivering traffic close to customers. This contention is echoed in debates around net neutrality and related policies across the United States, Europe, and South Korea, prompting regulators to consider whether to regulate peering prices and/or impose usage fees. This question gains significance in the United States in light of the recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decision to consider the reinstatement of net neutrality rules. Our study examines whether the peering price set by the market aligns with the socially optimal peering price. We first analyze the cost-based peering price, which reflects the ISP’s incremental costs for direct content delivery versus via transit providers. We discover that this price can effectively be zero with sufficient content localization, yet remains above zero without it, influenced by the number of interconnection points. We then evaluate the profit-maximizing peering price using a two-sided market model, finding that increased content localization decreases this price. These prices establish a range if the peering price is unregulated, from the cost-based peering price (at the low end) to the profit-maximizing peering price (at the high end). Regulatory oversight of peering prices may be warranted when there is a substantial difference between cost-based and profit-maximizing prices. Finally, our study informs the debate on potential regulatory interventions about peering prices or usage fees. We compare unregulated market outcomes with those under regulatory measures aimed at maximizing consumer surplus or social welfare. Through our analysis, we identify optimal peering prices within our determined range, considering the influence of content localization and interconnection points on these prices.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• DiffAudit: Auditing Privacy Practices of Online Services for Children and Adolescents

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2024-06-10

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Children's and adolescents' online data privacy are regulated by laws such as the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Online services that are directed towards general audiences (i.e., including children, adolescents, and adults) must comply with these laws. In this paper, first, we present DiffAudit, a platform-agnostic privacy auditing methodology for general audience services. DiffAudit performs differential analysis of network traffic data flows to compare data processing practices (i) between child, adolescent, and adult users and (ii) before and after consent is given and user age is disclosed. We also present a data type classification method that utilizes GPT-4 and our data type ontology based on COPPA and CCPA, allowing us to identify considerably more data types than prior work. Second, we apply DiffAudit to a set of popular general audience mobile and web services and observe a rich set of behaviors extracted from over 440K outgoing requests, containing 3,968 unique data types we extracted and classified. We reveal problematic data processing practices prior to consent and age disclosure, lack of differentiation between age-specific data flows, inconsistent privacy policy disclosures, and sharing of linkable data with third parties, including advertising and tracking services.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Monopolistic ISP's Approach to Paid Peering: Insights from a Two-Sided Market Model

  2024-06-09

  articleSenior author

  Debates over paid peering and usage fees have expanded from the United States to Europe and South Korea. A key part of the debate concerns whether the ISP sets the peering price based on costs incurred by the large video service providers or if it instead reflects the ISP's market power and monopolistic control over end-users. This question gains significance in light of the recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decision to reconsider the reinstatement of net neutrality rules. In this paper, we determine the peering price that maximizes an ISP's profit using a two-sided market model in which a profit-maximizing ISP determines broadband prices and the peering price, and in which content providers determine their service prices based on the peering price. Our findings reveal that ISPs, when driven by profit-maximization motives, tend to set a peering fee that is sub-stantially above cost, often reaching the upper limit of what content providers are willing to pay. Additionally, our model sheds light on the influence of various factors, such as the number of interconnection points and the level of traffic localization, on the determination of an ISP's proflt-maximizing peering price.

