October 2011

Over the past month, a number of White House officials and key House and Senate members have discussed the importance of moving cybersecurity legislation forward.  Highlights include the following:

  • On October 4, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said that he has “a high level of confidence that something will move forward” at an event

Last week, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg dismissed a putative class action against Facebook alleging that the company violated users’ rights of publicity by using their names and pictures for its Friend Finder service.  The Judge concluded that the class failed to demonstrate that they suffered any injury as a result of the service.  The Judge

Following a public comment period that began in March of this year, the Federal Trade Commission has accepted as final a settlement with Google relating to the social network “Buzz” product that was launched in 2010.  (For more details about the Buzz product and its launch see Inside Privacy’s prior post, here).  As the Commission’s press release states, “The settlement resolves charges that Google used deceptive tactics and violated its own privacy promises to consumers when it launched its social network, Google Buzz . . . .”

The Commission voted 4-0  to approve the settlement, which imposes numerous requirements on Google, including:Continue Reading Google Buzz FTC Settlement Accepted

Reversing the decision of the lower court, the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals recently held in Anderson v. Hannaford Bros. Co. that under Maine law, claims for breach of contract and negligence can be premised on the cost of replacing credit/debit cards whose numbers had been breached and the cost of credit insurance where the card numbers had been intentionally stolen by sophisticated thieves who actually used that data for fraudulent purposes.  In reaching this conclusion, the court’s novel opinion differentiated numerous cases in which courts have held that similar claims of damages were insufficient to allow cases to move forward.  Although reaching a novel result, the First Circuit decision in Hannaford might have limited effect on future litigation because of the rather unique fact pattern on which the court of appeals’ opinion rests.Continue Reading First Circuit Holds That Mitigation Costs Are Sufficient To Support Claims in Card Breach Case

Last month, as we previously reported, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it will host a December workshop to explore potential privacy and security implications raised by the increasing use of facial recognition technology.  Yesterday, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee sent a letter to the FTC

Recently, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), a non-profit profit organization representing participants in the mobile marketing industry, released a privacy policy framework for mobile applications.  Although framed as a model privacy policy, the MMA Privacy and Advocacy Committee makes clear that the document is intended to be a “starting point” rather than a verbatim model.  Its hope is that the document will “encourage the mobile application developer community to continue to move consumer privacy interests forward.”Continue Reading Mobile Marketing Association Releases Mobile Privacy Policy Framework

A federal district court in Michigan recently held that the federal CAN-SPAM Act preempts Michigan’s anti-spam law.  Unlike the federal law, Michigan’s statute offers individuals who receive unsolicited commercial email, or “spam,” a private cause of action.  The decision, by Judge Janet T. Neff of the Western District of Michigan in Hafke v. Rossdale

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is currently accepting comments on a proposed rule that would amend regulations under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). 

Under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, individuals have the right of access to their protected

Earlier this week, California became the latest state to restrict the use of consumer credit reports in the employment context, as Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law A.B. 22.  As we previously have blogged, a growing number of states–including Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, and Maryland–have augmented the protections provided by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) with laws that further limit the ways in which credit reports may be used in making employment decisions. Continue Reading New California Law Restricts Use of Credit Reports for Employment Purposes