Cybersecurity & Privacy

  • May 10, 2024

    Mich. Lawmakers Introduce Judicial Privacy Bill

    A group of Michigan state senators has introduced a bill that would allow judges to seal personal information about themselves and their immediate family members in government agency files, including blocking the government from disclosing the information in response to public records requests, with some narrow exceptions.

  • May 10, 2024

    2nd Circ. Says Subway Texts Don't Trigger Autodial Law

    A divided Second Circuit panel upheld the dismissal of a suit claiming that the sandwich chain Subway illegally spammed consumers' phones with automated texts, finding that a Connecticut federal judge was right in ruling that the marketing campaign didn't use an autodialer as defined by federal law.

  • May 10, 2024

    Capital One Accused Of Not Fully Investigating Fraud Claims

    Capital One has been hit with a proposed class action in California federal court accusing it of breaching contract terms by refusing to sufficiently investigate consumers' fraud claims.

  • May 10, 2024

    X Corp.'s Data Scraping Suit Stymied By Copyright Act

    A California federal judge has dismissed X Corp.'s suit accusing an Israeli company of mining and selling user data culled from its platform, noting that X's claims would allow it to block others from distributing publicly available user content and are preempted by the Copyright Act.

  • May 10, 2024

    Off The Bench: Ohtani Translator's Plea, NBA Star Tops Agent

    In this week's Off The Bench, Shohei Ohtani's ex-interpreter will plead guilty, an NBA star wins in his clash with the agent who sought to represent him, and a tennis player who was abused by her former coach is awarded $9 million.

  • May 10, 2024

    No 'Piecemeal' Fees For Infant Data Win Amid 6th Circ. Appeal

    A federal judge said Friday that he wouldn't award attorney fees to children who challenged Michigan's handling of blood samples collected in an infant health screening program until the state's Sixth Circuit appeal is resolved.

  • May 10, 2024

    Fuzzy Jurisdiction In Web Cases Has 1st Circ. Judge 'Worried'

    A First Circuit judge has said uncertainty over how personal jurisdiction rules apply to cases involving the borderless internet may require action from Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court, expressing concern that website operators can "manipulate" the legal requirement in order to avoid accountability.

  • May 09, 2024

    Amazon Shakes Wash. Suit Premised On Calif. Wiretap Claims

    A Washington federal judge has tossed a putative class action accusing Amazon.com Inc. of unlawfully recording chat conversations with consumers, finding that the plaintiff couldn't sustain a suit containing only California claims because the e-commerce giant's usage agreement makes clear that Washington law governs such disputes. 

  • May 09, 2024

    Maryland Enacts Data Privacy, Kids' Digital Safety Laws

    Maryland's governor on Thursday signed data privacy legislation that strictly limits the personal information that companies can collect from consumers and a separate bill to boost online safeguards for children that's modeled after a California bill that's currently embroiled in a constitutional challenge. 

  • May 09, 2024

    Amazon, Walmart Face Dem Questions Over 'Dynamic Pricing'

    Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown on Thursday raised concerns to Amazon and Walmart about corporations hiking prices by exploiting customer data and pricing algorithms, saying it undermines consumers' ability to comparison shop and save money.

  • May 09, 2024

    USPTO Says TM Applicants' Data Was Accidentally Leaked

    About 14,000 trademark applicants have been notified by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that some of their personal information had accidentally been released publicly, with the agency saying it happened over an eight-month period.

  • May 09, 2024

    Avid Can't Escape Spoofing Suit From 48 States, Judge Says

    A suit from nearly 50 states accusing Avid Telecom of allowing billions of illegal robocalls can proceed to discovery after an Arizona federal judge ruled Wednesday that more fact-finding would be needed to determine whether the company should be considered a common carrier.

  • May 09, 2024

    DOJ Task Force To Target Healthcare Monopoly, Collusion

    The U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division sharpened its focus Thursday on healthcare platforms that combine doctors with insurers, data and more in what the administration's top competition official called the "alarming" accumulation of assets.