  PublisherDOI

• Peering Costs and Fees

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2023-10-07 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Internet users have suffered collateral damage in tussles over paid peering between large ISPs and large content providers. In order to qualify for settlement-free peering, large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) require that peers meet certain requirements. However, the academic literature has not yet shown the relationship between these settlement-free peering requirements and the value to each interconnecting network. We first consider the effect of paid peering on broadband prices. We adopt a two-sided market model in which an ISP maximizes profit by setting broadband prices and a paid peering price. Our result shows that paid peering fees reduce the premium plan price, and increase the video streaming price and the total price for premium tier customers who subscribe to video streaming services. We next consider the effect of paid peering on consumer surplus. We find that consumer surplus is a uni-modal function of the paid peering fee. The peering price depends critically on the incremental ISP cost per video streaming subscriber; at different costs, it can be negative, zero, or positive. Last, we construct a network cost model. We show that the traffic-sensitive network cost decreases as the number of interconnection points increases, but with decreasing returns. Interconnecting at 6 to 8 interconnection points is rational, and requiring interconnection at more than 8 points is of little value. We show that if the content delivery network (CDN) delivers traffic to the ISP locally, then a requirement to interconnect at a minimum number of interconnection points is rational. We also show that if the CDN delivers traffic using hot potato routing, the ISP is unlikely to perceive sufficient value to offer settlement-free peering.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Should Large ISPs Apply the Same Settlement-Free Peering Policies To Both ISPs and CDNs?

  2023-01-08 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  Large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) often require that peers meet certain requirements to be eligible for free-settlement peering. The conventional wisdom is that these requirements are related to the perception of roughly equal value from the peering arrangement, but the academic literature has not yet established such a relationship. The focus of this paper is to relate the settlement-free peering requirements between two large ISPs and understand the degree to which the settlement-free peering requirements between them should apply to the peering between large ISPs and content providers. We analyze settlement-free peering requirements about the number and location of interconnection points (IXPs). Large ISPs often require interconnection at a minimum of 6 to 8 interconnection points. We find that the ISP's traffic-sensitive cost is decreasing and convex with the number of interconnection points. We also observe that there may be little value in requiring interconnection at more than 8 IXPs. We then analyze the interconnection between a large content provider and an ISP. We show that it is rational for an ISP to agree to settlement-free peering if the content provider agrees to interconnect at a specified minimum number of interconnection points and to deliver a specified minimum proportion of traffic locally.

  PublisherDOI

• Towards Equitable Peering: A Proposal for a Fair Peering Fee Between ISPs and Content Providers

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2023-10-07

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Disagreements over peering fees have risen to the level of potential government regulation. ISPs assert that content providers should pay them based on the volume of downstream traffic. Transit providers and content providers assert that consumers have already paid ISPs to transmit the content they request and that peering agreements should be settlement-free. Our goal is to determine the fair payment between an ISP and an interconnecting network. We consider fair cost sharing between two Tier-1 ISPs, and derive the peering fee that equalizes their net backbone transportation costs. We then consider fair cost sharing between an ISP and a transit provider. We derive the peering fee that equalizes their net backbone transportation costs, and illustrate how it depends on the traffic ratio and the amount of localization of that content. Finally, we consider the fair peering fee between an ISP and a content provider. We derive the peering fee that results in the same net cost to the ISP, and illustrate how the peering fee depends on the number of interconnection points and the amount of localization of that content. We dispense with the ISP argument that it should be paid regardless of the amount of localization of content.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• When is Regulation of Peering or Usage Fees Warranted?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NetSE: Small: Incorporating Telecommunications Policy and Economics into Internet Architecture

  NSF · $500k · 2009–2013

• ICES:Small: An architectural, economic, and legal approach to encouraging end-to-end Quality of Service in the Internet

  NSF · $400k · 2012–2018

• SGER: Net neutrality

  NSF · $200k · 2007–2009

• NeTS: Small: IP Interconnection Arrangements

  NSF · $500k · 2018–2023

Frequent coauthors

• Ali Nikkhah

  University of California, Irvine

  15 shared

• Michael L. Honig

  Northwestern University

  13 shared

• Gwen Shaffer

  10 shared

• Nan Jin

  Zhengzhou University of Light Industry

  8 shared

• Chao Yang

  Guangdong University of Technology

  8 shared

• Chi Zhou

  7 shared

• Gene Tsudik

  6 shared

• Wei Dai

  Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine (China)

  6 shared

Awards & honors

• IEEE Congressional Fellow (2006)
• Chief Technologist at the Federal Communications Commission…