On July 5, 2011, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller announced a settlement with health insurer WellPoint, Inc. The settlement resolves allegations that the company failed to promptly notify the Attorney General’s office of a data breach as is required by the Indiana Disclosure of Security Breach Act. As part of the settlement, WellPoint must pay a fine of $100,000, provide certain identity-theft-prevention assistance to consumers affected by the breach, and admit that it failed to comply with the law by not notifying Zoeller’s office “without unreasonable delay.”
Third Party Discovery of Foreign Bank Records Should First Proceed Under the Hague Convention
By Nolan Goldberg on
Where U.S. litigation discovery obligations were argued to be in conflict with foreign civil and criminal privacy statutes, many recent opinions found that discovery should proceed under the Federal Rules over the protest of the foreign data custodians. However, in SEC v. Stanford International Bank Ltd, the court departed from this pattern in finding that discovery should first proceed under the Hague convention in the interest of comity. While it is unclear the extent to which this approach will be followed by other courts in the future, the Stanford opinion illustrates that it is possible for litigants and third parties to successfully navigate cross border discovery conflicts even where privacy interests are at stake.
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Let us tell you how we see this going down: White House publishes cybersecurity legislative proposal
Posted on
On May 12, 2011, the Obama Administration released its legislative proposal concerning cybersecurity. The stated focus of the proposal is to shore up cybersecurity measures to protect the American people, the Nation’s critical infrastructure, and the Federal Government’s networks and computers while providing a framework for safeguarding individual privacy and civil liberties.
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COPPA Violations? Cop a Settlement for $3 Million
By Proskauer Rose on
Playdom, Inc., an online game company owned by Disney, and Playdom’s CEO, Howard Marks, agreed to pay $3 million to settle charges brought by the FTC that they violated COPPA by collecting, using and disclosing the personal information of children under the age of 13 without their parents’ prior, verifiable consent. The $3 million settlement is the largest civil penalty ever for a COPPA violation.
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FTC Says Scoot, Rascal! Rascal Scooters Penalized $100,000 for Calling Consumers on the Do Not Call Registry
By Proskauer Rose on
The maker of Rascal Scooters agreed to pay $100,000 as a civil penalty to settle a complaint filed by the FTC alleging that Rascal Scooters violated the FTC Act and the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule.
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Judge Finds Injury-in-Fact Adequately Alleged in RockYou Data Breach Action
By Scott Carpenter on
Where others have failed, Alan Claridge did not. Recently, a Federal judge in the Northern District of California declined to dismiss Plaintiff Claridge’s claims arising from a data breach involving the social entertainment site RockYou. Arguing that the data breach harmed the value of his personal information, Plaintiff convinced the court not to dismiss his action for lack of standing.
FTC-Google Settlement Marks Two “Firsts” in FTC Privacy Enforcement
By Andrew Hoffman on
Google recently settled charges by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that Google’s social networking service, Buzz, violated the FTC Act. The FTC-Google settlement prohibits Google from misrepresenting the extent to which it maintains and protects the confidentiality of users’ information and from misrepresenting its compliance with the US-EU Safe Harbor Framework. In that regard, the settlement represents two important “firsts” in FTC enforcement.
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