Month: February 2020

Internet Governance

China Cracks Down On Sharing Of Coronavirus Information: The Chinese government has started censoring posts related to the coronavirus outbreak on platforms like WeChat and Twitter, even if such posts are benign or uncritical of the government’s response.

Privacy

New Study Quantifies Value Of Online Privacy: The study by the Technology Policy Institute asked Facebook users across six countries how much they would want to be paid in exchange for Facebook to be able to share their personal information with third-parties; German users valued privacy the highest overall by desiring around $8.00 per month for Facebook to have the right to share their contact information.

ICE Runs Facial Recognition On Millions Of Maryland Drivers: Immigrant rights and privacy advocates are alarmed after the state of Maryland, which permits undocumented immigrants to obtain special driver’s licenses, allowed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to search millions of driver’s license photos without a warrant. 

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Facial Recognition Technology Startup Clearview AI Lost Entire Client List To Hackers: The client list, which was obtained through a security flaw that Clearview says has since been fixed, includes law enforcement agencies, police departments, and banks; the startup has been subject to scrutiny for scraping billions of photos from social media platforms for its facial recognition technology. 

Intellectual Property

Uber Forced To Face $1 Billion Trade Secrets Suit: The trial will proceed to a second phase, in which a new jury will decide the merits of plaintiff Kevin Halpern’s claims that leaders at Uber “made off with his trade secrets,” after lawyers for the ridesharing platform failed to convince a jury that Halpern’s suit was time-barred. 

Free Expression and Censorship

John Oliver Episode Criticizing Indian Prime Minister Modi Blocked By Disney: The episode was blocked on India’s largest streaming service, Disney-owned Hotstar; India’s Information and Broadcasting Ministry, which regulates media distributed in the country, has said the government was not involved in the censorship of the episode.

Practice Note

Google Prevails Against Conservative Group In YouTube Censorship Suit: The Ninth Circuit ruled against conservative non-profit Prager University in its suit alleging that Google unconstitutionally censored its videos by tagging those “on such topics as abortion, gun rights, Islam and terrorism for its ‘Restricted Mode’ setting” after finding that YouTube is not a government entity and therefore not subject to First Amendment scrutiny.

On the Lighter Side

Landlord Throws Out Drug Dealer’s Codes For $58 Million In Bitcoin: After he was convicted for drug-related crimes, many of the possessions in Clifton Collins’ Ireland apartment were sent to a dump by his landlord, including a fishing rod case containing the codes to $58M in Bitcoin; Collins may take some comfort in knowing Ireland’s Criminal Asset Bureau had already planned to seize the cryptocurrency.

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

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Brittany Thomas
Sean Conners
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Facebook Changes Its Sponsored Content Policy Following Bloomberg Meme Campaign: After Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg paid a number of Instagram influencers to post sponsored memes, Facebook and its subsidiary, Instagram, lifted a previous ban on “branded content” for political campaigns; under the new policy, such content will have to be clearly marked as sponsored.

Privacy

Congress Demands Information From Amazon Related To Ring Partnerships With Police: Amazon’s video doorbell subsidiary, Ring, has partnered with over 900 police departments since 2018, and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Wednesday requested more information on the nature of the partnerships; the inquiry follows an announcement from Amazon last week that it would tighten Ring’s privacy controls after a January study by the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that Ring shared customer information with Facebook and Google without user consent. 

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Israeli Soldiers Targeted By Hamas Malware Scam: The Palestinian militant organization targeted Israeli soldiers on social media by posing as young women and asking them to install malware-infected chat apps on their devices; the Israeli Defense Force says it has detected the malware infections and taken down Hamas’ hacking infrastructure.

Intellectual Property

Peloton To Allow Free Trade-In Of Competitor Flywheel’s Bikes: Following a settlement two weeks ago under which Flywheel agreed to stop using Peloton’s patented leadership board technology, Flywheel has discontinued its online service and Peloton has announced a new program allowing Flywheel customers to trade in their bikes for “like-new” Peloton bikes. 

Free Expression and Censorship

Maine Privacy Law Faces First Amendment Challenge From ISPs: In their lawsuit against the state, broadband providers argue that a provision requiring that they obtain opt-in consent before “using, disclosing, selling, or permitting access to customer personal information” infringes their First Amendment right to “advertis[e] or market[ ] non-communications-related services to their customers,” and “offer[ ] price discounts, rewards in loyalty programs, or other cost-saving benefits in exchange for a customer’s consent to use their personal information.” 

Attorney General Reviews Online Platform Immunity: At a recent public meeting held by the Justice Department, Attorney General Barr questioned whether, given a “changing technological landscape,” broad immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is “necessary at least in its current form.”

Practice Note

Federal Judge Dismisses Huawei’s Equipment Ban Challenge: Unpersuaded by Huawei’s argument that it was unconstitutional for Congress to bar U.S. federal agencies from buying the company’s products, the court noted that contracting with the federal government is a privilege, not a constitutionally protected right.

On the Lighter Side

New Bracelet Jams Microphoned Devices: Designed by researchers at the University of Chicago, the “chunky” microphone-studded bracelet emits ultrasonic signals to render human voices incomprehensible to speech-detecting and recording devices such as digital assistants.

