By Alex Berengaut [This article also was published in Law360.] In May 2017, the “WannaCry” malware was used to launch a worldwide ransomware cyberattack. WannaCry encrypted files on victim computers and demanded a ransom payable in bitcoin to provide the encryption key. The attack was stopped when a British security researcher, Marcus Hutchins, accidentally discovered … Continue Reading
Customers’ allegations that they face a substantial risk of identity theft as a result of a 2014 data breach are sufficiently plausible to allow their suit against health insurer CareFirst to proceed, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held in an August 1 decision. CareFirst discovered in April 2015 — and announced … Continue Reading
In February 2015, a jury convicted Ross Ulbricht of drug trafficking and other crimes associated with his creation and operation of Silk Road, an online marketplace whose users primarily purchased and sold illegal goods and services. A federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York then sentenced Ulbricht to … Continue Reading
The Ninth Circuit announced today that the full court will rehear the case in which the three-judge panel opinion had dismissed the FTC’s lawsuit against AT&T for allegedly violating Section 5 of the FTC Act due to past “throttling” practices around unlimited data plans. According to the panel opinion, the FTC lacked jurisdiction over AT&T’s … Continue Reading
In Perry v. Cable News Network, the Eleventh Circuit dealt another loss to putative class-action plaintiffs seeking to use the Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”) as a weapon against free online video services. The court affirmed that to be a “subscriber” of a video service—someone who can sue under the VPPA—one must have a genuine … Continue Reading
A Minnesota state court on February 1, 2017, issued an unusually broad search warrant directed to Google in connection with a wire fraud case. The warrant seeks a broad set of data about all users who searched on Google for a specific person between December 1, 2016 and January 7, 2017. The warrant became public … Continue Reading
Yesterday, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in In re Nickelodeon Consumer Privacy Litigation, a case addressing whether static digital identifiers like internet protocol (IP) addresses qualify as personally identifiable information (PII) under the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA). As a result, the Third Circuit’s June 27, 2016 decision in the case—which held that IP addresses … Continue Reading
On Monday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas ruled that the named plaintiff for a putative class of CareCentrix employees whose personal information was compromised had alleged enough harm for standing under Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins. The case is Hapka v. CareCentrix, Inc. In early 2016, a phishing attack compromised defendant CareCentrix’s systems, … Continue Reading
On November 3, Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California held that federal law does not bar the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) from requiring telecommunications companies to hand over, under an adequate protective order, confidential subscriber data to The Utility Reform Network (TURN) as part of an … Continue Reading
On Monday, a panel of the Ninth Circuit unanimously ruled that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”) protected Yelp from liability relating to an allegedly defamatory user-generated review. In doing so, the Court rejected several attempts by the Plaintiff to plead around the CDA’s broad immunity provisions by accusing Yelp of playing a … Continue Reading
In an opinion released today, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) lawsuit against AT&T for violating Section 5 of the FTC Act due to its throttling practices. AT&T’s practice of throttling the speed of customers with unlimited data plans once they reached a certain data usage threshold had been challenged by the … Continue Reading
In a 2-1 decision on August 16, the Sixth Circuit refused to dismiss a claim against the maker of an online surveillance tool for wiretapping under both federal and state laws, and for intrusion against seclusion. While the breadth of this holding is unclear, and the case may be an outlier, the Sixth Circuit’s reasoning … Continue Reading
Courts continue to grapple with how to apply existing privacy laws to new (and even not-so-new) technology. The recent Ninth Circuit decision, affirming the Northern District of California’s decision to dismiss a proposed class action suit against Pandora for disclosure of listener music preferences in violation of Michigan’s Preservation of Personal Privacy Act (PPPA), resolved … Continue Reading
Last week, the Third Circuit adopted a narrow definition of “personally identifiable information,” or “PII,” under the Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”), joining the majority of district courts that have addressed similar issues. The VPPA defines PII as information that “identifies a person as having [obtained a video]” from a video tape service provider (“VTSP”). … Continue Reading
In a decision released Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit held that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act’s (“CFAA”) prohibition on accessing a computer “without authorization” is violated when a person whose access to a computer system has been “affirmatively revoked” nonetheless accesses that computer system by other means. In United States v. Nosal, the Ninth Circuit … Continue Reading
The Supreme Court released its highly anticipated decision yesterday in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, which addresses whether plaintiffs have standing to pursue statutory damages even in the absence of actual harm under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”). As we previously reported, the case was expected to have significant down-stream implications for standing in privacy … Continue Reading
In two cases last week, two courts entered widely divergent rulings on the central question of the specific definition of “personally identifiable information,” or “PII,” under the Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”). The VPPA defines PII as information that “identifies a person as having [obtained a video]” from a video tape service provider (“VTSP”). In … Continue Reading
Last week, the Seventh Circuit handed down another friendly ruling for data breach class action plaintiffs, reversing a district court’s dismissal of a class action complaint over a 2014 data breach at P.F. Chang’s restaurants. In reversing the district court’s holding that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated Article III standing, the Seventh Circuit ruled that … Continue Reading
A federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois has denied Neiman Marcus Group LLC’s (“Neiman”) motion to dismiss a consumer class action lawsuit arising from a December 2013 data breach at the retailer that exposed about 350,000 credit cards. As we previously reported, the plaintiffs sued Neiman alleging various claims arising from fraudulent charges … Continue Reading
Wyndham Hotels and Resorts has agreed to settle the FTC’s charges that its corporate data security practices were deficient under the unfairness prong of Section 5 of the FTC Act. Assuming the district court approves the proposed stipulated consent order, this concludes the litigation between Wyndham and the FTC. Under the terms of the twenty-year … Continue Reading
Last week, the Third Circuit revived a multi-district privacy lawsuit against Google, finding that the trial court erred in dismissing the plaintiffs’ privacy claims under California state law. The case centers around the plaintiffs’ allegations that Google violated state and federal law by circumventing the Safari browser’s default “cookie blocker” settings to track users’ online … Continue Reading
A man who alleges he received an unauthorized prerecorded call on the landline he shared with his roommate has standing to proceed with his lawsuit under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled. Mark Leyse’s lawsuit against Bank of America alleges that a telemarketer advertising Bank … Continue Reading
On October 9, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed in Ellis v. Cartoon Network, Inc. that a person who downloads and uses a free mobile application to view freely available content is not, without more, a “subscriber” under the Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”). Cartoon Network offers a free mobile app that people can download to watch … Continue Reading
In one of the first decisions evaluating Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) claims under the FCC’s recent omnibus TCPA order, the Northern District of California dismissed a putative class action lawsuit alleging that AOL violated the TCPA when users of its Instant Messenger service (AIM) sent text messages to incorrect recipients. After the court dismissed … Continue Reading
