Roughly two weeks apart, on July 21, 2022 and August 5, 2022, respectively, Amazon made headlines for agreeing to acquire One Medical, “a human-centered and technology-powered primary care organization,” for approximately $3.9 billion and iRobot, a global consumer robot company, known for its creation of the Roomba vacuum, for approximately $1.7 billion. These proposed acquisitions have drawn … Continue Reading
On August 29, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it had filed a complaint against Kochava, Inc. (“Kochava”), a digital marketing and analytics firm, seeking an order halting Kochava’s alleged acquisition and downstream sale of “massive amounts” of precise geolocation data collected from consumers’ mobile devices. The complaint alleges that the data is … Continue Reading
On August 11, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) and announced it was exploring a rulemaking process to “crack down on harmful commercial surveillance” and lax data security. The agency defines commercial surveillance as “the collection, aggregation, analysis, retention, transfer, or monetization of consumer data and the … Continue Reading
On July 11, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published “Location, health, and other sensitive information: FTC committed to fully enforcing the law against illegal use and sharing of highly sensitive data,” on its Business Blog. The blog post is likely related to an Executive Order (the “EO”) signed by President Biden in the wake … Continue Reading
On June 15, 2022, Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill, cosponsored by a host of other Democratic and independent Senators, the “Health and Location Data Protection Act of 2022,” which, subject to a few exceptions, would, among other things, prohibit the selling, sharing or transferring location data and health data. The bill gives the Federal … Continue Reading
The concept of the “metaverse” has garnered much press coverage of late, addressing such topics as the new appetite for metaverse investment opportunities, a recent virtual land boom, or just the promise of it all, where “crypto, gaming and capitalism collide.” The term “metaverse,” which comes from Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel “Snow Crash,” … Continue Reading
In the recent and significant Warren v DSG Retail Ltd [2021] EWHC 2168 (QB) decision the High Court in England clarified the limited circumstances in which claims for breach of confidence, misuse of private information and the tort of negligence might be advanced by individuals for compensation for distress relating to a cyber-security breach where the … Continue Reading
On August 5, 2021, a proposed class action settlement was reached in the closely-watched privacy action against fintech services company Plaid Inc. (“Plaid”). The settlement features a $58 million settlement fund and certain injunctive relief that would make changes to Plaid’s methods of notice and consumer data collection, including provisions requiring the deletion of certain … Continue Reading
On April 30, 2021 a California district court trimmed various federal privacy-related claims, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) claim, from a highly-visible, ongoing putative class action against fintech services company Plaid Inc. (“Plaid”), but allowed other state law privacy claims to go forward. The lawsuit involves Plaid’s alleged collection and use of … Continue Reading
Last week, the Italian data protection authority (the “GPDP”) opened an investigation after reports that a dataset allegedly containing data compiled from 500 million LinkedIn profiles and other websites was available for sale on a hacker forum. Apparently, this data represents more than two-thirds of LinkedIn’s estimated 740 million users. The hacker reportedly posted approximately … Continue Reading
Our Practical Law article, “Trends in Privacy and Data Security: 2020,” has recently been published. The article provides an overview of the past year’s privacy and data security legal developments and predictions to look out for in 2021.… Continue Reading
On December 9, 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple and Google will block the data broker X-Mode Social Inc. (“X-Mode”) from collecting location data from iPhone and Android users. Apple and Google have reportedly informed app developers to remove the X-Mode social tracking SDK from all of their apps within a short period … Continue Reading
Last week, a putative privacy-related class action was filed in California district court against financial analytics firm Envestnet, Inc. (“Envestnet”), which operates Yodlee, Inc. (“Yodlee”). (Wesch v. Yodlee Inc., No. 20-05991 (N.D. Cal. filed Aug. 25, 2020)). According to the complaint, Yodlee is one of the largest financial data aggregators in the world and through … Continue Reading
This past week, the operator of the popular Weather Channel (“TWC”) mobile phone app entered into a Stipulation of Settlement with the Los Angeles City Attorney, Mike Feuer (“City Attorney”), closing the books on one of the first litigations to focus on the collection of locational data through mobile phones. (People v. TWC Product and … Continue Reading
Late last month, the French data protection authority, the CNIL, published guidance surrounding considerations behind what it calls “commercial prospecting,” meaning scraping publicly available website data to obtain individuals’ contact info for purposes of selling such data to third parties for direct marketing purposes. The guidance is noteworthy in two respects. First, it speaks to … Continue Reading
While Washington’s comprehensive data privacy bill (SB 6182) — inspired by California’s CCPA — died when legislators could not hammer out a compromise over enforcement mechanisms, the state legislature did reach agreement and Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law a facial recognition bill (SB 6280) that provides some important privacy and antidiscrimination provisions regarding state … Continue Reading
An interesting New York Times article last week posited that governments’ use of digital surveillance techniques for the COVID-19 response – such as the tracking of geolocation to gauge quarantine restrictions – would lead to more pervasive digital tracking in the future. On a related note, there have been reports of an increased use of … Continue Reading
In continuing its push to enforce its terms and policies against developers that engage in unauthorized collection or scraping of user data, Facebook brought suit last month against mobile marketing and data analytics firm OneAudience LLC. (Facebook, Inc. v. OneAudience LLC, No. 20-01461 (N.D. Cal. Complaint filed Feb. 27, 2020)). Facebook alleges that OneAudience harvested … Continue Reading
UPDATE: On February 28, 2020, the FCC proposed over $200M in fines against the wireless carriers. On January 31st, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai transmitted a letter in response to a prior inquiry from a number of House members regarding the status of the Commission’s investigation into reports that the major wireless carriers were allegedly … Continue Reading
Last week, Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Sherrod Brown and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo sent a letter to FTC Chairman Joseph J. Simons urging the agency to investigate whether analytics firm Envestnet, Inc. (which operates Yodlee) was violating the FTC Act. According to the letter, Yodlee is the largest consumer financial data aggregator in the United … Continue Reading
It is that time of year when we look back to see what tech-law issues took up most of our time this year and look ahead to see what the emerging issues are for 2020. Data: The Issues of the Year Data presented a wide variety of challenging legal issues in 2019. Data is solidly … Continue Reading
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the retrieval of electronic automobile data from an electronic data recording device (e.g., airbag control modules) without a warrant at the scene of a fatal collision was a search and seizure that implicates the Fourth Amendment, regardless of any reasonable expectations of privacy. (Mobley v. State, No. S18G1546 (Ga. … 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
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