This is another big week for privacy. On Monday, Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller introduced the Do-Not-Track Online Act of 2011, which we posted about here. And yesterday, the newly created Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law held its first hearing. The hearing focused on mobile privacy issues, but also touched on other … Continue Reading
In a recent order, Judge Henderson of the District Court for the Northern District of California denied NebuAd Inc.’s motion to dismiss in Valentine v. NebuAd Inc., No. C08-05113 TEH, finding that plaintiffs had sufficient statutory standing to assert claims under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”) and the California Computer Crime Law (“CCCL”) … Continue Reading
On Wednesday, April 6, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to examine ECPA, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The hearing, which focused on the federal government’s perspective on ECPA reform, followed up on a hearing held last September and Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) January 2011 pledge that “[t]he Judiciary Committee will continue the work … Continue Reading
Today the District Court for the Northern District of Alabama dismissed the class action lawsuit filed against our client, Cable One, Inc., for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the named plaintiff lacked standing. The litigation arose out of a limited test of NebuAd Inc.’s “deep packet inspection” technology, which was used to create anonymous, … Continue Reading
For the fourth time in the past two months, Apple has been sued for allegedly violating the privacy of iPad and iPhone users. Like the previous three suits (two of which we discussed in this post), Rodimer v. Apple, Inc. [PDF] alleges that Apple transmitted “personal information,” including Unique Device IDs (“UDIDs”) to application developers, who, in … Continue Reading
The Department of Commerce’s request for comments on its “green paper” regarding Internet privacy was just published in the Federal Register. Comments on the paper are due January 28, 2011. More information and Covington’s analysis of the green paper are available in our earlier post.… Continue Reading
The Department of Commerce has just issued its much-anticipated “green paper” on online privacy. The paper, “Commercial Data Privacy and Innovation in the Internet Economy: A Dynamic Policy Framework” [PDF], reflects Commerce’s stepped-up focus on privacy issues coming out the formation of its Internet Policy Task Force this past April. In its report, Commerce asks for … Continue Reading
Just two days after the Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection announced that the agency would not tolerate an “arms race” aimed at developing technologies that subvert user choice regarding online tracking, two firms accused of employing such technologies agreed to settle lawsuits against them. Quantcast and Clearspring–which provide web analytics and certain functionality to consumer-facing websites–were named in several … Continue Reading
