Jeffrey Neuburger
Partner
Jeffrey Neuburger is a partner, co-head of the Technology, Media & Telecommunications Group, a member of the Privacy & Cybersecurity Group and editor of the firm’s New Media and Technology Law blog.
Jeff’s practice focuses on technology, media and advertising-related business transactions and counseling, including the utilization of emerging technology and distribution methods in business. For example, Jeff represents clients in online strategies associated with advertising, products, services and content commercialized on the Internet through broadband channels, mobile platforms, broadcast and cable television distribution and print publishing. He also represents many organizations in large infrastructure-related projects, such as outsourcing, technology acquisitions, cloud computing initiatives and related services agreements.
Subscribe to all posts by Jeffrey Neuburger
In early July, an appeals court ruled that Amazon should be considered a “seller” of goods under Pennsylvania products liability law and subject to strict liability for consumer injuries caused by the defective goods sold on its site by third-party vendors. (Oberdorf v. Amazon.com, No. 18-1041 (3rd Cir. July 3, 2019)). While the decision involved … Continue Reading
This week, the FTC entered into a proposed settlement with Unrollme Inc. (“Unrollme”), a free personal email management service that offers to assist consumers in managing the flood of subscription emails in their inboxes. The FTC alleged that Unrollme made certain deceptive statements to consumers, who may have had privacy concerns, to persuade them to … Continue Reading
In an important opinion, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s ruling that plaintiffs in the ongoing Facebook biometric privacy class action have alleged a concrete injury-in-fact to confer Article III standing and that the class was properly certified. (Patel v. Facebook, Inc., No. 18-15982 (9th Cir. Aug. 8, 2019)). Given the California district court’s … Continue Reading
In recent years, there have been a number of suits filed in federal courts seeking to hold social media platforms responsible for providing material support to terrorists by allowing members of such groups to use social media accounts and failing to effectively block their content and terminate such accounts. As we’ve previously written about, such … Continue Reading
In early July, Ticketmaster reached a favorable settlement in its action against a ticket broker that was alleged to have used automated bots to purchase tickets in bulk, thus ending a dispute that produced notable court decisions examining the potential liabilities for unwanted scraping and website access. (Ticketmaster L.L.C. v. Prestige Entertainment West Inc., No. … Continue Reading
Two recent web scraping disputes highlight some important issues regarding whether a website owner may successfully allege a breach of contract action against a commercial party that has scraped website content contrary to “clickwrap” and “browsewrap” website terms of use. In Southwest Airlines Co. v. Roundpipe, LLC, No. 18-0033 (N.D. Tex. Mar. 22, 2019), a … Continue Reading
In the past few months, there have been a number of notable decisions affirming broad immunity under the Communications Decency Act (CDA), 47 U.S.C. §230(c), for online providers that host third party content. The beat goes on, as in late May, a Utah district court ruled that the Tor Browser, which allows for anonymous communications … Continue Reading
Last month, a California district court granted a web-based service’s motion to compel arbitration of a putative class action brought by a user whose personal information was allegedly accessed in a massive 2016 data breach that involved 339 million user accounts. (Gutierrez v. FriendFinder Networks Inc., No. 18-05918 (N.D. Cal. May 3, 2019)). While the … Continue Reading
Today, the Georgia Supreme Court is set to hear oral argument in an appeal brought by a defendant convicted of vehicular homicide and other charges related to a fatal car crash. (Mobley v. State, No. S18C1546). The defendant is appealing the lower court’s order that denied his motion to suppress evidence that was downloaded and … Continue Reading
During the 2016 election, certain Russian operatives used fake social media profiles to influence voters and also created bot accounts to add likes to and share posts across the internet. And more recently, in January 2019, the New York Attorney General and Office of the Florida Attorney General announced settlements with certain entities that sold … Continue Reading
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal featured a substantial article on the growth of quantum computing, and the risks and opportunities it presents. It is a thoughtful article, and a must-read for people interested in the area. We have been working with clients in the area, and identified it as an area of increasing importance in our … Continue Reading
Three recent court decisions affirmed the robust immunity under the Communications Decency Act (CDA), 47 U.S.C. §230(c), for online providers that host third-party content: the Second Circuit’s decision in Herrick v. Grindr LLC, No. 18-396 (2d Cir. Mar. 27, 2019) (summary order), the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s opinion in Daniel v. Armslist, LLC, No. 2017AP344, 2019 … Continue Reading
This month, an Illinois district court considered another in the series of web scraping disputes that have been working their way through our courts. In this dispute, CouponCabin, Inc. v. PriceTrace, LLC, No. 18-7525 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 11, 2019), CouponCabin alleged that a competitor, PriceTrace, scraped coupon codes from CouponCabin’s website without authorization and displayed … Continue Reading
UPDATE: Both bills failed to be reported out of committee by March 28, 2019 and were not debated during this year’s legislative session. In the wake of the Illinois Supreme Court decision that held that claimants need only allege a procedural violation to have standing to bring an action under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy … Continue Reading
Senators Brian Schatz (D) and Roy Blunt (R) recently introduced S.847, the “Commercial Facial Recognition Privacy Act of 2019,” a bill that would, subject to certain important exceptions, generally prohibit the commercial use of facial recognition technology to identify and track consumers without consent. The bill, as drafted would place limitations on the third-party sharing … Continue Reading
In a recent blog post, we wrote about how the Second Circuit found the arbitration clause in a web service’s terms and conditions unenforceable because the user did not have reasonable notice of the terms that were communicated via a hyperlink in a post-sale email. In contrast, a New York district court recently upheld an … Continue Reading
