Cybersecurity & Privacy

  • March 18, 2024

    Apple Co-Founder's Scam Suit Against YouTube Gets New Life

    A California appeals court has revived Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's lawsuit accusing YouTube and its parent company, Google, of contributing to a cryptocurrency scam that fraudulently used his image, finding that the tech giants' provision of verification badges to corrupted channels could put them outside the scope of a federal tech liability shield law.

  • March 18, 2024

    Atty For Ex-Overstock CEO Admits Dominion Discovery Leaks

    A lawyer representing former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne against a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems admitted to a D.C. federal judge on Monday that she shared Dominion's discovery documents with law enforcement as Dominion's attorneys decried the leak as a flagrant violation of a court protective order.

  • March 18, 2024

    Meta Wants Emergency Stop Of FTC Privacy Tweaks

    Meta is seeking an immediate injunction to halt the Federal Trade Commission's changes to its 2020 settlement with the company, asking the D.C. Circuit to hear its appeal before the social media giant must respond to a show cause order on why the deal shouldn't be modified.

  • March 18, 2024

    Texas Hospital Loses Bid To Dismiss Patients' Hack Suit

    A Texas federal judge handed a win to the plaintiffs suing a hospital system in the aftermath of a hack that saw hundreds of patients' data pilfered, dismissing some of the claims in the proposed class action but allowing the suit to move forward after a hearing Monday.

  • March 18, 2024

    SEC's Grewal Defends 'Shadow Trading' Case Ahead Of Trial

    The enforcement director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday defended the agency's stance in a novel "shadow trading" case one week before it's set to go to trial, saying that while it's the first case of its kind, the underlying allegations aren't new.

  • March 18, 2024

    GOP Rep. Calls For Crackdown On EV Threats From China

    Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., a member of the House select committee on China's Communist Party and a U.S. Senate candidate, has asked the Commerce Department to investigate the imports of electronic vehicles and their components and the possible security threats to the United States from electronics from China.

  • March 18, 2024

    Vidal Tells PTAB To Try Defining 'Biometric Signal' Again

    The head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has thrown out decisions from the Patent Trial and Trademark Board that found Assa Abloy was unable to show two biometric patents were unpatentable, saying the PTAB used a definition of a critical term that wasn't proposed by Assa Abloy or the patent owner.

  • March 18, 2024

    Amazon Again Tries To Sink NBA 2K Facial Scan Claims

    Amazon is insisting it did not run afoul of Illinois' biometric privacy law, saying an amended complaint in a proposed class action in Washington federal court has failed to show the e-commerce company's cloud service collected or disclosed facial scans of teens playing the hit game NBA 2K.

  • March 18, 2024

    Voyager Investors Suing Mark Cuban Seek Class Cert.

    Investors suing billionaire Mark Cuban over his role in promoting now-bankrupt Voyager Digital Ltd. have pushed for class certification and urged the court to rule that Voyager was selling unregistered securities.

  • March 18, 2024

    Apple Beats Most Claims In AirTag Stalking Suit, For Now

    A California federal judge has dismissed the majority of a proposed class action accusing Apple of not doing enough to safeguard its AirTag tracking device from being abused by stalkers, saying that apart from a few negligence and product liability claims under Golden State law, the rest need to be reworked.

  • March 18, 2024

    New York Magazine Urges Judge To Toss Reader Privacy Suit

    New York Magazine says it has too few Michigan-based subscribers for them to maintain a class action under a Michigan consumer privacy law, urging a judge to toss claims that it wrongfully disclosed readers' data to third parties.

  • March 18, 2024

    High Court Doubts Feds Coerced Social Media Cos.

    A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court appeared unconvinced Monday that the Biden administration violated the First Amendment by working with social media platforms to combat the spread of misinformation, often chiding Louisiana's solicitor general for presenting confusing and overly expansive arguments.

  • March 18, 2024

    Conn. Judge Won't Halt Ex-Yale Student's Case After 'Doxxing'

    A Connecticut federal judge determined Monday that acquitted former Yale University student Saifullah Khan's decision to reveal his onetime sexual assault accuser's name on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, isn't fatal to a defamation lawsuit against the woman despite an anonymity order.