  • May 09, 2024

    AT&T Appeals $57M Fine For Selling Customer Location Data

    AT&T is appealing a $57 million fine from the Federal Communications Commission on allegations it failed to protect customer location data, calling the agency order an "abuse of discretion."

  • May 09, 2024

    Buchanan Ingersoll Adds Marine Corps Cyber Pro As Counsel

    A U.S. Marine Corps veteran and cybersecurity expert with more than 25 years of legal experience has come aboard Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC's data privacy practice group as a counsel.

  • May 08, 2024

    AI Art Cos. Fight Uphill To Toss Artists' Copyright Suit

    Attorneys for four companies that make or distribute software that creates images with text prompts urged a California federal judge Wednesday to rethink his tentative opinion to allow some claims by a proposed class of artists to move forward, with one warning it could lead to hundreds of thousands of similar suits.

  • May 08, 2024

    AGs Blast Federal Data Privacy Law's Proposed State Override

    California joined attorneys general from more than a dozen other states and Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to urge Congress to ensure that proposed federal data privacy legislation sets a "floor, not a ceiling" that would preserve more stringent protections states have enacted and allow them to add new laws to address rapid technological developments. 

  • May 08, 2024

    Tribes And Groups Urge 9th Circ. To Uphold TikTok Ban Pause

    Free speech and internet advocacy groups, as well a Native American nonprofit and two tribes, are urging the Ninth Circuit to uphold a lower court's decision that blocks Montana from banning social app TikTok, arguing that First Amendment protections include such media platforms.

  • May 08, 2024

    Biden Signs Law To Protect Children From Online Exploitation

    President Joe Biden has signed into law a bipartisan bill aimed at curbing online child sex exploitation by strengthening requirements for social media companies and other service providers to report abuse to the nation's centralized reporting system.

  • May 08, 2024

    Pa. Panel Scrutinizes Missteps In 2020 Election Machine Fracas

    The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on Wednesday brought up apparent missteps by both sides of a fight stemming from third-party inspections of a conservative county's voting machines, started by the county commissioners falling in with the hunt for fraud in the 2020 election and the state pushing back.

  • May 08, 2024

    Bill To Undo SEC Crypto Accounting Bulletin Passes House

    Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to overturn the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's controversial cryptocurrency accounting guidance despite protests from Democrats to take a more targeted approach to amend the directive and a White House pledge to veto the bill.

  • May 08, 2024

    Madison Square Garden Escapes Federal Suit Over Facial ID

    A proposed class action challenging Madison Square Garden's use of facial recognition to ban attorneys from its properties was dismissed Wednesday, with a New York federal judge ruling that contracting with the third-party provider of the software did not break the law.

  • May 08, 2024

    9th Circ. Says Calif. Can Give Gun Buyer Info To Researchers

    The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday declined to revive a constitutional challenge to a California law requiring the state to provide biographical information about firearm purchasers and those with carry-conceal permits to accredited research institutions studying gun violence, saying the information at issue isn't highly personal and doesn't implicate the right to privacy. 

  • May 08, 2024

    Robins Kaplan File Flub Bad Look For Both Sides, Panel Says

    A Manhattan appeals panel expressed concern Wednesday that Robins Kaplan LLP had poked through an opposing party's Dropbox database that was accidentally shared in investor litigation, while also criticizing the other side for failing to catch the error.

  • May 08, 2024

    Coldwell Banker's Lockboxes Draw BIPA Suit

    Coldwell Banker has been sued in Illinois state court by a proposed class of employees who claim it violated Illinois' biometric privacy law by failing to get their informed consent before requiring them to scan their fingerprints to access biometric lockboxes that store keys for rental units shown to potential customers.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Skiing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    A lifetime of skiing has helped me develop important professional skills, and taught me that embracing challenges with a spirit of adventure can allow lawyers to push boundaries, expand their capabilities and ultimately excel in their careers, says Andrea Przybysz at Tucker Ellis.

  • How Breach Reporting Is Changing For Financial Institutions

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    In May, the Federal Trade Commission's amended Safeguards Rule will extend the data protections that apply to information held by banks to information held by nonbanking financial institutions — and sweep even more broadly in some critical aspects, say Evan Yahng and Kurt Hunt at Dinsmore.