In Starke v. SquareTrade, Inc., No. 17-2474, 2019 WL 149628 (2d Cir. Jan. 10, 2019), the Second Circuit affirmed a ruling that denied a web service’s motion to compel arbitration, finding that the user did not have reasonable notice of the arbitration provision contained in the terms and conditions that were communicated via a hyperlink … Continue Reading
In a long-awaited decision, the Illinois Supreme Court issued its ruling in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp., 2019 IL 123186 (Ill. Jan. 25, 2019), on whether a person “aggrieved” by a violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) must allege some actual injury or harm beyond a procedural violation to have standing … Continue Reading
Yesterday, Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer filed an unfair competition lawsuit on behalf of the People of the State of California against the operator of the popular Weather Channel app (“TWC app”) for allegedly failing to conspicuously disclose to users that the TWC app collects and shares users’ mobile geolocation data. (People v. TWC … Continue Reading
Yes, it’s time for the end-of-year blog post – a look back at interesting issues of 2018 and a look forward to what we see coming down the pike in the new year. The Look Back In the past year, blockchain buzz was everywhere. Although still early, blockchain has in fact began to show promise … Continue Reading
This post discusses some of the contractual requirements imposed by Apple and Google regarding the collection and sharing of locational information. What consents, if any, do Apple and Google require that app publishers obtain before collecting and using locational information? This is a question that is being asked with increasing frequency. In fact, a regular … Continue Reading
A recent dispute between an advertiser AXTS Inc. (“AXTS”) and a video production company GY6vids (“GY6”) produced an interesting issue involving the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) – that is, whether an entity that allegedly overloaded another company’s YouTube channel content with a flood of “dislikes” following a contractual dispute is liable under … Continue Reading
On November 20, 2018, the Illinois Supreme Court heard oral argument on whether a company’s technical violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) is sufficient to confer standing or whether a plaintiff must allege actual harm resulted from the violation. (Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp. et al., No. 123186) (prior decision). The Court’s … Continue Reading
Last week the WSJ published an article detailing how companies are monetizing smartphone location data by selling it to hedge fund clients. The data vendor featured in the WSJ article obtains geolocation data from about 1,000 apps that fund managers use to predict trends involving public companies. However, as we’ve noted, the use of alternative … Continue Reading
Recent Rulings Highlight Limits of CDA Immunity in Products Liability Cases against E-Commerce Platforms
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Internet, Online Commerce, Online Content
Personal Email Management Service Settles FTC Charges over Allegedly Deceptive Statements to Consumers over Its Access and Use of Subscribers’ Email Accounts
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in E-mail, Online Commerce, Privacy, Regulatory
Finding Article III Standing, Ninth Circuit Declines to Do an About-Face in Illinois Biometric Privacy Class Action against Facebook
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Biometrics, Mobile, Privacy, Social Media
Facebook Shielded by CDA Immunity against Federal Claims for Allowing Use of Its Platform by Terrorists
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Internet, Online Content, Social Media
Ticketmaster Reaches Settlement with Ticket Broker over Unauthorized Use of Automated Bots
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Copyright, Online Commerce, Screen Scraping
Web Scraping Decisions Consider Contract Cause of Action
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Contracts, Internet, Screen Scraping
Locksmiths Locked Out: Court Affirms Immunity for Use of Tools That Portray Third-Party Content Pictorially or as an Aggregate Metric
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Internet, Online Content
Browsewrap Terms Enforced Due to Customer Knowledge of Existence of Terms
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Contracts, Data Security, Social Media
Fourth Amendment Appeal before Georgia Supreme Court over Airbag Crash Data Could Have Implications for Autonomous Cars and Related Technologies
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Autonomous Cars, Privacy, Technology
Get All of Your Bots in a Row: 2018 California Bot Disclosure Law Comes Online Soon
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Internet, Legislation, Online Commerce, Online Content, Technology
Quantum Computing in the News
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Quantum Computing, Technology
Filtering Actions by Anti-Malware Software Provider Protected by CDA “Good Samaritan” Immunity
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Internet, Online Content
CFAA Claim Dismissed in Scraping Suit, While Contract Claim Survives
Recent Bill Introduced in Illinois Legislature Would Curtail BIPA Litigation
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Biometrics, Legislation, Privacy
Bipartisan Facial Recognition Privacy Bill Introduced in Congress
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Biometrics, Legislation, Privacy
Digital Currency App’s Electronic User Agreement Held Enforceable
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Contracts, Digital Currency, Mobile
Notice of Terms via Buried Link within a Post-Sale Email Unenforceable
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Contracts, Online Commerce
Illinois Supreme Court Rules Actual Injury Not Needed to Be an “Aggrieved” Party under Biometric Privacy Law
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Biometrics, Privacy
City Attorney of Los Angeles Sues Popular Weather App Claiming Deceptive Collection and Sharing of Geolocation Data
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Contracts, Mobile, Privacy
Reflections on the TechLaw Issues of 2018…and a Look Forward. Will 2019 Be a Year on the Edge, in the Fog, or Maybe Just in the Cloud?
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Blockchain, Privacy, Quantum Computing, Screen Scraping, Technology
Locational Tracking on iOS and Android Devices: Check the Platform’s Rules!
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Contracts, Mobile, Privacy
“Cyberattack” Campaign That Purportedly Flooded YouTube Channel with “Dislikes” Not a CFAA Violation
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Contracts
Illinois Supreme Court To Decide Scope of Illinois Biometric Privacy Law
By Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Biometrics, Privacy
WSJ Article on Geolocation Data Highlights Risks for Fund Managers
By Joshua M. Newville and Jeffrey Neuburger on Posted in Mobile, Regulatory, Technology
