Author: qdisa

Internet Governance

Status Of Uber Drivers Further Edged Toward Independent Contractors: The Office of the General Counsel for the National Labor Relations Board advised in a public opinion that Uber drivers are independent contractors and not Uber employees; the opinion aligns with recent court rulings, a Department of Labor opinion, and Uber’s own stance on driver classification.

Privacy

San Fran Set To Ban City Use Of Facial Recognition: San Francisco officials voted on an ordinance that would prohibit city personnel from purchasing and using facial recognition technology and would require city departments to submit surveillance technology policies for public vetting; the ordinance, which is a response to the increase in discomfort around facial recognition technology, aims to protect marginalized groups that could be harmed by the technology’s implementation.

Information Security & Cyberthreats

WhatsApp Breach May Have Targeted Human Rights Group: WhatsApp reports that a breach of its platform in which spyware was installed through the app’s voice messaging system may have been the act of a government implementing surveillance technology developed by a private company; WhatsApp believes that the “serious security vulnerability” targeted human rights groups.

Tracking Software Planted In Attorney Email: Defense counsel for a U.S. Navy Seal officer charged with war crimes and his platoon commander claim that military prosecutors installed tracking software in emails sent to the defense team and a reporter, allegedly to discover the source of leaks to the media.

Free Expression & Censorship

White House Introduces Online Tool For Reporting Censorship: The White House created a tool for people to report instances where they feel they’ve been censored or banned on social media platforms due to political bias; the tool allows users to share screenshots of censored posts and provide explanations of enforcement actions taken against them.

France And New Zealand Spearhead Pledge To Reduce Terrorist Content Online: Tech companies including Microsoft, Amazon, and YouTube, as well as 17 national governments and the EU, signed the “Christchurch Call,” a collaborative pledge to combat the rise of terrorist content online; the White House, citing free speech concerns, declined to sign.

Practice Note

App Store Antitrust Lawsuit Allowed To Proceed: The Supreme Court ruled that iPhone owners are allowed to attempt to prove that Apple exercises monopoly power in the retail market for the sale of apps and has used that power unlawfully to force iPhone owners to pay higher-than-competitive prices for apps; the Court rejected Apple’s argument that it is a mere intermediary and thus not subject to suit as missing the economic reality of the relationship between Apple and app developers.

On the Lighter Side

Do Space “Pirates” Justify The Space Force? Twitter users, including Elon Musk, respond creatively to Senator Ted Cruz’s opening remarks before the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation and Space supporting the need for a Space Force.

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Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law
Founding Academic Director, Fordham CLIP

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Quinn Nicholas D’Isa
Editorial Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Facebook Announces Changes To Ad Platform: After settling multiple lawsuits alleging that it engaged in discriminatory advertising by allowing advertisers to select which users could view ads based on characteristics such as age, gender, and zip code, Facebook announced that it will make changes to its ad platform by the end of the year.

Google Fined One-and-a-half Billion Euros: The EU punished Google for the third time since 2017 for antitrust violations involving the terms under which Google licensed the use of its search bar to third-party websites; the terms required the third party websites to display a disproportionate amount of text ads from Google’s own advertising service over those from competing digital advertising companies.

Privacy

Facebook To Use AI To Combat Revenge Porn: The AI technology will be used to detect “near nude images or videos that are shared without permission,” and will purportedly allow Facebook to filter such content even before it is reported.

Information Security & Cyberthreats

MySpace Loses A Decade’s Worth Of User-Uploaded Data: In a recent server migration project, Myspace lost over a decade’s worth of user-uploaded photos, audio files, and videos; the website issued a notice to inform users that files uploaded more than three years ago “may no longer be available on or from MySpace.”

Intellectual Property

Peddling Past Copyright Laws: A coalition of ten music publishers has sued indoor bike company Peloton for allegedly violating copyright laws by using music by popular artists within its exercise videos without obtaining proper licenses.

Free Expression & Censorship

Websites Blocked For Hosting New Zealand Shooting Video: Internet service providers in Australia and New Zealand have temporarily blocked websites such as 4chan and 8chan that hosted videos of last week’s mass shooting in New Zealand; while blocking requests normally come from law enforcement or courts, the service providers voluntarily blocked access to the websites to limit the spread of the sensitive video.

Practice Note

SCOTUS Passes On Consumer Privacy Harms In Frank v. Gaos: In a per curiam opinion, the Court vacated and remanded the case (which addresses the legality of certain cy pres awards) to the Ninth Circuit for consideration in light of the Court’s 2016 Spokeo v. Robbins decision, which found that a statutory violation alone was insufficient to confer standing, and that plaintiffs must instead prove concrete injury-in-fact.

On the Lighter Side

Crypto Keepers: Payment platform Square’s newest employees will have the option of being paid in Bitcoin.

Announcements

Job and Fellowship Opportunities

From time-to-time, CLIP-ings will highlight career opportunities in the information law field. Please note the following:

The New York State Office of the Attorney General’s Bureau of Internet & Technology is hiring a new Assistant Attorney General in NYC. The Bureau of Internet & Technology investigates and litigates cutting-edge law and technology issues (e.g., bots, data security/breach, privacy, online safety, consumer protection, and more). The Bureau seeks an experienced, tech-savvy litigator to join their NYC team. The ideal candidate has a technical education or background, or experience working in/with technology.   

For further information about the post, please click here.