  • High Court Social Media Speech Ruling Could Implicate AI

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    In Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether certain state laws can restrict content moderation by social media platforms, but the eventual decision could also provide insight into whether the first amendment protects artificial intelligence speech, say Joseph Meadows and Quyen Dang at GRSM50.

  • Assessing Chinese Cross-Border Data Transfers

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    Jet Deng and Ken Dai at Dacheng unpack the regulatory framework for cross-border data transfers in China, detailing the major systems at play, last year's policy adjustments, and an outlook and practice tips for businesses.

  • Think Like A Lawyer: Forget Everything You Know About IRAC

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    The mode of legal reasoning most students learn in law school, often called “Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion,” or IRAC, erroneously frames analysis as a separate, discrete step, resulting in disorganized briefs and untold obfuscation — but the fix is pretty simple, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.

  • The Corporate Transparency Act Isn't Dead Yet

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    After an Alabama federal court's ruling last week rendering the Corporate Transparency Act unconstitutional, changes to the law may ultimately be required, but ongoing compliance is still the best course of action for most, says George Singer at Holland & Hart.

  • The Pros And Cons Of Protecting AI As Trade Secrets

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    Despite regulatory trends toward greater transparency of artificial intelligence models, federal policy acknowledges, and perhaps endorses, trade secret protection for AI information, but there are still hurdles in keeping AI information a secret, say Jennifer Maisel and Andrew Stewart at Rothwell Figg.

  • Conn. Data Privacy Enforcement Takeaways For Cos.

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    In light of the Connecticut attorney general's recently released report on its enforcement of the Connecticut Data Privacy Act, which focuses on companies' privacy policies, protections of sensitive data and more, businesses can expect increased enforcement scrutiny — especially in areas that are the subject of consumer complaints, say Paul Pittman and Abdul Hafiz at White & Case.

  • How Firms Can Ensure Associate Gender Parity Lasts

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    Among associates, women now outnumber men for the first time, but progress toward gender equality at the top of the legal profession remains glacially slow, and firms must implement time-tested solutions to ensure associates’ gender parity lasts throughout their careers, say Kelly Culhane and Nicole Joseph at Culhane Meadows.

  • Regulatory Trends Offer 4 Lessons For Debt Relief Providers

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    A string of enforcement actions, including a New York lawsuit filed last month by seven states and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, underscore the regulatory scrutiny that debt relief and credit repair companies face and offer important lessons on telemarketing and deceptive practices compliance, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Bracing Cos. For Calif. Privacy Agency's Restored Authority

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    A recent California state appeals court decision greenlights the California Privacy Protection Agency's enforcement of certain consumer privacy regulations, which may speed up compliance requirements, so businesses considering use of artificial intelligence, for instance, may want to reassess their handling of privacy notices and opt-out requests, say Kevin Angle and Matthew Cin at Ropes & Gray.

  • 7 Common Myths About Lateral Partner Moves

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    As lateral recruiting remains a key factor for law firm growth, partners considering a lateral move should be aware of a few commonly held myths — some of which contain a kernel of truth, and some of which are flat out wrong, says Dave Maurer at Major Lindsey.

  • 2 Emerging Defenses For Website Tracking Class Actions

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    Putative class actions premised on state wiretapping statutes that bar website activity tracking continue to be on the rise, but they are increasingly being dismissed on two procedural grounds, says Sheri Pan at ZwillGen.

  • No AI FRAUD Act Is A Significant Step For Right Of Publicity

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    The No Artificial Intelligence Fake Replicas and Unauthorized Duplications Act's proposed federal right of publicity protection, including post-mortem rights, represents a significant step toward harmonizing the landscape of right of publicity law, Rachel Hofstatter and Aaron Rosenthal at Honigman.

  • Series

    Cheering In The NFL Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Balancing my time between a BigLaw career and my role as an NFL cheerleader has taught me that pursuing your passions outside of work is not a distraction, but rather an opportunity to harness important skills that can positively affect how you approach work and view success in your career, says Rachel Schuster at Sheppard Mullin.

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