On January 10, 2013, President Obama signed into law H.R. 6671, an amendment to the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (VPPA) codified at 18 U.S.C. § 2710, which will permit companies, such as Netflix, to obtain advance consent from consumers to automatically share their movie viewing history
Online Privacy
Learning from the Past: The FTC Bans Undisclosed History Sniffing
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It has been said that we must learn from the past to profit by the present. Taking this literally in this digital age of ours, one online advertising company has found this maxim to have some serious privacy implications as evidenced by the FTC order last week banning undisclosed history sniffing practices.
FRENCH CLOUDS: WHERE DOES CLOUD COMPUTING STAND IN FRANCE?
By Cecile Martin on
Concurrent with the European Commission’s recent release of a new strategy to “unleash the potential of cloud computing in Europe,” the French Data Protection Agency (CNIL) issued 7 recommendations to assist companies to comply with French law when using cloud computing services.
Defending the Homefront: A Cybersecurity Executive Order
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The simultaneous denial of service attacks on the three largest U.S. banks which occurred two weeks ago were reported to have originated in Iran. After years of stealth cyber attacks on American interests, U.S. intelligence officials recently publicly accused China of cyber espionage of American high-tech data for their own economic gain. The head of U.S. Cyber Command has stated that there has been a twentyfold increase in cyberattacks on critical infrastructure from 2009 to 2011. With the need for national cybersecurity more evident now than ever before, the White House announced that it is close to completing a new cybersecurity executive order to address this critical issue.
Shaking Up the Settlement Process: FTC Reconsiders Whether Companies Can Deny Wrongdoing While Settling Privacy Violation Claims
By David Munkittrick on
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) recently announced settlements of cases brought against Google and Facebook for alleged privacy violations. The Google settlement drew headlines for being the largest fine ever assessed for the violation of a FTC consent order ($22.5 million). But Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch’s dissents are perhaps more momentous, as they have prompted the FTC to re-examine its practice of accepting settlements in which companies deny wrongdoing.
California District Court Dismisses Privacy Class Action Lawsuit Against LinkedIn
By Amy Crafts on
A California District Court has dismissed with prejudice a class action lawsuit filed against LinkedIn on behalf of its registered users, finding the allegations too speculative to sustain a lawsuit. An earlier Complaint filed by one of the representative Plaintiffs was dismissed by the Court without prejudice, allowing the Plaintiff to amend the Complaint and bring the lawsuit again. In this recent decision, the Court dismissed all of the claims asserted in the Amended Complaint with prejudice, and without leave to amend either because the claims were legally defective or because the Plaintiff failed to cure deficiencies raised in LinkedIn’s motion to dismiss the original Complaint or raised in the Court’s order dismissing the original Complaint.
FTC Releases Recommendations for Business and Policymakers
By Proskauer Rose on
The FTC released its final report titled “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: Recommendations for Business and Policymakers” which sets forth principles that companies are recommended to follow with respect to their privacy practices.
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Google’s New Privacy Policy Being Scrutinized by the French Data Protection Authority
By Marianne Le Moullec on
Google launched a new privacy policy that took effect on March 1st, 2012. According to Google, the purpose of revising its privacy policy was to unify into one single privacy policy more than 60 different privacy policies across its wide array of products and services.