By Brian Hall on The recent data breaches at Target, Home Depot, and Jimmy John’s have kept data privacy and security in the news lately. But from a legal perspective, there has never been much that the victims of these breaches could do to obtain a remedy in the absence of actual proof of identity or other theft. Indeed, … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on On July 7-11, 2014, a group of 25 privacy lawyers met in a historic building overlooking the Keizersgracht, one of Amsterdam’s most beautiful canals, and spent five days learning about U.S. privacy law, European data protection law, and the complex interactions between them. The setting was the Summer Course on Privacy Law and Policy, presented … Continue Reading
By W. Hunter West and Donna Ruscitti on The Florida Information Protection Act of 2014, aimed at strengthening Florida’s data breach notification law, goes into effect tomorrow, July 1, 2014. The act contains major changes to Florida’s existing data breach notification statute and makes it one of the toughest in the nation. Shortened notice period For example, notice to consumers must be given within … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on Have you ever received an email from LinkedIn with the invitation: “I’d like to add you to my professional network.”? If you did not respond, did you receive a reminder email a week later? And another one a few weeks after that? If you did, or if you were one of the LinkedIn users who … Continue Reading
By Donna Ruscitti on Porter Wright continues its tradition of providing cutting-edge information about how technology affects your business with the 2014 Technology Seminar Series, beginning June 18. This year’s sessions are: Social media in litigation: a shield and a sword June 18 The worlds of social media and litigation have collided. Social media evidence is used in employment … Continue Reading
By Brian Hall on Two recent decisions – one from the federal district court in New Jersey and one from a federal Administrative Law Judge – potentially will have significant impact on the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) enforcement of business’s data security obligations. (Read more about these cases here and here.) FTC v. Wyndam Worldwide In FTC v. Wyndham Worldwide … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on If you believe that a former employee may have taken your trade secrets on his way out the door and you are considering court action to rectify the situation, it is important to have compelling evidence of the misappropriation. But as we discuss in this post, even with compelling evidence of misappropriation, the plaintiff’s failure … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on The Federal Trade Commission’s Division of Advertising Practices has recently finalized its investigation into Cole Haan’s “Wandering Shoe” contest wherein contestants could enter the contest by creating Pinterest boards titled “Wandering Sole” and including five shoe images from Cole Haan’s Wander Sole Pinterest Board as well as five images of contestants’ “favorite places to wander.” … Continue Reading
By Jay L. Levine and Donna Ruscitti on Okay, folks, we won’t beat around the bush. This is just plain creepy! On Monday, the FTC finalized its order against Aaron’s, one of the country’s largest rent-to-own (RTO) stores, charging that its franchisees were spying on its customers.1 By the way, by spying, we mean to include taking webcam pictures every two minutes that … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on A few days after we posted “Facebook’s ‘Look Back’ videos send reminder: Get digital accounts in order before death,” which provided guidance to digital account users on how to make plans for their digital accounts before death, Facebook announced a policy change regarding how it would maintain the profiles of its users who have passed away … Continue Reading
By Jay Yurkiw on Following is Part 2 of my third annual list of the top 10 e-discovery developments and trends from the past year. Read Part 1. 6. “It is malpractice to not seek a 502(d) order from the court before you seek documents.” U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck began last year at Legal Tech providing his thoughts … Continue Reading
By Jay Yurkiw on Here is my third annual list of the top 10 e-discovery developments and trends from the past year. 1. The growth of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies and work-related text messaging is creating litigation hold challenges. A Cisco survey found that 89% of companies are currently enabling employees to use their own electronic devices … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on Forensic computer examinations can be expensive and therefore may prompt the question during litigation – are they worth it? A recent decision from the Southern District of Ohio illustrates why the answer is “yes” in many trade secret cases. In H&H Industries, Inc. v. Miller, the court relied heavily on the results of the forensic … Continue Reading
By Jay Yurkiw on The end of the year brought another decision that impacts Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies as well as another Court of Appeals decision addressing the recoverability of e-discovery costs under 28 U.S.C. § 1920(4), which permits a court to award “the costs of making copies of any materials where the copies are necessarily obtained … Continue Reading
By Jay Yurkiw on Last month, Magistrate Judge David J. Waxse decided an issue that we likely will see more of in the age of big data. He rejected a defendant’s undue burden argument even though even though the “data warehouses” at issue contained over 100 terabytes of data and the production would take several months to develop a … Continue Reading
By Jay L. Levine on Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act — the Act that established the FTC in the first place — makes it unlawful to engage in “unfair methods of competition … and unfair or deceptive acts or practices…” Though the words seem simple enough, its application in today’s world is anything but simple, particularly when you talk about data privacy. Two companies — Wyndham Worldwide Corp. and LabMD Inc. — are publicly, and independently, challenging the FTC’s authority over their data security policies (and subsequent lapses). This post is a quick update about LabMD’s challenge.
