By Alexander Stout and Matthew T. Murchison on Posted in Privacy
June is proving to be a very active month for the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in construing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, including what sorts of consumer interactions are sufficient to meet the requirements for consent to receive marketing or other messages. This post reports on an extraordinary warning letter issued to PayPal, criticizing … Continue Reading
By Kevin Boyle and Alex Stout On Wednesday, the Attorney General of California released a new privacy guide, titled Making Your Privacy Practices Public. The guide doesn’t purport to be a restatement of California law (or other law) and expressly disclaims that, but it does present what the AG’s office views as a best practice … Continue Reading
By Kevin Boyle In a case that is a good reminder of the potential reach of sometimes overlooked state legislation to national practices, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has sustained the core of several complaints for violation of Michigan’s Video Rental Privacy Act. Among other arguments, defendants in the cases asserted that the … Continue Reading
By Jennifer Archie and Kevin Boyle A California state judge has dismissed a state enforcement action against our client Delta Air Lines arising out of the alleged failure to timely post a privacy policy specific to its Fly Delta App in a manner that was reasonably accessible to smartphone users. In what Law360 characterized as … Continue Reading
By Li Jie Han On December 28, 2012, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (“NPC”) of the People’s Republic of China adopted the Decision on Strengthening the Protection of Online Information (“Decision”). The Decision contains twelve (12) clauses, which are applicable to entities in both the public and private sectors in respect of … Continue Reading
By Gail Crawford and Amy Taylor Privacy professionals from more than 20 countries are gathered in Cambridge, England, to discuss privacy challenges in today’s world at the 25th annual Privacy Laws & Business conference. Professor Michael Birnhack, Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University and Visiting Associate Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, … Continue Reading
European Union Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding has confirmed that we can expect to see a draft of the eagerly awaited new Data Privacy Directive in January. The new rules are likely to significantly strengthen the rights of individuals. According to a press release issued jointly last week by Reding and Germany’s Federal Minister for Consumer Protection, Isle … Continue Reading
A recent proposed FTC consent judgment sends a warning to avoid default program settings that compromise privacy when setup routines create the impression they do not. The FTC’s underlying complaint against Frostwire LLC, developer of P2P file-sharing applications, alleged that the firm’s software for the Android platform “was likely to cause a significant number of … Continue Reading
In the run up to today’s deadline for EEA Member States to implement the EU’s revised Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive, including its new rules requiring consent to the use of cookies, the UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport (the DCMS) and the UK’s privacy regulator, the ICO, have released further guidance for businesses, … Continue Reading
Last week we posted about the fast approaching May 26 deadline for member state implementation of the EU’s revised Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive concerning cookies on web sites. We noted the relative absence of final (if any) guidance from EU jurisdictions on the approach to be taken in their respective implementations. On Monday, the UK’s privacy regulator, the Information … Continue Reading
Google has consented to the entry of a proposed Agreement Containing Consent Order with the US Federal Trade Commission, subjecting the company to sweeping government oversight of its privacy disclosure and product development and release practices, nominally arising out of the roll-out of its Buzz product in February 2010. The auditing and reporting requirements are … Continue Reading
It seems fitting that on Data Privacy Day, a day designed to raise awareness of privacy issues (and not, as reported by Wikipedia, an international public holiday), we touch on the issue of “transparency” e.g. how to ensure individuals understand how their data is being processed. The EDPS, in its 14th January Opinion, describes transparency … Continue Reading
We are often asked to review web site terms of use. Here are five provisions that often seem to be missing in action (in no particular order): No Scraping With automated screen scraping tools readily available, this data harvesting technique presents issues for websites that allow users to search for data. Even if … Continue Reading
