President Barack Obama signed the Judicial Redress Act on Wednesday, February 24, 2016, which will eventually enable European Union citizens to seek remedies for alleged privacy violations by the federal government in U.S. courts. The Act gives the U.S. Department of
The Supreme Court yesterday denied an attempt by a defendant to moot a class action under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), 48 Stat. 1064, Pub. L. 102–243 (Dec. 20, 1991) (codified at 47 U.S.C. § 227), on the basis of an unaccepted settlement offer to the named plaintiff. The case, Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez
Lumosity, an online site and smartphone app, is supposed to help its users train their brains so they can achieve their “full potential in every aspect of life.” Unfortunately, the company was unenlightened when it came to avoiding false advertising claims. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the company claimed that using its
In the rush of holidays and storms around the country (and weirdly warm weather here in D.C.), it was easy to miss that Congress finally approved the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA). The bill was included in the middle of its omnibus spending package, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, Pub. L. 114–113 (Dec. 18,
“Native Advertising” has been on the radar screen for several years, with consumer groups, businesses and regulators alike considering what the rules of the game should be to avoid deception as the nature of publishing and advertising continue to evolve at a dizzying pace. Those rules became clearer on December 22, 2015, when the Federal
Two app developers have settled complaints from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that they allowed third parties to collect information, including persistent identifiers, through their apps, and allowed third parties to serve advertising to children, in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The FTC’s announcement was released the same day it announced
On December 15, 2015, the European Commission announced that an agreement has been reached with the European Parliament and the Council (the “trilogue” meetings) regarding the Commission’s sweeping 2012 EU Data Protection Reform proposal. The reform package, which consists of a General Data Protection Regulation and a Data Protection Directive for Police and Criminal
On December 17, 2015, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Lifelock, Inc. (LifeLock), agreed to pay a record-breaking $100 million to settle charges that it violated an earlier consent agreement related to flawed data security practices issued in March 2010. The LifeLock settlements implicate both the “fairness” of the company’s data security practices and
We’ve written about the ground-breaking and panic-inducing ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) invalidating the U.S.–EU Safe Harbor framework as an adequate data transfer mechanism, and ruling that national authorities are not bound by Commission approvals. Click here for our September 23, 2015 blog post, and here for a related October 16, 2015
The Article 29 Working Party (WP) issued a press release on October 16, 2015 announcing the outcome of the meeting to discuss coordinated action after the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) decision in the matter of Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner (C-362-14), which invalidated the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Agreement. While calling for
