Dear Facebook, Could You Please Forget I Exist?
- - PrivacyEurope is currently undergoing a significant reform of its privacy regime. Under the current European Union (EU) Privacy Directive , individuals already have broad rights curtailing companies’ ability to process their personal data. The proposed EU Privacy Regulation seeks to broaden these rights even... ›
FTC Announces Important Settlement With Social Networking App and Releases New Mobile App Report
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a potentially groundbreaking settlement with the social networking app Path and released an important new staff report on Mobile Privacy Disclosures late last week. The FTC’s Settlement with Path suggests a new standard may be on the near-term... ›You Can’t Make a Square Peg Fit in a Round Hole: California Supreme Court Holds Online Purchases of Electronically Downloadable Products Outside Scope of Song-Beverly Act
By: Purvi G. Patel
Handing a victory to online retailers, on February 4, 2013, the California Supreme Court held in a split decision that online transactions involving electronically downloadable products fall outside the scope of the Song-Beverly Credit Card Act ( Apple v. Superior Court (Krescent), S199384 ).... ›Watch What You Tweet: Proposed Social Media Guidance for Financial Institutions
By: Nathan D. Taylor and Julie O'Neill
With the explosive growth of social media, consumers increasingly expect to be able to interact online with the companies from which they buy goods and services. As a result, financial institutions have begun to explore the use of social media, both to strengthen relationships... ›Socially Aware Looks Back: The Social Media Law Year in Review
2012 was a momentous year for social media law. We’ve combed through the court decisions, the legislative initiatives, the regulatory actions and the corporate trends to identify what we believe to be the ten most significant social media law developments of the past year–here... ›- - Trademark, FTC, FCC, Terms of Use, Privacy, Employment Law, Section 230 Safe Harbor, Statistics, IP, Litigation
New Issue of the Socially Aware Newsletter Now Available
By: Aaron P. Rubin
In the latest issue of Socially Aware , our Burton Award-winning guide to the law and business of social media, we look at recent First Amendment, intellectual property, labor and privacy law developments affecting corporate users of social media and the Internet. We also... › Be Wary of Sharing: Anonymous P2P User’s Motion to Quash Subpoena Denied
By: J. Alexander Lawrence
BitTorrent, the peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing system that enables the quick downloading of large files, has sparked another novel controversy stemming from copyright-infringement claims brought against its users. Users take advantage of the BitTorrent sharing system to anonymously access popular media such as books and... ›Jailbreak: U.S. Google Executives’ Italian Convictions Overturned
On December 21, 2012, the third Milan appeals court acquitted three U.S.-based Google executives who had previously been convicted for breaches of Italian data protection law after Google failed to remove an abusive video from its Google Video site. The video, which showed schoolboys... ›FTC Issues Substantially Revised COPPA Rule, Effective July 1, 2013: Review of Changes and Compliance Tips
By: Julie O'Neill
On December 19, 2012, the Federal Trade Commission (“Commission”) announced long-awaited amendments to its rule implementing the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“Rule”). The changes—which take effect on July 1, 2013—are significant. They alter the scope and obligations of the Rule in a number... ›FTC Snuffs Out Online “History Sniffing”
By: Julie O'Neill
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has cracked down on a company that was engaged in “history sniffing,” a means of online tracking that digs up information embedded in web browsers to reveal the websites that users have visited. In a proposed settlement with Epic... ›