November 2008

Businesses holding personal information of Massachusetts residents have at least one thing to be thankful for this holiday season.  As reported here, Massachusetts earlier this year established strict standards for protection of personal information about Massachusetts residents. Those standards include encryption of electronic data when stored or transmitted and

When a company is considering using cloud computing in its IT infrastructure, there are some privacy issues that need to be addressed.

While the value of cloud computing certainly holds much promise, companies wishing to make the leap into the cloud would be well advised to consider the potential privacy issues.  Cloud computing, in its essence, is the migration or outsourcing of computing, hardware and storage functions to a third-party service provider, which hosts applications on the Internet through linked servers located worldwide.  Cloud computing has captured the attention of IT professionals because it offers the appealing option of reducing a company’s computer infrastructure and placing it in the hands of a vendor who can perform a company’s computing needs more cheaply and efficiently than the company can itself.

As we prepare to welcome both the 44th President and a revamped Congress to Washington, it is time to consider what privacy under the new administration will look like. Barack Obama polled strongly on the campaign trail as the candidate most likely to advance individual privacy rights, but are the pollsters a good indicator what privacy will look like under the new administration?    Here are some of our thoughts about what we may see in the next four years.

A recent decision in the Western District of Washington broadly defines the reach of the private right of action under the federal CAN-SPAM statute. In that case, Haselton v. Quicken Loans Inc., W.D. Wash., C-07-1777, 10/14/08, the court held that a company had standing to sue alleged spammers even though it is not an Internet service provider (ISP) and does not provide e-mail accounts to its customers.