  • March 18, 2024

    Mass. Law Firm Can't Escape Ex-Client's Data Breach Case

    A small Massachusetts law firm will have to face an ex-client's proposed class action claiming it was negligent and failed to protect her and others' personal information from hackers who breached the firm's computers and stole data, a Boston federal judge has ruled.

  • March 18, 2024

    Google Defeats BIPA Suit Over IBM Face Dataset, For Now

    Google has defeated a proposed class action by Illinois residents who accused the company of violating the state's biometric privacy laws with facial data collected by IBM, after a California federal judge said their claims don't establish that Google's alleged violations took place in the Prairie State.

  • March 16, 2024

    Up Next At High Court: Gov't Jawboning & Retaliatory Arrests

    The U.S. Supreme Court has a packed oral arguments calendar this week that includes disputes over the Biden administration's work with social media companies to combat misinformation, the appropriate evidence standard for bringing retaliatory arrest claims and whether the federal government can object to a consent decree entered into by three states.

  • March 15, 2024

    Man Accused Of Cyberstalking NJ Judge Seeks Release

    A man representing himself after being indicted on allegations of cyberstalking a New Jersey judge urged a California federal judge on Friday to release him from custody pending trial, complaining he was initially charged with making threats against numerous officials, but the single cyberstalking count he now faces isn't cause to hold him.

  • March 15, 2024

    Google Wants Facebook Pact Kept Out Of Ad Tech Discovery

    Google urged a Texas federal judge on Friday to reject state-level enforcers' bid to lift a stay on discovery for documents related to a bidding agreement between Google and Facebook in the suit accusing the search giant of monopolizing key digital ad technology, saying the plaintiffs' antitrust claims based on the agreement have already been dismissed.

  • March 15, 2024

    FTC Inks $26M Deal With Two Cypriot Tech Scheme Cos.

    The Federal Trade Commission said it has reached a $26 million settlement in D.C. federal court with two Cyprus-based companies that it accuses of defrauding elderly consumers out of tens of millions of dollars in a tech support scam.

  • March 15, 2024

    Meta Can't Block FTC Plans To Stop Kids' Data Monetization

    Meta filed its second appeal Friday after suffering another D.C. federal court loss against proposed Federal Trade Commission tweaks to a $5 billion data privacy settlement meant to block its monetization of children's data.

  • March 15, 2024

    Roblox's Casino Games Are 'Preying On Children,' Suit Says

    Online game platform Roblox Corp. has been hit with another proposed class action suit in California federal court accusing it and other companies of "preying on children nationwide" through an "illegal gambling ecosystem" that specifically targets minors.

  • March 15, 2024

    Indian National Admits $6M Elder Tech Support Scam

    An Indian citizen pled guilty in New York federal court Friday to participating in a conspiracy to defraud elderly victims of more than $6 million through a telephone technical support scheme that infected their computers with malware.

  • March 15, 2024

    TikTok Wants 'Bad Copycat' Suit Over Editing App Tossed

    TikTok and ByteDance urged an Illinois federal judge to end a proposed class action alleging they secretly collect and profit from data gathered from users of its CapCut video-editing tool, arguing the plaintiffs voluntarily downloaded the app and granted it permission to access certain types of data. 

  • March 15, 2024

    Didi Can't Shake Investor Class Over Regulatory Disclosures

    A New York federal judge has ruled that Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Global Inc. cannot escape a class action suit claiming it misled investors about the risks of a disciplinary crackdown from the Chinese government over alleged data security violations, saying the risk disclosures Didi provided investors were insufficient.

  • March 15, 2024

    Cybersecurity Co. Co-Founder Must Face SEC Fraud Claims

    A New York federal judge determined that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sufficiently alleged that the co-founder of a now-bankrupt cybersecurity company raked in over $6.2 million in ill-gotten gains by participating in a fraudulent securities scheme that defrauded investors of over $100 million.

Expert Analysis

  • What Lawyers Must Know About Calif. State Bar's AI Guidance

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    Initial recommendations from the State Bar of California regarding use of generative artificial intelligence by lawyers have the potential to become a useful set of guidelines in the industry, covering confidentiality, supervision and training, communications, discrimination and more, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • Industry Must Elevate Native American Women Attys' Stories

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    The American Bar Association's recent research study into Native American women attorneys' experiences in the legal industry reveals the glacial pace of progress, and should inform efforts to amplify Native voices in the field, says Mary Smith, president of the ABA.

