Month: January 2019

Internet Governance

Google Pays For General Data Protection Violation: The Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL) fined Google €50 million for violating the GDPR by failing to meet transparency requirements regarding the use of information for ad personalization and for failing to obtain adequate user consent; Google plans to appeal the fine.   

Privacy

ACLU Brings FOIA Suit Over Government Social Media Surveillance: The American Civil Liberties Union sued seven federal agencies including the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security for failing to comply with a 2018 FOIA request seeking information about how the agencies collect and analyze information about individuals’ social media use.  

Information Security & Cyberthreats

Hacker Falsely Warns Family Of Missile Attack: A California family’s hacked Nest security camera delivered a false alert about North Korean ballistic missiles barreling towards the U.S.; in response, Nest claimed that the hack was the result of third-party activity and encouraged the use of two-factor verification to eliminate security risk.

Oklahoma Securities Commission Failed To Secure Sensitive Information: A data vulnerability within the Oklahoma Securities Commission left over three terabytes of passwords, bank transaction information, social security numbers, and emails dating back two decades available on an unprotected server and accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

Intellectual Property

Google News May Be Pulled In EU: Google is threatening to pull its News service from the EU if the EU’s controversial copyright directive, which would afford publishers the right to charge web platforms fees for showing snippets of news articles, passes; publishing lobbying groups are calling the threats “scaremongering” tactics.  

Free Expression and Censorship

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Defamatory Yelp Review Case: A case that could have affected web platforms’ legal protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has been resolved after the Supreme Court declined to consider whether Yelp is required to remove defamatory reviews from its site.

Practice Note

NY Court Finds NYPD Glomar Response Impermissible: A New York State Supreme Court Justice ruled that the NYPD’s Glomar response to a FOIL request for information about police monitoring of Black Lives Matter activists’ social-media accounts was “impermissible” because it “would effectively eliminate any oversight over [the Department’s] handling of protesters” and “runs counter to the very purpose of freedom of information statutes.”

On The Lighter Side

ClickToPray With The Pope: During his traditional Sunday address, Pope Francis launched an app that allows people to “pray together with others,” scroll through other users’ prayers, and leave comments.  

---

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.

---

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

Deciding The Scope Of The “Right To Be Forgotten”: An advocate general for the European Court of Justice argued that Google and other search engines should not be forced to apply the “right to be forgotten” outside the European Union due to the risk that “other jurisdictions could use their laws to block information from being accessible within the EU”; a final ruling is expected to be reached in the coming months from the court, which typically follows the advocate general’s opinion.

LA Sues Weather Channel App Owner: The Los Angeles City Attorney filed a lawsuit against the Weather Company, the company behind the popular Weather Channel app, claiming the app deceptively collected, shared, and profited from selling millions of users’ location information; the lawsuit claims the app unfairly manipulated users by failing to disclose that their data would be shared for commercial purposes, such as targeting marketing and analysis by hedge funds.

Privacy

Senators Call On FCC To Investigate Telecoms: Senators are calling on the FCC to investigate telecommunications companies like T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint after a Motherboard story revealed that the major mobile carriers are selling customer location data to third parties, which then offer the sensitive information to bounty hunters and others not authorized to handle the data; some senators are also demanding regulation that would prevent unauthorized use and sale of phone location data and ensure that customers are properly informed about how their data is sold.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Student Confesses To German Data Leak: A 20-year old German student reportedly confessed to exposing the personal details of Chancellor Angela Merkel and hundreds of Germany’s politicians, journalists, and entertainers last month; the student published the individuals’ contact information and personal details —including bank account statements, photos, and chat records — on his Twitter account because he was “angry with the public statements” made by his targets.

Intellectual Property

Potential Rise In Copyright Infringement Suit Costs: Filing a copyright infringement suit could become more expensive for creators if the Supreme Court, after hearing arguments in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com this week, finds that creators must first obtain approval of their copyright registration.

Free Expression and Censorship

Politicians’ Page Ruled A Public Forum: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a 2017 district court decision finding that the Loudoun County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors chair violated the First Amendment rights of a Facebook user who criticized board members and their relatives by banning him for 12 hours from her Facebook page.

On The Lighter Side

Older Users More Likely To Share Hoaxes: A study conducted by researchers at New York University and Princeton University reveals that Facebook users over the age of 65 were more likely to have shared fake news stories during the 2016 presidential campaign than users in any other age group.

---

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

Tom Norton 
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Tommine McCarthy 
Subrina Chowdhury 
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Arizona Residents Resist Waymo: A New York Times report details how members of the Chandler community—a testing site for Waymo’s autonomous vehicles—displayed hostility towards the company in at least 21 incidents since 2017, including by slashing tires and threatening backup drivers with weapons; Waymo has chosen not to prosecute the assailants.

NYPD Planned To Use Drones On New Year’s Eve: Although thwarted at the last minute by rain, the New York Police Department intended to use drones during the New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square as part of a larger drone program unveiled last month.

Privacy

Court Dismisses Biometric Lawsuit Against Google: After finding that the plaintiff did not suffer “concrete injuries,” a federal court dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Google’s extraction of “face templates” from images uploaded to its cloud-based photo service violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act; the plaintiff argued that she did not upload the images of herself and thus did not consent to Google’s collection, storage, or use of her biometric data.

Tracking Devices Installed In Chinese Student Uniforms: Students in certain Chinese schools are required to wear uniforms that track their whereabouts; while a state-run Chinese newspaper describes the rule as an effort to promote attendance, critics raise concern that the uniforms allow authorities to track the students’ locations outside of school.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Terrorists Control Idle Twitter Accounts: Due to a decade-old security flaw, hackers from terrorist groups have been able to hack and post propaganda from dormant accounts by resetting the accounts’ passwords using new email addresses created based on the now-expired or otherwise nonexistent addresses used to initially set up the Twitter handles; Twitter partially directs the blame at email providers that recycle deactivated email addresses.

Unknown Hackers Delay Newspaper Delivery: A strain of malware infected several U.S. newspapers owned by Tribune Publishing—including the LA Times and west coast versions of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal—and delayed their publication and delivery; the motive and source have not been determined.

Intellectual Property

Williams-Sonoma v. Amazon: Williams-Sonoma filed a trademark and design patent infringement lawsuit against Amazon for selling unauthorized Williams-Sonoma merchandise on its website and misrepresenting itself as an authorized seller of the company’s products; the home goods retailer also argued Amazon “unfairly and deceptively engaged in a widespread campaign of copying” designs of its West Elm furniture for Amazon’s own furniture line, Rivet.

Free Expression and Censorship

Netflix Removed Comedy Episode After Saudi Demand: Netflix removed an episode of its show “Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj” from streaming in Saudi Arabia after the country claimed that the episode violated its anti-cyber crime law barring content that threatens “public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy”; the episode is critical of the United States’ relationship with the Saudi government due to the country’s involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the war in Yemen.

Tech Companies Not Responsible For San Bernardino Shooting: A federal judge in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit seeking to hold Facebook, Google, and Twitter liable to victims of the 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, on the basis that the attack was not a direct result of the tech companies’ permitting terrorist groups to use their platforms; the judge also found the companies not liable for aiding and abetting terrorism under the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act because they were only “generally aware” that terrorists groups have used their services.

On The Lighter Side

AI Stops Wildlife Poachers: Non-profit group Resolve created a pencil-sized, AI-equipped camera to detect animals, humans, and vehicles in real-time, allowing park rangers to detect and stop poachers in Africa before it’s too late.

---

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

Tom Norton 
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Tommine McCarthy 
Subrina Chowdhury 
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP