Socially Aware

July 19, 2016 - Class Actions, E-Commerce, Terms of Use, Litigation
Controversial New Jersey Consumer Protection Law Creates a Potential “Gotcha” for E-Commerce Companies
By: Anthony M. Ramirez
If your company is involved in selling products or services to consumers in New Jersey over the web or through mobile apps, you’ll want to read this blog post. In what amounts to a feeding frenzy, plaintiffs’ lawyers are working overtime bringing class action
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July 08, 2016 - E-Commerce, Live streaming, Disappearing Content, Marketing, Privacy, Asia, Litigation
Social Links: Kids roll eyes as parents embrace Snapchat; teen sues Snapchat over sexual content; Snapchat to become less ephemeral with new “Memories” feature (plus some other news not involving Snapchat)
By: Aaron P. Rubin
Snapchat has caught on with “oldies” (that’s people 35 and older, FYI). Facebook Messenger is testing “Secret” mode , a feature that allows some messages to be read only by the recipient. A South Korean copy of Snapchat has taken off in Asia. Using
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June 14, 2016 - E-Commerce, Terms of Use, Litigation
Terms and Conditions Buried in Easily Ignored Scroll Box Don’t Cut It, the Seventh Circuit Holds
By: Aaron P. Rubin
As we have noted before , if you want to increase the likelihood that your website terms of use are enforceable against users, you need to do two things. First, you need to display the terms to users in a conspicuous way, and second,
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March 30, 2016 - Digital Content, E-Commerce, Data Security, Privacy
Digital Single Market Strategy Update: Europe Proposes Further Harmonisation of Consumer Protection Laws
By: Kristina Ehle
The European Commission has published two draft directives on the supply of digital content and the online sale of goods that aim to help harmonise consumer law across Europe. In proposing these new laws, the European Union is making progress towards one of the
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March 08, 2016 - Advertising, Endorsement Guides, E-Commerce, European Union, FTC, Terms of Use, Copyright, Discovery, Compliance
Now Available: The March Issue of Our Socially Aware Newsletter
By: Aaron P. Rubin
The latest issue of our Socially Aware newsletter is now available here. In this issue of Socially Aware , our Burton Award -winning guide to the law and business of social media. In this edition, we offer tips for a successful—and legal—advertising campaign; we
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February 22, 2016 - E-Commerce, Terms of Use
Clickwrap, Browsewrap and Mixed Media Contracts: A Few Words Can Go a Long Way
By: J. Alexander Lawrence
Courts have generally categorized online agreements into two types: “clickwrap” agreements and “browsewrap” agreements. Clickwrap agreements—which require a user to check a box or click an icon to signify agreement with the terms—are usually enforceable under U.S. law, even where the terms appear in
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February 03, 2016 - E-Commerce, Data Security, Privacy, Statistics
Consumer Privacy Survey Results
By: Aaron P. Rubin
As Socially Aware readers know, privacy presents real business risks that have the potential to negatively impact a company’s bottom line, from the legal fees associated with a data breach to revenue declines stemming from a loss of consumer trust. Late last year, Socially
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January 14, 2016 - Digital Content, E-Commerce, European Union, Terms of Use, Cloud Computing
Harmonizing B2C Online Sales of Goods and Digital Content in Europe
By: Alistair Maughan
The European Commission has announced new draft laws that would give consumers new remedies where digital content supplied online is defective or not as described by the seller. On Dec. 9, 2015, the European Commission proposed two new directives on the supply of digital content
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January 07, 2016 - E-Commerce, Live streaming, Disappearing Content, Marketing, Privacy, Compliance, Wearable Computers
Our List of Lists
By: Aaron P. Rubin
January is the month when lists—lists of predictions, lists of trends, lists of feats and lists of failures—pervade social media newsfeeds and publications’ headlines. Here at Socially Aware we’re making an annual tradition of curating a “List of Lists”—an inventory of the roundups that
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October 06, 2015 - E-Commerce, Terms of Use
Three Steps to Help Ensure the Enforceability of Your Website’s Terms of Use
By: Aaron P. Rubin
Operators of social media platforms and other websites typically manage their risks by imposing terms of use or terms of service for the sites. As we previously wrote , websites must implement such terms properly to ensure that they are enforceable. Specifically, users must
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