Month: May 2019

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

Spotify And Apple Clash Over Antitrust: The EU will launch a formal antitrust investigation against Apple after Spotify complained that Apple’s practices of taking a cut of Spotify subscriptions made through the App Store and blocking Spotify from implementing “experience-enhancing upgrades” disadvantages Spotify to Apple Music’s benefit.

FTC Privacy Penalty Disagreement: According to a New York Times report, the Federal Trade Commission’s five commissioners disagree about the size and scope of the fine to be levied against Facebook for recent privacy violations, as well as about whether CEO Mark Zuckerberg should be held personally liable; the case is being watched as a litmus test for how forcefully the United States will police one of its most influential tech companies.

Privacy

State-Held Biometric Data Deletion: UK tax authority HM Revenue & Customs will delete customer voice records collected through the Voice ID biometric voice security system after being informed by the Information Commissioner’s Office that its failure to provide customers with information about how their voice data would be processed and to offer customers the opportunity to give or withhold explicit consent violated the GDPR.

Facebook Content Labeling Project Revealed: As part of a project to understand how users’ posts are changing over time, Facebook has employed contractors to manually categorize photos, status updates, and other content according to five different “dimensions”; though Facebook responded to reports of the project by ensuring that its legal teams approve all labeling efforts, some contend that the project may run afoul of the GDPR.

Information Security & Cyberthreats

Team Effort To Beat Misinformation Campaigns: FBI Director Christopher Wray told a Senate panel that the Bureau’s relationship with Silicon Valley has “changed dramatically” over past years, and that the FBI and social media companies will continue to work together to curb foreign influence campaigns leading up to the 2020 election.

$41 Million Bitcoin Theft: Hackers employed “phishing, viruses and other attacks” to steal $41 million worth of Bitcoin from cryptocurrency Binance in what is the latest in a string of similar thefts.

Free Expression & Censorship

Fake Account Takedown Continues: As part of its effort to combat misinformation on its platform, Facebook removed 118 fake accounts tied to Russia for “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” such as impersonating others and misrepresenting the accounts’ purposes; the fake accounts were behind Facebook pages and groups dedicated to politics in Austria, the Baltics, Germany, Spain, Ukraine and the UK. 

On the Lighter Side

What Seems To Be The Problem . . . Officer? A new “telepresence robot” that extends forward from a police cruiser to a pulled-over vehicle allows for a two-way audiovisual communication between a police officer and the vehicle’s driver without either having to exit their car. 

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

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Facebook Offers Data On Election Influence: The company announced that it will provide “privacy-protected Facebook data” from APIs and other sources to more than 60 academics for the purpose of researching the social network’s role in instances of election interference across the world.

Privacy

FTC And Facebook Working Toward Settlement: A week after Facebook announced that it expects to be fined up to $5 billion by the FTC for privacy violations, reports have emerged that tentative settlement terms between the parties would require Facebook to create a privacy committee, appoint an external assessor, and appoint a head compliance officer to oversee the company’s privacy compliance efforts.

Information Security & Cyberthreats

Vodafone Discovered Vulnerabilities In Huawei Equipment: Newly-released 2009 and 2011 security briefings from Vodafone Group reveal that the telecom discovered hidden backdoors in software that could have granted Huawei unauthorized access to the network that provides internet service in Italy, as well as in certain broadband network gateways; Vodafone and Huawei said that they worked together to resolve the issues upon their discovery.

Florida Voting Equipment Compromised: Senator Marco Rubio confirmed that Russian hackers infiltrated at least one Florida county’s electronic voting system during the 2016 presidential election by mimicking emails from the company that provided the voting equipment; according to Rubio, the hackers were “in a position” to alter voter records.

Intellectual Property

SCOTUS Seeks Input On Google Appeal: The Supreme Court has asked the Trump administration to weigh in on whether the Court should consider the company’s appeal of a Federal Circuit ruling that revived Oracle’s case alleging that Google impermissibly copied code from the Java programming language to create Android.

Free Expression & Censorship

Clarifying What’s Tweet-able For Tesla: A federal judge approved a proposed settlement between the SEC and Tesla CEO Elon Musk that prohibits Musk from tweeting about Tesla’s finances, proposed mergers and acquisitions, and yet-unreleased production and delivery figures without first obtaining pre-approval from the company’s lawyers; this new settlement comes after Musk settled 2018 securities fraud charges related to tweets about taking Tesla private.

Practice Note

Taking Tweets With You: A Missouri federal district court declined to dismiss a conversion claim brought by a plaintiff against one of its former employees after the former employee changed the handle of a Twitter account that he used in connection with his work with plaintiff to reflect his affiliation with a new employer, the plaintiff’s direct competitor.

On the Lighter Side

Undersea Espionage: Could a GoPro harness-wearing beluga whale encountered by fisherman off Norway’s coast be a Russian spy?

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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