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Joel R. Reidenberg Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law Founding Academic Director, Fordham CLIP Tom Norton Executive Director, Fordham CLIP
Praatika Prasad Quinn Nicholas D’Isa Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

DOJ Charges Huawei: Following an indictment by a Washington grand jury, the Department of Justice announced charges against the Chinese telecom giant for allegedly obstructing justice, stealing trade secrets from T-Mobile, and lying to banks about non-compliance with U.S. sanctions against Iran; a New York grand jury separately indicted Huawei, a U.S. subsidiary, and an Iranian affiliate for bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.   

Privacy

Apple Disables Group FaceTime In The Wake Of Security Flaw: Apple disabled group FaceTime calls after a bug in the app was found to allow call initiators to hear, and sometimes see, the person they were calling even before the recipient answered; New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has called the bug an “egregious breach of privacy.”

Illinois Supreme Court Declines To Limit BIPA: The Illinois Supreme Court found that an individual does not “need to allege some actual injury or adverse effect, beyond violation of [his] rights” to be entitled to seek damages under the State’s Biometric Information Privacy Act; the decision could affect Google and Facebook, who have been accused of violating BIPA by tagging faces in photos without user consent.

Information Security & Cyberthreats

Singapore’s HIV Database Leaked: An HIV-positive U.S. citizen leaked the personal data of 14,200 Singaporeans and foreigners living in Singapore after being deported from the country following a drug-and-fraud-related jail term; the leaker allegedly obtained access to the country’s HIV registry through his doctor-partner, who had access to the registry for his work.

Intellectual Property

FBI Arrests Apple Employee For Attempting To Steal Trade Secrets: An Apple employee is accused of stealing confidential information related to Apple’s self-driving car project; the employee was caught taking photos of the project workspace and had transferred information, including “over two thousand files containing confidential and proprietary Apple material, including manuals, schematics, and diagrams” to personal devices.

Free Expression and Censorship

Google Looks To Overturn NLRB Precedent: Google has urged the National Labor Relations Board to overturn precedent that protects employees from punishment for using workplace email to organize around job-related issues by circulating petitions, planning walkouts, and discussing unionization; in a statement, Google clarifies that it is “not lobbying for changes to any rules,” but rather is simply mounting a legal defense to claims at the NLRB.

Practice Note

Yahoo’s Lack Of Disclosure Leads To Rejected Settlement: A U.S. District Judge denied Yahoo’s proposed settlement in the class action suit brought against it as a result of its failure to report data breaches in 2014 and 2016 on the basis that because the proposal failed to disclose the costs of credit monitoring and settlement administration, and did not disclose the total size of the settlement fund, class members could not assess the settlement’s reasonableness.

On The Lighter Side

Robots Poised To Play A Bigger Role In Everyday Life: From critiquing our ping pong skills to providing an exoskeleton for the disabled, the robots on hand at the CES 2019 convention highlight the future interactions humans and robots may have in the not-too-distant future.

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Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law
Founding Academic Director, Fordham CLIP

Tom Norton 
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Praatika Prasad
Quinn Nicholas D’Isa 
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

FCC Chairman Won’t Brief Congress: Citing the federal shutdown, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai refuses to meet with the House Committee on Energy and Commerce to address recent revelations about mobile carriers’ ability to share customers’ location information with third parties.

Privacy

Privacy Big Tech Privacy Proposal Seen As Self-Serving: A leading technology policy think tank’s “grand bargain” proposal argues for any new federal data privacy bill to preempt state privacy laws and repeal sector-specific federal laws in favor of a “common set of protections,” prompting Senator Richard Blumenthal to state that “big tech cannot be trusted to write its own rules.”

Feds Can’t Force Biometric Unlocking: A judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that U.S. authorities cannot force individuals to unlock devices with their faces or fingerprints; the judge concluded that biometrics are “testimonial,” as they serve the same purpose as alphanumeric passcodes in unlocking phones.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

“Monster Breach” Revealed: 773 million unique email addresses and 21 million unique passwords aggregated from over 2,000 leaked databases recently became public after being posted to a hacking forum; this breach is unique in part because some of the data is new, passwords are available in plain text, and the data was originally made available on the popular cloud storage site MEGA.

Intellectual Property

Fortnite Sued Over Use Of Popular Dance Moves: Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, is being sued for copyright and trademark violations for using artists’ non-copyrighted dance moves without permission; the suits could decide if popular dance moves are protected as works of choreography and whether developers are liable for copyright infringement by offering the moves within a game for real-world currency.

Free Expression and Censorship

Roku Changes Course On Infowars: After explaining that it would allow the Alex Jones-owned channel to be downloaded and streamed on its devices based on non-censorship principles, Roku reversed course after receiving feedback from “concerned parties” and removed the channel from its platform.

Practice Note

Court Upholds Twitter’s Unilateral Amendment Clause: An Arizona District Judge rejected a plaintiff’s attempt to invalidate the forum selection clause in Twitter’s terms of service on the basis that the terms allowed for unilateral modification by Twitter; the court noted that Twitter’s terms did not allow retroactive modification and met the requirements for mutuality of obligations.

On The Lighter Side

Robot Layoffs: Over half of the 243 robots working in Japan’s Hen-na robot hotel were fired for creating more problems than they solved and annoying guests.

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Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law
Founding Academic Director, Fordham CLIP

Tom Norton 
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Praatika Prasad
Quinn Nicholas D’Isa 
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP