Month: July 2020

Internet Governance Tech CEOs Questioned Over Anticompetitive Activity: Apple’s Tim Cook, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Google’s Sundar Pichai were quizzed for over six hours by the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee in response to growing Congressional concerns about the potentially exploitative strategies behind their companies’ outsized success during the pandemic, such as Amazon misusing third-party sellers’ goods for its private label and Facebook allowing the spread of dangerous COVID misinformation across its site.

Privacy Instagram Bug Causes Unintentional Camera Access: A new iOS 14 privacy feature that shows when an application is using a device’s camera or microphone has exposed an alleged “bug” on Instagram that engages the camera whenever the app is open, such as when a user is “scrolling through the photo feed.” Facial Recognition Algorithms Defeated By Mask Wearers: The National Institute for Standards and Technology confirmed in a new study that wearing a face mask over the nose and mouth raises error rates in even relatively accurate face-to-ID-photo facial recognition systems from 5 to 50 percent, depending on the algorithm used.

Information Security and Cyberthreats Drizzly Confirms Data Breach: The leading alcohol-delivery service recently notified customers that 2.5 million users’ information was obtained by hackers, including email addresses, dates of birth, passwords, and “in some cases, delivery addresses;” while the company assured customers that no financial data was obtained by the hackers, “a listing on a dark web marketplace” has Drizzly customers’ credit card numbers listed for sale at $14.

Intellectual Property Tesla Sues Rivian For Trade Secret Theft: The electric carmaker challenged its rival in California state court over confidential hiring, management, and manufacturing documents former Tesla employees may have illegally shared with Rivian after being hired away by them.

Free Expression and Censorship Trump’s Mass Text Messages Blocked By Wireless Carriers: After Trump’s reelection campaign sent 1 million text messages in a peer-to-peer format, anti-spam monitors used by Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile were triggered to block the texts as spam; while the campaign insists that it is in compliance with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act guidelines, “the messages didn’t include clear opt-out language” and may have lacked user consent.

Practice Note

New York Ordered To Pay Unemployment To Rideshare Drivers: Echoing similar recent decisions from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts courts, a New York federal judge issued a preliminary injunction ordering the New York Department of Labor to immediately begin approving unemployment claims for the state’s many rideshare drivers.  

On the Lighter Side Viewers Judge Tech CEOs’ Testimonies, And Their Rooms: While CEOs Cook, Bezos, Pichai, and Zuckerburg testified virtually before Congress regarding potential antitrust violations, viewers took the liberty of evaluating the CEOs’ various office spaces, ranking Pichai the highest, and Cook the lowest.

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

Isabel Brown Caroline Vermillion Editorial Fellows

Internet Governance UK Uber Drivers Sue For Data Access: A group of drivers from four UK cities claim that Uber violated GDPR data access provisions by failing to adequately explain how company algorithms profile and manage drivers, and by refusing to allow drivers to store performance data compiled on them by a “management algorithm” in a separate, union-administered “data trust” that would assist in fairer collective bargaining negotiations.

Privacy Facial Recognition Banned In New York Schools: In response to the Lockport City School District’s use of facial recognition as a security measure in K-12 schools, the New York legislature passed a moratorium that bans schools statewide from using “facial recognition and other forms of biometric identification until 2022.”

Information Security and Cyberthreats Public Officials’ Private Messages Obtained In Twitter Hack: Twitter confirmed that the direct messages of several dozen accounts ensnared in a cryptocurrency scam last week, reportedly including those of Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders, were compromised in the attack.

Intellectual Property Spotify And Universal Music Group Reach Worldwide Licensing Agreement: Through the multi-year agreement, Spotify will retain a license to UMG’s entire catalog; UMG will additionally assist the streaming platform in developing marketing tools to increase music monetization beyond streaming royalties alone. Instacart Sues Competitor For Photo Theft: In a suit filed last week, the grocery delivery service claimed that Uber’s own grocery service, Cornershop, reused thousands of Instacart’s images of various goods without permission and “tried to hide the origin of its catalog images by modifying their file names.”

Free Expression and Censorship Facebook Ramps Up Disinformation Controls: Facebook’s third-party fact-checking contractors announced they would begin labeling political posts and directing viewers of those posts to “official info” about voting as part of the company’s “election integrity efforts;” the company itself nonetheless exercised its power to overrule other such labels on a number of conservative posts dismissing climate change as a matter of “opinion.” Twitter Bans Thousands Of QAnon Accounts: In an attempt to curb the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories that violate Twitter’s policies against “behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm,” the social media platform banned over 7,000 accounts “associated with QAnon,” and similarly blocked over 150,000 accounts from appearing in trends, recommendations, or from otherwise being highlighted.

On the Lighter Side California Bar Exam Details Change: The California Bar exam has been moved online, will be administered in October, and requires a lower score to pass; in addition, recent law school graduates will be able to “temporarily practice law without passing the exam.”

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

Isabel Brown Caroline Vermillion Editorial Fellows

Internet Governance

France’s Parliament Passes Age-Verification Requirement For Adult Sites: In an effort to limit access to pornography by children under the age of eighteen, the French parliament passed new legislation requiring stronger age-verification measures by adult websites; while the sites can decide for themselves how to verify age, the most common measure is expected to be the provision of credit card information. 

Apple’s Irish Tax Bill Remains Unsettled: An EU intermediate appellate court overturned a decision ordering Apple to pay $14.9 billion in back taxes to Ireland on the ground that the European Commission “did not succeed in showing to the requisite legal standard” that Apple received an unfair advantage by not paying; nonetheless, roughly $15 billion will remain in Apple’s escrow account until any final appeal concludes. 

Privacy

EU High Court Invalidates U.S.-EU Privacy Shield: The Court of Justice of the European Union struck down the  data-sharing agreement, stating that it does not adequately protect EU citizens’ data from surveillance by U.S. authorities.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Twitter Accounts Targeted And Hacked By Bitcoin Scam: The Twitter accounts of Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Kanye West, and other high-profile individuals and businesses were hacked in what is believed to be a “coordinated social engineering attack on Twitter employees”; through the compromised accounts, the hackers directed users to transfer Bitcoin with the false promise of sending back double the amount in return, and ultimately made out with an estimated $100,000.

Intellectual Property

Facebook To Launch Officially Licensed Music Videos: To compete with YouTube, the social network negotiated with music publishers so that it could automatically post artists’ videos to their Facebook pages. 

Free Expression and Censorship

Instagram And Facebook Ban All Content Promoting Conversion Therapy: In response to a petition for the removal of content advertising conversion therapy services, Instagram and Facebook will no longer permit posts that “advertise or promote the practice.” 

Practice Note

Supreme Court To Hear Facebook Robocall Case: The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in a case alleging that Facebook violated the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act by sending unwanted texts to a user; the case will clarify what forms of automated communication will be considered “automated, unsolicited, and unwanted” messages barred under the TCPA. 

On the Lighter Side

Google Launches AI Hieroglyphics Translator: Google released the AI-powered “Fabricius” program on its Arts and Culture app, which enables users to upload images of the ancient Egyptian symbols to match them with a database of known hieroglyphics based on existing historical records and definitions and to “translate their own words and emojis into shareable hieroglyphs.” 

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

Isabel Brown Caroline Vermillion Editorial Fellows

Internet Governance

Facebook Oversight Board Will Not Be Ready Until Fall 2020: Facebook’s Oversight Board, “which will independently oversee content moderation,” will not be operational until “late fall,” making it unlikely that the Board will be able to help moderate information on Facebook platforms until after the 2020 presidential election.

Privacy

Facebook Shared User Data With Over 5,000 App Developers: Facebook announced this week that a review of data usage in recent months revealed that third-party app developers were able to access an unknown amount of data from accounts belonging to users who had not logged into the Facebook app in more than 90 days, in violation of a company policy disallowing external apps from accessing a user’s data if they did not routinely provide login credentials and grant permission for third-party access to their account. 

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Stringent Hong Kong National Security Law Riles Western Tech: A new mandate issued by the Chinese government last week requiring online platforms to turn over user data to the government without a court order prompted major U.S. tech companies to announce they would pause processing any such requests; the requirement puts many of them in precarious positions given the extensive business ties they maintain with China.

Intellectual Property

Twitter Removes Trump’s Tweet For Copyright Infringement: After turning a photograph of himself into a meme, President Trump’s tweet was removed from the platform for copyright infringement after The New York Times filed a takedown notice as a rightsholder to the photograph.

Free Expression and Censorship

United States Considers Banning TikTok: Due to increasing concern about the “handling of user data” and the relationship between TikTok’s parent company and the Chinese government,  U.S. lawmakers are “considering a ban” on the popular platform.

Practice Note

Supreme Court Bans Robo-Call Debt Collections: Justice Kavanaugh delivered an opinion striking down an exception to a federal ban on debt collection robocalls that allowed contact for a broad range of debts “owed to or guaranteed by” the U.S. government on the ground that the exception violated the First Amendment by “favoring debt-collection speech over other speech.”

On the Lighter Side

Airbnb Sets Restrictions For Users Under 25: In an effort to reduce “the number of unauthorized house parties,” and in light of new COVID-19 precautions, Airbnb has set new restrictions on some users under the age of 25; while many will not be affected, those with fewer than three positive reviews are no longer allowed to book entire homes in their geographic area.

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

Isabel Brown Caroline Vermillion Editorial Fellows

Internet Governance

UK Regulator Recommends Forming New Tech-Focused Agency: Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority proposed that the national government create a specialized antitrust unit to manage tech companies’ control over smaller industries that depend on them for web traffic and user data, enforce transparency, and increase overall public trust. 

Privacy

TikTok And 32 Other Apps Use Clipboard To Access Private Information: Despite TikTok’s pledge to curb the practice in March, the company continues to access information that is stored on the user’s clipboard (where devices store cut or copied data), including “passwords, cryptocurrency wallet addresses, account-reset links, and personal messages.”

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Twitter Using Technology To Detect Bots: To help eliminate “bad actors” on the site, Twitter challenges and suspends millions of accounts every month by using technology to monitor users’ behaviors and detect patterns indicative of fake accounts.

UC San Francisco Reveals Details Of Ransomware Negotiation: Following a ransomware attack on its IT infrastructure by the Netwalker hacking group, details of a ransom negotiation orchestrated through the hackers’ dark-web chat platform were made public in a rare glimpse into the mechanics of resolving a large-scale cyberattack.

Intellectual Property

U.S. Supreme Court Allows Trademark For “Booking.com”: In an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the travel site’s name is eligible for federal trademark protection, reasoning that “because [the name] is not generic to consumers, it is not generic” and is therefore entitled to protection to prevent copycat sites from misleading potential customers. 

Google Will Absorb The Cost Of News Paywalls: In an effort to provide greater access to “high-quality” news, Google will pay publishers to license their content, covering the cost of subscription paywalls often used by news sites to monetize content; Google has already signed publishers in Australia, Germany, and Brazil. 

Free Expression and Censorship

Facebook Ad Boycott Gathers Steam: Honda and Unilever joined over 100 companies halting  advertising on Facebook this week as part of the “Stop Hate for Profit” civil rights campaign, which is designed to pressure the social media company to take more concrete steps to end hate speech and misinformation on its platform. 

On the Lighter Side

More Than 1,000 Phrases Incorrectly Trigger Voice-Activated Digital Assistants: New research finds that Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant devices can be incorrectly triggered by over a thousand words and word-sequences, including “Montana,” “election,” and “hey Jerry.”