FINRA Issues Sweep Letter Regarding Use of Social Media
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Socially Aware is devoted to the law and business of social media, proactively addressing emerging issues and keeping our clients informed of new developments. We cover fields such as artificial intelligence, privacy and data security, Section 230, intellectual property, and much more.
- FINRA, having enacted new communications rules that specifically reference electronic communications, having issued two Regulatory Notices (linked here and here ) providing guidance to the securities industry on social media, and having made social media and electronic communications exam priorities in two of the... ›
German Court Holds Google Responsible for Its Search Suggestions
By: Alja Poler De Zwart
On May 15, 2013, in a case filed against Google by an entrepreneur selling dietary supplements and cosmetics (the “Plaintiff”), the German Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe ( Bundesgerichtshof , the “Federal Court”) ruled that Google must remove any defamatory suggestions generated by... ›- - Asia
The Diet Has Spoken: Japanese Lawmakers Approve Internet-Enabled Campaigning
By: Tomoki Kodama
In February 2013, we reported on legislative momentum in the Japanese Diet to bring Japan’s sixty-year-old election laws into the brave new world of Web 2.0. On April 19, 2013, that reform effort came to fruition, when a bill permitting the use of the... › Stop Insider Tweeting!—Feds Eye Social Media for Securities Shenanigans
Article courtesy of Morrison & Foerster’s MoFo Tech As financial institutions and investors turn to social media to instantly share snippets of news and potential clues about market trends, the FBI and SEC are monitoring such postings for evidence of insider trading and improper... ›- - E-Commerce, Ethics
Playing Fair? UK’s OFT Investigates Online and App-Based Games
On April 12, 2013, the UK’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the UK regulator for consumer affairs and competition, announced that it was launching an investigation into children’s web- and app-based games. In particular, the OFT is looking into whether such games comply with... › Mobile Apps Bill Introduced in the House of Representatives
By: Rick Fischer
Article courtesy of Morrison & Foerster’s Mobile Payments Practice Lawmakers in Washington, D.C., continue to show interest in understanding and developing regulatory proposals relating to mobile apps. The interest appears to be driven, at least in part, by policymakers’ concerns about consumer privacy when... ›New UK Press Self-Regulation – With a Small Blog Exemption
Following concerns raised by bloggers, the UK government has clarified that small blogs will be exempt from the scope of the new UK press watchdog which is to be introduced as a result of the findings of the Leveson Inquiry. In 2007, Clive Goodman,... ›FDA Letter to Mobile App Developer Signals Regulatory Scheme
By: Erin M. Bosman and Julie Y. Park
In late May 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent an enforcement letter to a mobile medical app developer for failing to obtain a 510(k) clearance before marketing the app, which the FDA said appears to be a “device” under section 201(h)... ›UK: The Latest Social Media Legal Updates
In our May 30, 2012 post on the Socially Aware blog— “Should We All Be Getting the Twitter “Jitters”? Be Careful What You Say Online (Particularly in the United Kingdom)” —we considered a variety of UK laws being used to regulate the content of... ›The Second Circuit’s Aereo Math: One Copy + One Subscriber ≠ Public Performance
Last week—the week of May 12, 2013—proved to be an eventful week for Aereo. On May 14, 2013, the controversial broadcast television streaming service filed a motion for summary judgment in the Southern District of New York on copyright claims brought by broadcast television... ›