In August 2013, the FTC filed an administrative complaint against LabMD, alleging that it lacked appropriate data security and unreasonably exposed the health and personal data of its consumers. LabMD conducts clinical laboratory tests on patients and reports its finding to patients’ health care providers. In performing the needed tests, LabMD typically obtains personal information, including names, addresses, dates of birth, SSNs, bank account or credit card information, laboratory tests, test codes and results, diagnoses, clinical histories, and health insurance company names and policy numbers. LabMD possesses such data for approximately 1 million consumers.
The FTC charged that LabMD “failed to provide reasonable and appropriate security for personal information on its computer networks.” Among other things, the complaint states that LabMD failed to:
… Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on This past summer, the University of Amsterdam launched a new, week-long Privacy Law and Policy Summer Course related to the Internet, electronic communications, and online and social media. Course faculty included European and U.S. academics, European regulators and the head of the global privacy law practice at an international law firm, among others. Course participants … Continue Reading
By Jay Yurkiw on When I present on e-discovery, I often use EDRM’s Electronic Discovery Reference Model to explain how decisions made about the creation, storage and deletion of electronically stored information (ESI) can affect how e-discovery is conducted in a lawsuit. The EDRM model illustrates how a company’s records and information management policies can impact the volume of … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on Privacy policies are often lengthy, difficult to read and even more complicated to understand. Facebook’s data use policy, for instance, fills 16 pages and contains more than 9,000 words. The idea of reading through an entire privacy policy on the small screen of a mobile device exemplifies the need for a different, more user-friendly approach. … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on For many years, we have been advising our clients that, in addition to the laws addressing sweepstakes and contest promotions, they must also be aware of the Facebook’s promotion guidelines if they wished to link their sweepstakes promotion to the company Facebook presence. While that remains true, Facebook has now made it much easier for … Continue Reading
By Jay Yurkiw on A federal court in California has held that subpoenas served on Google and Yahoo! seeking the subscriber and usage information associated with 68 email addresses did not infringe on the subscribers’ First Amendment rights or their right to privacy. Chevron Corp v. Donziger, No. 12-mc-80237 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 22, 2013). The subpoenas also did not … Continue Reading
By Donna Ruscitti on As companies struggle with how to develop cloud strategies that are both cost effective and protect sensitive consumer and corporate data, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can provide hands-on information to the private sector to help implement a reasonable cloud computing solution. Though NIST provides guidelines to the U.S. Government, the private … Continue Reading
By Tracey Turnbull and Porter Wright on This article was published originally at InsideCounsel.com. The article is the final installment of a six-part series focusing on evidence spoliation. Read more here, here and here. Spoliation of evidence occurs when an individual or entity violates its duty to preserve relevant evidence. A finding of spoliation will often result in the imposition of sanctions and … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on A federal court has denied a defendant-employer’s request that plaintiffs sift through and turn over all their social media posts made during their work hours in an FLSA collective action in which the plaintiffs claim their employer failed to give them meal breaks. How did that happen? I thought you’d never ask. By way of … Continue Reading
