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Privacy
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May 3, 2013
Schnucks Blasts Suit Over Breach Of 2.4M Customers' Data
Schnucks Markets Inc. on Friday denounced as meritless an Illinois class action over the alleged theft of as many as 2.4 million customers' financial information from the grocery chain’s card processing system, saying it did not unreasonably delay disclosing the breach.
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May 2, 2013
Verizon, Apple Fail At Protecting Data, Privacy Group Says
While companies including Twitter Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have ramped up efforts in recent years to protect users' data from government access, Verizon Communications Inc., Apple Inc. and others have failed to institute such safeguards, according to a report released by a privacy group Tuesday.
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May 2, 2013
Cellphone Search Confusion Begs For High Court Review
The Florida Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police cannot search a person's cellphone without a warrant, deepening a split among appellate courts and highlighting the need for the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the Fourth Amendment quandaries presented by modern technology, attorneys say.
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May 2, 2013
EPA Sued Over Admin Records In Latest Private Email Inquiry
A conservative think tank on Thursday sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., over its refusal to produce email records from a nonofficial address it claims an EPA Region 9 administrator used to conduct agency business.
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May 2, 2013
Federal Court Can't Hear HIPAA Case, Hospital Group Says
Hospital owner Adventist Health System/Sunbelt Inc. on Thursday asked a Florida judge to toss a proposed class action alleging it violated patients’ privacy rights by failing to prevent emergency room workers from selling access to its medical records database.
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May 2, 2013
Online Ad Cos. Call Cookies 'Harmless' In Google Privacy MDL
Two online advertising companies moved Wednesday to dismiss a Delaware multidistrict litigation alleging they joined Google Inc. in a scheme to bypass Apple Inc.'s Safari browser privacy settings, arguing that tracking cookies are both harmless and beneficial to Web functionality.
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May 1, 2013
US Agencies Get Major Update To Cybersecurity Guidelines
The National Institute of Standards and Technology on Tuesday published its first major update to the data security and privacy guidelines for federal agencies, adding guidance for handling insider threats, risks in supply contracts, and mobile and cloud computing technologies.
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May 1, 2013
High Court Ruling Doesn't OK TCPA Suits In NY, Judge Says
A New York federal judge on Wednesday doubled down on his dismissal of a Telephone Consumer Protection Act suit against an energy supply firm, ruling that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision does not allow consumers to skirt state-law restrictions and bring TCPA suits in New York.
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May 1, 2013
Man Who Beat GPS Tracking In High Court Cops To Drug Sales
Ending a nearly eight-year fight that included a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that rejected the use of warrantless GPS tracking, Antoine Jones pled guilty Wednesday to conspiring to distribute drugs and was sentenced by a Washington federal judge to a 15-year prison term.
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May 1, 2013
Volkwagen Unit Slips Recorded-Call Class Action
A California federal judge on Tuesday tossed a proposed class action accusing the auto financing arm of German-based Volkswagen AG of improperly recording consumer phone calls, saying that the suit is time-barred.
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May 1, 2013
White House Still Unsatisfied With House Cybersecurity Bill
The White House on Tuesday again spoke out against a controversial cybersecurity bill that recently passed the U.S. House of Representatives, in backing an online petition signed by more than 100,000 people calling for the demise of the bill because of lingering privacy concerns.
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May 1, 2013
Data Breach Notification Bill Clears Pa. Senate
The Pennsylvania Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed legislation obligating state and local government agencies to notify the public of data breaches involving personal information within seven days.
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May 1, 2013
Buy.com Ducks $500M Phone Number Collection Suit
A California federal judge on Tuesday tossed a $500 million putative class action accusing Buy.com Inc. of illegally collecting phone numbers from consumers during credit card transactions, ruling that the online retailer could demand the information to verify its customers' identities.
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May 1, 2013
Google Faces $1B Class Action Over College Email Snooping
Two university students hit Google Inc. with a potentially billion-dollar nationwide class action in California on Monday claiming it unlawfully intercepts communications via its Gmail-based Google Apps for Education program, which provides student, faculty and alumni email addresses to educational institutions.
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April 30, 2013
Obama Nominates Tom Wheeler As FCC Leader
President Barack Obama said Wednesday that he will nominate telecommunications industry lobbyist and presidential advisory board member Tom Wheeler to head the Federal Communications Commission, ending weeks of speculation following the resignation of current FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
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April 30, 2013
Online Privacy Bill For Minors Clears Calif. Senate
The California Senate passed a bill Monday seeking to bolster online privacy protections for minors by allowing them to remove content they wish they hadn’t posted on social media and other sites and shielding them from receiving advertisements for products made for adults.
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April 30, 2013
Judge's Privacy Putdown Lends Credence To Gov't Snooping
Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner made waves Sunday when he said U.S. citizens overvalue privacy and should accept surveillance technology like the kind used to identify the alleged Boston Marathon bombers, but attorneys say his arguments are overly simplistic and could be used to justify government spying on everything from personal computers to corporate email.
