A D.C. district court ruled that an eBay user did not assent to a later-added arbitration clause to the user agreement by virtue of a provision that stated eBay could amend the agreement at any time, as the user may not have received sufficient notice of the amendment. (Daniel v. eBay, Inc., No. 15-1294 (D.D.C. July 26, 2018)). Notably, the court declined to find adequate notice sufficient to demonstrate an agreement to arbitrate merely based on the fact that the amended user agreements were posted on eBay’s website (at least under Utah, Louisiana or Texas law). This case is interesting as many websites and services have added mandatory arbitration clauses to their terms in recent years, yet may have a stable of legacy users that agreed to a prior set of terms that did not contain such a provision.
amendment
Illinois Considering Amendments to Biometric Privacy Law (BIPA) That Would Create Major Exemptions to Its Scope
By Jeffrey Neuburger on
We have written before about the issues presented by the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, 740 Ill. Comp Stat. 14/1 (“BIPA”). BIPA is still the only state biometric privacy statute with a private right of action. It has garnered national attention and become the epicenter of biometrics-based litigation, with dozens of cases pending alleging violations of the statute (defendants include employers of all types, social media platforms, service providers, and many other businesses that interact with Illinois residents). Just as the privacy concerns surrounding the collection and storage of biometric data have come into sharper focus with more and more companies employing such technologies for digital authentication, security and other uses, the litigation surrounding BIPA has garnered much controversy and the legislature has previously been called upon to amend the statute to limit its reach. The Illinois legislature is now considering a bill (SB3053) that would fundamentally alter the privacy protections under BIPA…