  • A Look At Mass. Sports Betting Data Privacy Regulations

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    The Massachusetts Gaming Commission recently approved data privacy regulations under the state's sports wagering act to promote responsible gaming, showing a trend of regulators directing companies on how to protect personal information used by artificial intelligence systems, say Liisa Thomas and Kathryn Smith at Sheppard Mullin.

  • White House Activity Is A Band-Aid For Regulating AI In Health

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    In the medium term, recent White House actions will have a greater impact on AI in the health care industry than Congress' sluggish efforts to regulate it, but ultimately legislation of AI's development and use in the health space will fall to Congress, say Wendell Bartnick and Vanessa Perumal at Reed Smith.

  • Crypto, Audit Cases Dominate SEC's Enforcement Focus In '23

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    Attorneys at Covington examine the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's fiscal year 2023 enforcement results, which marked the SEC's third consecutive year of increasing enforcement activity since Chair Gary Gensler took over in 2021 — this time driven by a focus on combating cryptocurrency-related scams and enforcing recordkeeping compliance.

  • New York Cybersecurity Amendments Raise Regulatory Bar

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    Financial service providers both in and outside New York should study recent changes to the state financial regulator's cybersecurity requirements, which add governance controls, technical safeguards and incident response protocols to improve what is already becoming the national benchmark for robust cybersecurity compliance programs, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

  • Understanding Discovery Obligations In Era Of Generative AI

    Excerpt from Practical Guidance
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    Attorneys and businesses must adapt to the unique discovery challenges presented by generative artificial intelligence, such as chatbot content and prompts, while upholding the principles of fairness, transparency and compliance with legal obligations in federal civil litigation, say attorneys at King & Spalding.

  • Kochava Ruling May Hint At Next Privacy Class Action Wave

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    The Southern District of California's recent ruling in Greenley v. Kochava and increasing complaints alleging that a consumer website is an illegal “pen register” due to the use of third-party marketing software tools foreshadow a new theory of liability for plaintiffs in privacy litigation, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • The Case For Post-Bar Clerk Training Programs At Law Firms

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    In today's competitive legal hiring market, an intentionally designed training program for law school graduates awaiting bar admission can be an effective way of creating a pipeline of qualified candidates, says Brent Daub at Gilson Daub.

  • FTC Warning Letters Note 5 Mistakes For Influencers To Avoid

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    The Federal Trade Commission recently sent warning letters to two trade associations and 12 health influencers over their social media posts, offering insight into how the agency plans to enforce its updated endorsement guides and highlighting five concerns to keep in mind for marketing campaigns, says Gonzalo Mon at Kelley Drye.

  • Attorneys Have An Ethical Duty To Protect The Judiciary

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    The tenor of public disagreement and debate has become increasingly hostile against judges, and though the legislative branch is trying to ameliorate this safety gap, lawyers have a moral imperative and professional requirement to stand with judges in defusing attacks against them and their rulings, says Deborah Winokur at Cozen O'Connor.

  • AI Can Help Lawyers Overcome The Programming Barrier

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    Legal professionals without programming expertise can use generative artificial intelligence to harness the power of automation and other technology solutions to streamline their work, without the steep learning curve traditionally associated with coding, says George Zalepa at Greenberg Traurig.

  • Cos. Must Adapt To Calif. Immigration Data Privacy Law

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    California’s recently signed A.B. 947 expands the California Consumer Privacy Act and brings the state in line with other comprehensive privacy laws that address immigration status, meaning companies should make any necessary updates to their processes and disclosures, say Kate Lucente and Matt Dhaiti at DLA Piper.

  • How Legal Teams Can Prep For Life Sciences' Tech Revolution

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    The life sciences and health care industries are uniquely positioned to take advantage of new efficiencies created by cloud computing and generative artificial intelligence, but the sensitivity of their data also demands careful navigation of an expanding legislative and regulatory landscape, say Kristi Gedid, Zack Laplante and Lisa LaMotta at Ernst & Young.

  • Key Takeaways From CFPB's Proposed Data-Sharing Rules

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    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recently announced proposed rule for regulating personal financial data rights sheds light on the bureau's stance regarding practices like screen-scraping and may presage further activity that could involve more concrete enforcement actions, say attorneys at Wilson Sonsini.

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