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

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Brittany Thomas
Sean Conners
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

France Fines Apple €25 Million For Slowing Down Old iPhones: The country’s General Directorate for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control determined that Apple misled consumers by not informing them that the throttling, which was introduced to prevent unexpected shutdowns as a result of battery degradation, would lead to the slower performance of iPhones with older batteries; Apple has since notified users and provided an option to turn off throttling in newer software updates. 

Privacy

Facebook Delays Launch Of Dating Service After Not Meeting European Privacy Requirements: The Irish Data Protection Commission “conducted an inspection” of the social media giant’s Dublin offices after Facebook failed to give EU data regulators proper advance notice that its dating service would launch in the EU on February 13th and failed to demonstrate that it had performed the legally required privacy risk assessment.

Senator Gillibrand Proposes Creation Of Data Protection Agency: The New York Senator introduced on Thursday the Data Protection Act of 2020, which would create a federal agency dedicated to protecting consumer privacy and enforcing data protection. 

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Chinese Military Denies Hacking Equifax, Calls Accusations “Legal Bullying”: After four Chinese military officers were charged with hacking the credit reporting agency in 2017 (a breach that exposed over 145 million people’s personal data), China’s Ministry of National Defense demanded that the U.S. repeal its charges to “avoid another destructive step in the relationship between the two countries and militaries.”

CIA-Owned Encryption Company Spied On Clients: Recently leaked documents show that from 1951 until at least 2008, the CIA secretly owned and operated encryption company Crypto AG, which enabled the intelligence agency to decrypt and read all messages sent by Crypto AG’s hundreds of clients, which ranged “from the Vatican to Iran.”

Intellectual Property

Huawei Sues Verizon For Patent Infringement: The Chinese telecommunications giant is suing Verizon for over $1 billion, claiming that the top U.S. wireless carrier profited $29.8 billion in 2018 alone from the unauthorized use of 12 Huawei patents; Verizon says the claims are without merit and calls the lawsuits “nothing more than a PR stunt.” 

Free Expression and Censorship

UK Government Appoints Social Media Content Regulator: Citing a desire to “protect children and vulnerable people online” while balancing accountability and free expression, the British government has appointed the media watchdog Ofcom to regulate content on large social media platforms; Ofcom is specifically tasked with ensuring that platforms adhere to their respective terms and conditions. 

On the Lighter Side

SpaceX Launches Rocket Rideshare: The rocket and spacecraft company is now allowing users to book their spot on a rocket for prices starting at $1 million; users are asked to specify their desired orbit, travel date, weight, and any add-on services they would like to purchase.

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

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Brittany Thomas
Sean Conners
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Twitter To Label Deceptively Edited Content Ahead Of 2020 Election: Joining Facebook and Google in an effort to better regulate misleading content published on their platforms, Twitter announced it will start labeling “synthetic or deceptively edited forms of media” and will remove any “deliberately misleading” content it believes is intended to cause harm.

Privacy

Tech Companies Send Cease-And-Desist Letters to Facial Recognition Technology Company: Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter maintain that Clearview AI’s practice of scraping billions of photos from their platforms to populate its facial recognition database violates their policies; Clearview argues that the First Amendment protects its right to collect the public information.

Kenyan Court Halts Government’s Digital ID Plans: The country’s high court is delaying the government’s implementation of a countrywide biometric registry, registration in which would be a prerequisite for access to certain rights and public services, until there is “an appropriate and comprehensive regulatory framework” in place to protect ethnic minorities from discrimination and maintain the security of user data.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Google Confirms Users’ Private Videos Were Accidentally Sent To Strangers: Google recently notified a subset of Google Photos users that their private videos were exported to other users’ accounts due to a technical issue with the company’s Takeout data-downloading service in late November; the issue has since been fixed and Google has apologized to the affected users.

Intellectual Property

Flywheel Agrees Its Technology Infringed Peloton’s Patented Leaderboard System: The two at-home fitness companies have agreed to settle a September 2018 patent infringement case filed by Peloton; Flywheel has admitted its stationary bikes infringed Peloton’s patented technology and says it will stop using the leaderboard system within 60 days. 

Free Expression and Censorship

Twitter Moves To Quash Subpoena For A User’s Identity By Devin Nunes’s Lawyer: The social media platform is attempting to block the subpoena from Representative Nunes’s lawyer, which seeks to reveal the identity of the parody Twitter account ‘Devin Nunes Cow’, on the bases that disclosure would violate the Stored Communications Act and that the accountholder’s identity is unrelated to the case, which is a defamation suit between other parties.

Practice Note

Ancestry.com Rejects Police Warrant For User DNA: The genealogy website rejected a law enforcement warrant seeking access to the company’s 15 million DNA profiles on undisclosed technical grounds; law enforcement agencies have increasingly sought access to the records of DNA profiling companies for investigations, but receive varying levels of cooperation from different companies.

On the Lighter Side

“Amazon Dating” Provides Expedited Date Delivery: The parody site, which is unaffiliated with Amazon, displays a range of “singles” and other Valentine’s Day Easter eggs.

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

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Brittany Thomas
Sean Conners
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP