Suzlon Energy Ltd. demanded Microsoft to produce emails from the Hotmail email account of Rajagopalan Sridhar, an Indian citizen imprisoned abroad. The district court held that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“ECPA”) prohibited Microsoft from producing the documents even though Sridhar was not a U.S. citizen. The Ninth Circuit affirmed.
Continue Reading...Hot on the trail of the FTC’s recent report on privacy, the GSMA, the London-based industry association representing over 800 cellular network operators worldwide, released its “high-level” Mobile Privacy Principles (the “Principles”) on January 27, 2011. The Principles were released with the goal of creating a “robust and effective framework for the protection of privacy” to promote users’ confidence and trust in mobile applications. These Principles encourage a “privacy by design” approach to mobile privacy and encourage a consistent and harmonized approach to privacy across mobile services and applications. Such Principles are highly relevant after the surge in mobile computing made possible by mobile devices, such as the iPhone, Blackberry, and Droid.
The two boldest aspects of the Principles are found in the definitions—namely, in how “personal information” is defined and in the broad responsibility of privacy espoused by the Principles.
Continue Reading...A preliminary injunction recently obtained by the State of Missouri against Sirius XM Radio, Inc. provides a reminder that some states have "Do Not Call" lists that are separate from the National Do Not Call Registry maintained by the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.
Continue Reading...As a result of a recent Supreme Court of California decision, businesses may find it a little easier to send commercial e-mail advertisements. On June 21, 2010, the Supreme Court of California held that Vonage did not violate California law by sending commercial e-mail advertisements to individuals from multiple domain names for the purpose of bypassing e-mail filters. Kleffman v. Vonage Holdings Corp., No. S169195 (Cal. filed June 21, 2010).
Continue Reading...On June 17, 2010, in a decision authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a case involving an employee’s assertion that a government employer had violated the Fourth Amendment by unreasonably obtaining and reviewing personal text messages sent and received on employer-issued pagers. Click here to read our Client Alert about this important decision.
In case you were wondering, we previously reported on the Ninth Circuit's decision, and denial of rehearing en banc, in Quon v. Arch Wireless here and here.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois recently ruled that a plaintiff may maintain a suit for receiving an unsolicited Short Message Service (“SMS”) text message under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991, even though the plaintiff was not actually charged for receiving the message. In Abbas v. Selling Source, LLC, No. 09-CV-3413 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 14, 2009), Judge Joan B. Gottschall noted that in enacting the TCPA, “Congress was just as concerned with consumers’ privacy rights and the nuisances of telemarketing” as it was with cost-shifting of communications addressed by the TCPA. Judge Gottschall continued to state that “[a]utomated calls invade privacy and pose nuisances regardless of whether the called party is charged for the call, and so congressional intent is furthered by the TCPA’s application to both charged and uncharged calls.”
Continue Reading...In August, we wrote about the ruling of a New Jersey appellate court in Stengart v. Loving Care Agency, Inc., in which the court took a very narrow view of the ability of employers to monitor the e-mail communications of employees over its computer networks. In that case, which is now on appeal to the New Jersey Supreme Court, the appellate court held that an employee did not waive her attorney-client privilege with respect to e-mails that she sent to her attorney while using the employer's computer network, but via her personal Web mail account, despite the existence of a broadly worded communications policy giving the employer the right to access all communications occurring over its network. The appellate court court ruled that even if the employer's policy applied to the employee (she disputed its applicability), the employer's right to access to such communications pursuant to that policy was limited by the employer's "legitimate business interests." Such interests did not extend, the court concluded, to the employee's communications with her attorney.
In contrast to the New Jersey court's narrow view of the applicability of such policies, the district court judge in Alamar Ranch, LLC v. County of Boise, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 101866 (D. Idaho Nov. 2, 2009), held that knowledge of employer monitoring of employee communications over its network could be imputed, not only to the employee but to the employee's attorney as well. As a result, the court held, the attorney-client privilege had been waived with respect to messages sent by the employee to the attorney using her employer-assigned e-mail account, and to messages sent to the employee at her employer e-mail address by the attorney.
Continue Reading...On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc in Quon v. Arch Wireless, previously discussed here. The dissent (1) disagrees with the panel's conclusion that the SWAT team members had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the text messages on the grounds that the decision undermines the standard established by the Supreme Court in O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709 (1987); and (2) finds that the method used by the panel to determine whether the search was reasonable conflicts with Supreme Court precedent holding that the Fourth Amendment does not require the government to use the “least intrusive means” when conducting a “special needs” search. The dissent can be found here. Judge Wardlaw's concurrence in the denial of rehearing en banc can be found here. We will keep you posted on this one.
In a decision that will significantly impact the ability of the government to access electronic communications, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on June 18, 2007, affirmed a district court’s issuance of a preliminary injunction prohibiting governmental entities from obtaining Internet Service Providers’ (“ISP”) subscribers’ e-mail communications unless the subscriber first receives prior notice and an opportunity to be heard. Warshak v. United States, No. 06-4092 (6th Cir. 2007). The Court found unconstitutional the Stored Communications Act (“SCA”) provisions allowing Government seizure of such communications without prior subscriber notice, because the court order could be issued without a showing of probable cause that the subscriber had committed a crime. The Sixth Circuit found that individuals have an expectation of privacy regarding the contents of emails sent or stored through an Internet Service Provider (ISP).
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Kristen J. Mathews is head of the Privacy and Data Security Group and a member of the Technology, Media and Communications Group. Kri...More...
Jeff Neuburger is a partner in the New York office and Co-Chair of the Technology, Media and Communications Practice Group at Proskau...More...
Peta-Anne Barrow is a senior Associate in the Labor & Employment Law Department, resident in the London office. Peta-Anne has extensive labor and empl...More...
Scott J. Carpenter is an associate in the Litigation and Dispute Resolution Department of Proskauer Rose LLP’s Washington, DC office....More...
Amy Crafts is an associate in the Litigation Department, and focuses on commercial litigation, including intellectual property, anti-...More...
Margaret A. Dale is a partner in the Litigation and Dispute Resolution Department and is resident in the New York office.Margaret’s p...More...
Nolan M. Goldberg is a Senior Counsel in Proskauer's Litigation & Dispute Resolution Department and a member of the Patent Law Group,...More...
Andrew L. Hoffman is an Associate in the Litigation & Dispute Resolution Department, resident in the Boca Raton office. Andrew has wo...More...
Charley Lozada is an Associate in the Corporate Department of Proskauer Rose LLP's New York office and a member of the Privacy and Da...More...
Cécile Martin is an associate in the Labor and Employment Law Department in the Paris office of the Firm. She has experience in all e...More...
Jeremy Mittman is an associate in the Los Angeles office of Proskauer Rose LLP. Prior to joining the Los Angeles office in October 20...More...
Natalie Newman is an associate in Proskauer Rose LLP’s Corporate Department and is a member of the Intellectual Property and Privacy...More...
Robyn Sterling is an Associate in the Health Care Department, resident in the Chicago office. Her practice focuses on transactional and regulatory hea...More...
Brendon Tavelli is an associate in the Litigation and Dispute Resolution Department and a member of the firm’s Privacy and Data Secur...More...
Paresh Trivedi is an Associate in the Corporate Department. He advises clients on a variety of complex technology, intellectual prope...More...
Robert D. Forbes is an Associate in the Litigation & Dispute Resolution Department in the Los Angeles office. He has experience in a...More...Interested in regularly receiving this blog?
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