Month: September 2019

Internet Governance

CJEU Rules The Right To Be Forgotten Limited To The European Union: The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that the EU’s Right to Be Forgotten does not require Google and other search engines to remove links to inadequate or irrelevant personal information from its search results globally, but instead that search engines are only obligated to remove such results within EU member states.

Privacy

Google Assistant To Receive Update After Backlash Over Recorded Audio: Google will “vastly reduce” the amount of recorded audio it collects from is voice-activated assistant and will no longer store recordings by default following July reports that a contractor leaked private audio recordings; Google, which had purportedly been using the recordings to improve its translation service, will now give consumers the choice of whether to share recordings or not.

Australia To Catch Distracted Drivers With New Mobile Phone Detection Cameras: Photos taken by the new cameras will be subject to AI review, then human verification, to confirm which drivers will be fined for driving while using their phones; the government of New South Wales plans to roll out as many as 45 cameras by December 2019.

Information Security & Cyberthreats

Russian Nationalist Hacker Pleads Guilty To Largest Bank Hack In U.S. History: Between 2012 and 2015, Andrei Tyurin stole more than 100 million consumer records as part of a conspiracy to commit a variety of criminal schemes including wire and securities fraud; in 2014, Tyurin hacked JPMorgan to access the data of over 80 million victims, making it the biggest theft of consumer data from a single financial institution in the U.S.

Recent Malware Campaign Against Uyghur Muslims Revealed To Have Targeted Tibetan Officials: Users posing as representatives from Amnesty International and The New York Times sent malicious links over WhatsApp capable of installing spyware to access sensitive information; although the attacks were thought to be confined to Apple iOS devices, research shows Tibetan officials were attacked on Android devices as well.

Intellectual Property

Sprint Argues To SCOTUS That $140 Million Patent Infringement Award Is Reasonable: In response to Time Warner Cable’s petition to review the judgment resulting from its infringement of Sprint’s internet calling patents, Sprint argued that the Federal Circuit correctly determined that the judgment was backed by sufficient evidence and that the award did not “contravene the principles of apportionment.”

Free Expression & Censorship

Facebook Will Not Remove Lies Or Hate Speech Posted By Politicians: As part of an effort to avoid election interference, Facebook will not fact check or censor newsworthy posts by politicians, even if the content constitutes hate speech or violates other of the social network’s policies; the company’s head of global policy and communications said that it will be up to users to “judge what politicians say themselves.”

On The Lighter Side

Match.com Sued For Leading On Its Non-Paying Users : The FTC alleges that the dating site allowed non-paying users, who are unable to read or respond to messages, to subscribe in response to messages received from accounts that Match knew to be fraudulent but which it had not yet deleted.

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

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Alison Gordon
Lawrence Keating
Editorial Fellow

Internet Governance

France, Germany, Announce Opposition To Facebook’s Proposed Cryptocurrency: Following a meeting of G7 Finance Ministers and the European Central Bank’s governors in July, France and Germany have determined that Facebook’s Libra proposal fails to address issues such as financial security, investor protection, money laundering, and terrorist financing; the countries also urge the European Central Bank to accelerate its own digital currency project.

Privacy

Amazon Targets Third Party Apps For Privacy Policy Violations: Amazon has begun to crack down on third-party app developers who rely on its Marketplace Web Service API to create apps that assist Amazon sellers in ways that violate Amazon’s privacy policy, such as by using API data to create targeted advertisements.

Private Surveillance Company Captures More Than Nine Billion License Plate Scans: A Motherboard investigation reveals that Digital Recognition Network, which manufacturers license plate-reading tools, has built a database of over nine billion license plate scans through which private or government investigators can potentially track the movements and locations of vehicles over a long period of time; the company crowdsources its data from repo men, who affix scanners to their cars and passively capture and upload data about license plates they drive by.

Information Security & Cyberthreats

Database Vulnerability Exposes Records About Most Of Ecuador’s Citizens: A misconfigured database provided access to 20.8 million records sourced from both the government and the private sector; the records included those related to notable figures such as Ecuador’s president, as well as those related to children, family trees, and car ownership.

Russia Breached Encrypted FBI Communication in 2010: a Yahoo News exclusive reveals that in 2010, Russian counterintelligence engaged in a “very broad effort to try and penetrate” FBI technologies and communications that had far-reaching effects on U.S. intelligence efforts; the breach may have served as an additional incentive for the Obama administration to banish almost three dozen Russian officials from the U.S. in 2016.

Intellectual Property

Amazon’s Audible Claims “Fair Use”: In a lawsuit filed by seven major publishers alleging Audible’s new service displaying text captions along with audiobook playback violates their copyrights, Audible has argued that the practice constitutes fair use; Audible cites to a 2015 Second Circuit ruling allowing Google to display snippets of scanned books, and the dispute is expected to ignite another animated debate about the nature of “transformative use.”

Free Expression & Censorship

Draft House Bill Proposes Task Force And Commission To Study How Social Media Companies Police Online Content: The bill, which will be introduced next week, would establish a national commission to review how tech companies protect users from harmful content and to propose appropriate legislation; the bill’s introduction follows a Senate hearing on Wednesday at which representatives from Facebook, Google, and Twitter were questioned about whether their platforms have become conduits for violent speech.

On The Lighter Side

Stay And Watch The Game: The University Of Alabama has rolled out a location-tracking app designed to entice students to stay in the stands for the duration of football games by offering improved access to playoff tickets for those who remain.

Announcements

Fellowship Opportunity: The Fletcher School and Tuft’s Department of Computer Science are seeking a postdoctoral or JD candidate with a background in privacy law for a research fellowship studying privacy implications of communications metadata usage.

