Cybersecurity & Privacy

  • March 20, 2024

    US Chamber's Litigation Funding Concerns Spur 2 State Laws

    Amid concerns from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about third-party litigation funding, including from potentially hostile foreign entities, state legislatures in Indiana and West Virginia have recently passed bills imposing restrictions on the practice.

  • March 19, 2024

    Kohl's Can't Shake Wiretap Suit Over Online Chat Feature

    A California federal judge has refused to toss a putative class action accusing Kohl's of unlawfully eavesdropping on website visitors who used an online chat feature operated by a third party, allowing a pair of claims over the alleged interception and sharing of these communications to move forward. 

  • March 19, 2024

    Apple Deleted Siri Recordings, Users Say In Seeking Sanctions

    Users of Apple's Siri who claim the voice-activated software records their conversations have asked a California federal judge to sanction the company for allegedly deleting millions of proposed class members' Siri records, including data they say "meticulously documented Apple's interception" of their confidential communications.

  • March 19, 2024

    Google Fights Wiretapping Suit Over 'Fancy Tape Recorder'

    Google LLC urged a California federal judge Tuesday to throw out a proposed class action alleging the tech giant's "human-like" customer-service product using generative text illegally eavesdrops on conversations without users' consent, arguing that the product is merely a "fancy tape recorder" that doesn't involve humans eavesdropping.

  • March 19, 2024

    Don't Impose Foreign Ownership Regs On ISPs, FCC Told

    As the Federal Communications Commission mulls how it's going to regulate broadband now that the Democratic majority plans to reclassify it as a Title II service, a free market think tank is urging the agency not to apply the agency's foreign ownership regulations to internet service providers.

  • March 19, 2024

    5th Circ. Won't Rehear Ex-Raytheon Worker's Firing Suit

    The Fifth Circuit on Tuesday refused to rehear an engineer's claims that he was fired by Raytheon for flagging issues with a defense system, keeping intact its ruling that national security concerns barred the retaliation case.

  • March 19, 2024

    No 'True Threats' Made On Officials In Trump Case, Court Told

    An Alabama man indicted for allegedly threatening to harm the Georgia prosecutor spearheading the election interference case against former President Donald Trump wants the indictment against him tossed, arguing that he didn't make "true threats" and that his speech is protected by the First Amendement.

  • March 19, 2024

    State Farm Must Face Wire Fraud Coverage Suit

    A State Farm unit can't escape a property owners association's suit seeking directors and officers coverage for underlying litigation stemming from an alleged wire fraud incident, a California federal court ruled, saying the association's claimed loss falls within the basic scope of coverage.

  • March 19, 2024

    US Bank, Oppenheimer To Pay CFTC $7M In Text Probe Cases

    U.S. Bank NA and Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. have agreed to pay a combined $7 million to settle allegations brought by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission over the failure to preserve business communications via personal text, the agency announced Tuesday.

  • 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.

Expert Analysis

  • Safe-Harbor Period Change Could Hinder TCPA Compliance

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    A proposed rule change under consideration by the Federal Communications Commission would require businesses to honor do-not-call requests within 24 hours of receipt for calls and texts that are subject to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and companies have already called it unreasonable, say Aaron Weiss and Danny Enjamio at Carlton Fields.

  • Cos. Must Address Growing Chatbot Class Action Risk

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    Following a new wave of chatbot-related consumer data privacy litigation and expanding compliance obligations created by state legislatures, businesses using such technology face a high-risk environment for wiretapping allegations, with inconsistent court rulings to date and uncertain legal holdings ahead, say attorneys at Pierce Atwood.

  • Key Points From NY Regulators' Crypto Listing Update

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    Virtual currency entities should review the New York State Department of Financial Services' recently proposed guidance for self-certification of coins, which features heightened listing standards and a new delisting framework, and evaluate its impact on their existing practices and coin-listing procedures, say attorneys at WilmerHale.

  • Attorneys, Law Schools Must Adapt To New Era Of Evidence

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    Technological advancements mean more direct evidence is being created than ever before, and attorneys as well as law schools must modify their methods to account for new challenges in how this evidence is collected and used to try cases, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • Inside The Current State Of International Crypto Compliance

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    A recent Financial Action Task Force report regarding adoption of international virtual asset compliance standards reflects a fairly grim state of affairs, but a broader look at providers' risk mitigation efforts and developments is encouraging, say Leah Moushey and Franco Jofré at Miller & Chevalier, and Meredith Fitzpatrick at Forensic Risk Alliance.

  • Knicks Suit Shows Need For Leagues To Protect Big Data

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    The New York Knicks' recent lawsuit alleging a former employee took trade secrets to the Toronto Raptors shows sports leagues — both professional and amateur — should prepare for future litigation in this realm, given the growth of analytics and statistics in front offices, says Kevin Paule at Hill Ward Henderson.

  • 5 Telecom Issues To Watch Amid FCC Broadband Proposal

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    The Federal Communications Commission's recent proposal to restore net neutrality rules and reassert its regulatory authority over broadband providers is likely to spark debate over certain issues, including privacy rules and questions surrounding the commission's legal authority, says Matthew DelNero at Covington.

  • 3 Tips For Defending Against Data Breach Litigation

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    As cyberattacks become more prevalent, companies responding to data breaches must consider several strategies to better position themselves in the event of litigation even during their preliminary investigations and breach notifications, say attorneys at Davis Wright.

  • Best Practices For Cos. Navigating US-China Investigations

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    Given recent enforcement trends and the broad jurisdictional reach of U.S. laws, companies with operations in China must enhance their compliance programs in order to balance new corporate enforcement expectations with Chinese data protection and privacy requirements, say attorneys at Paul Hastings.

  • Tips For Litigating Against Pro Se Parties In Complex Disputes

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    Litigating against self-represented parties in complex cases can pose unique challenges for attorneys, but for the most part, it requires the same skills that are useful in other cases — from documenting everything to understanding one’s ethical duties, says Bryan Ketroser at Alto Litigation.

  • Opinion

    Justices Should Nix Section 230 Immunity For Tech

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    The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to decide two new cases that present another opening to curtail the broad immunity enjoyed by tech company-owned social media platforms under Section 230, and it's long past time for online publishers to be treated the same as traditional ones, says Douglas Mirell at Greenberg Glusker.

  • Unpacking The FAR Council's Cybersecurity Rules Proposal

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    New reporting and information sharing requirements in the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council's recently proposed cybersecurity regulations would create new False Claims Act enforceability risks, and could be a focus for the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Cyber Fraud Initiative, say Townsend Bourne and Lillia Damalouji at Sheppard Mullin.

  • How Ill. Supreme Court Could Shape Statutory Violation Cases

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    In Fausett v. Walgreens, the Illinois Supreme Court will take up the question of whether a violation of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act satisfies the injury-in-fact requirement, and any outcome could significantly change the litigation landscape in Illinois, say Donald Patrick Eckler and Joshua Zhao at Freeman Mathis.

  • Pro Bono Work Is Powerful Self-Help For Attorneys

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    Oct. 22-28 is Pro Bono Week, serving as a useful reminder that offering free legal help to the public can help attorneys expand their legal toolbox, forge community relationships and create human connections, despite the challenges of this kind of work, says Orlando Lopez at Culhane Meadows.

  • Rebuilding The Construction Industry With AI

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    Artificial intelligence in the construction industry will usher in a new era of innovation and efficiency, leading to cheaper, safer and more environmentally conscious building practices, but it will also bring concerns related to data security, workforce training and job displacement, say Josephine Bahn and Jeffery Mullen at Cozen O'Connor.

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