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April 30, 2013
FBI Takes Flak Over Proposed Back Door For Online Spying
An industry lobbying group that includes Internet titans like Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. vowed Tuesday to block a proposal the FBI is reportedly considering, which would penalize companies that didn't give law enforcement access to users' real-time online communications.
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April 30, 2013
CFTC Eyes High-Speed Trades In Wake Of AP Twitter Hack
The U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission will ramp up its efforts to publish new oversight regulations for automated and high-frequency trading after the Twitter-hacking incident at the Associated Press and subsequent market dip, Chairman Gary Gensler said Tuesday.
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April 30, 2013
Utah Could Face $400M Price Tag For Data Breach: Report
The state of Utah could be on the hook for more than $400 million following a 2012 data breach in which the personal information of as many as 780,000 residents was stolen from a poorly protected computer server, a new report revealed Sunday.
Expert Analysis
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An Information Security Preparedness Checklist
The Federal Trade Commission's recent CBR Systems Inc. settlement underscores how important it is for companies to honor the promises made in their privacy policies through comprehensive security planning. And yet even companies constantly subject to attacks, like financial services institutions, can find it difficult to have an internal dialogue regarding cybersecurity as a business process. This checklist can help encourage such dialogue, say attorneys with Ballard Spahr LLP.
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Emerging Trends In The Advertising Self-Regulatory Council
This year, advertisers should anticipate that the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council will continue to address advertising on emerging social media platforms, as well as green marketing. The ASRC is also expected to expand its review of advertising directed to children and continue to evolve its operational policies to encourage and foster efficacy and participation in the advertising self-regulatory process, says Alexis Payne of InfoLawGroup LLP.
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Online And Off Song-Beverly: Some Relief For Retailers
In Apple Inc. v. Superior Court, the California Supreme Court recently found that Section 1747.08 of the Song-Beverly Credit Card Act does not apply to online retailers that sell digital downloads. However, the ruling leaves open a lot more questions than it addressed, such as whether Song-Beverly applies to Internet transactions involving physical goods or kiosk transactions in brick-and-mortar stores, say Stephanie Sheridan and Caitlin Ross of Sedgwick LLP.
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Get Ready For More Private Equity Regulation
Recent regulatory inquiries, coupled with the ongoing trend of investors shifting more of their assets to private equity funds, suggest that we will see increased scrutiny of the PE industry in the coming years. As such, PE firms will begin to feel pressure to develop or refine compliance plans for their own firms as well as any acquired companies, and will need to provide assurance that the requirements of anti-bribery, privacy and other applicable laws are being heeded, says Kenneth Yormark of Navigant.Consulting Inc.
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How Lawyers Can Avoid Ethical Problems In The Cloud
Lawyers who select the default settings for cloud computing services might unknowingly be sending privileged client communications over the Internet into the cloud. More and more state bar associations are beginning to respond to the ethical questions surrounding these services. Their opinions provide valuable guidance to lawyers in all states, says Brad Stoll of Barnes & Thornburg LLP.
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FTC Path Deal And Mobile Guide: A Warning To App Industry
On Feb. 1, the Federal Trade Commission announced an $800,000 settlement with Path Inc., the developer of a mobile social networking app, over privacy violations, and released two documents providing privacy guidance for the mobile app industry. Taken together, this case and these recommendations demonstrate that the FTC is prepared to investigate privacy concerns raised about any part of the mobile app ecosystem, say attorneys with Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP.
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Preparing Your Witness To Be A Performer
How do we prepare a witness, a layperson having no training in the art of litigation, to give an effective and memorable performance? A number of tips, when incorporated into your practice of law, will surely strengthen your witness's presentation at deposition and trial and the overall merits of your case, says Erika Ronquillo of Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin PC.
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State AGs And Data Privacy: A Review And Look Ahead
Although 2012 was a landmark year for data privacy issues at the state level, early trends from 2013 suggest that it will become the norm, rather than an outlier. We expect California Attorney General Kamala Harris to build on her extensive activity from last year and Maryland AG Doug Gansler to have a large impact this year as well. Additional federal action likely also will influence activity at the state level in 2013, say Divonne Smoyer and Aaron Lancaster of Dickstein Shapiro LLP.
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EMR Adoption May Be Riskier Than Expected
As has always been the case, with technology comes risk. And for the medical providers who adopt electronic medical records, that risk may include not only a lack of utility or benefit, but also heightened scrutiny, more frequent investigation and even the specter of prosecution by the very government that promoted the switch to EMRs in the first place, says Robert Radick of Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello PC.
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Top 10 Social Media Law Developments Of 2012
2012 was a momentous year for social media law. We’ve combed through the court decisions, the legislative initiatives, the regulatory actions and the corporate trends to identify what we believe to be the 10 most significant social media law developments of the past year, say John Delaney and Jesse Soslow of Morrison & Foerster LLP.