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

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Alison Gordon
Lawrence Keating
Editorial Fellow

Internet Governance

Texas Law Banning Deepfake Videos Takes Effect: The legislation prohibits the creation or distribution of videos within 30 days of an election that appear to depict “a real person performing an action that did not occur in reality” if the video is created or distributed with the intent to injure a candidate or influence the election; Texas is the second state after Virginia to criminalize deepfake videos, with similar bans currently being considered in California and by Congress.

Fifty Attorneys General Announce Google Antitrust Investigation: Following reports last week that Google would be the subject of an antitrust probe, representatives from 48 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have now officially launched their inquiry, which will focus on whether Google has harmed competition and consumers through its search, advertising, and other businesses; the attorneys general of California and Alabama declined to participate.

Privacy

DHS Proposes New Rule To Obtain Social Media Usernames From Asylum Seekers, Immigrants, And Refugees: If implemented, the rule would require applicants to provide five years’ worth of usernames for 19 different social media sites including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube; the Department is seeking comments on the proposal until November 4.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Apple Comments On iOS Hacking Operation: In the wake of a Google report last week that iPhones were hacked in an extensive malware operation, Apple has confirmed the attack, but has clarified certain elements of the report—namely, that the attack was narrowly focused to target China’s Uyghur Muslim community, that the attack ran for approximately two months instead of two years, and that Apple was already in the process of fixing the vulnerability that enabled the attack before being notified about it by Google.

Intellectual Property

Nintendo Blocks Access To Pirated Games By Enjoining UK ISPs: As part of its long-standing fight against piracy, Nintendo sought and won an injunction that prohibits five major UK internet providers from providing access to four websites known for hosting pirated material; the effort marked a tactical change from Nintendo’s typical practice of targeting pirated content directly.

Free Expression and Censorship

Ninth Circuit Declares Montana Law Banning Political Robocalling Unconstitutional: The court found that content-specific bans on robocalling presented a threat to First Amendment rights and hampered candidates with limited resources, defeating the State’s concerns for privacy protection and busy phone lines.

Practice Note

Scraping Public Information Deemed Legal By Ninth Circuit: In a 3-0 decision, the court upheld an injunction that prohibits LinkedIn from blocking tech startup hiQ Labs from harvesting public information from user profiles; the court reasoned that it was doubtful that users had any expectation of privacy in the publicly listed information.

On the Lighter Side

Web Browser Workaround Makes Private Instagram Posts Accessible To All: By using the “Inspect Element” tool and tabbing to the “Img” selection, users can locate a URL for any previously viewed post or story, which can then be shared publicly regardless of the user’s privacy setting.

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

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Alison Gordon
Lawrence Keating
Editorial Fellows

Internet Governance

Tech Companies Lobby For Last Minute Changes To California Data Privacy Law: Lobbyists are seeking to amend the California Consumer Privacy Act, which passed in August 2018 and takes effect next year, to protect digital advertising revenue by allowing the collection of user data for targeted advertising even if users opt out and broadening the types of “business purpose” for which user data can be sold or distributed.

Google Is The Subject Of Upcoming Antitrust Probe: Following a recent uptick in regulatory scrutiny, Google may now be the subject of an antitrust probe prepared by more than half the nation’s state attorneys general; more information is expected to be announced officially this Monday.

Privacy

FTC, New York Attorney General, And YouTube Settle Investigation Into Alleged COPPA Violations: YouTube will pay a record $170 million fine—$136 million to the FTC and $34 million to New York—for allegedly collecting personal information from viewers of child-oriented channels without first notifying parents and obtaining their consent in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule.

Information Security & Cyberthreats

Google’s Security Team Uncovers Extensive iPhone Hacking Operation: Hackers infected a small collection of websites with malware that collected iPhone users’ location history, passwords, chat history, address books, and Gmail databases; the hack is believed to have affected thousands of users for over more than two years, and was rectified by Apple in an operating system update in February this year.

Manager Wires $243,000 To Fraudsters Imitating CEO’s Voice Using Deepfake Technology: Fraudsters successfully convinced an executive of a UK-based energy firm to send the funds by imitating the voice of his boss using commercially available deepfake software.

Intellectual Property

USPTO Seeks Comment On AI’s Impact On Intellectual Property: To address some of the mounting questions posed by AI, the USPTO has published a call for comments in the Federal Register to solicit feedback from experts and the general public about, among other things, the nature of AI and how intellectual property protections should extend to it.

Free Expression & Censorship

Anti-Nazi Documentary Removed From YouTube For Violating Hate Speech Policy: The 1938 newsreel film “Inside Nazi Germany” was removed despite an exception to YouTube’s policy for educational content and documentaries, although YouTube has since restored the video.

On The Lighter Side

Patent Granted For Heated Keyboard To Divert Cats Away From The Real Thing: The invention details designs for a decoy keyboard so computer users won’t be interrupted by their cats laying on the keys.

Job And Fellowship Opportunities

From time to time, CLIP-ings highlights career opportunities in the information law field. Please note the following opportunities at the Future of Privacy Forum:

Opportunities for Former Students/Graduates:

• 16 month policy fellowship focused on education and child privacy for recent (0-3 years since graduation) law or graduate school graduates.
• Full-time policy counsel role (1-5 years of experience) focused on Legislative Outreach & Analysis.
• Full-time policy counsel roles (2+ years of experience, 5+ ideal) in Mobility and Location Privacy (including connected cars) and Artificial Intelligence Privacy & Ethics.

Opportunities for Current Students:

• Remote student contractors working on education privacy ($20/hour for 10-20 hours a week).
• Blogging opportunities for students interested in writing about student privacy issues on FERPA|Sherpa, paid at $150 per blog. Interested students should email avance@fpf.org to apply with their resume and an attached writing sample (ideally non-legal).

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

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Alison Gordon
Editorial Fellow