Month: August 2020

Internet Governance TikTok Sues The United States Government: The video-sharing app filed suit against the U.S. Government following the Trump Administration’s executive order under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to “ban the company’s American operations” for its alleged connection to the Chinese government; in the suit, TikTok alleges, among other things, that it has been denied its Due Process rights under the Fifth Amendment “to argue it isn’t a national security threat.”

Privacy Facebook Criticizes New Apple iOS System For Enhanced Privacy: In a recent blog post, Facebook warned that a new feature of Apple’s upcoming software update that “requires app developers to notify users if their app collects a unique device code” soFacebook advertisers can send targeted ads to consumers on non-Facebook webpages essentially makes users manually opt in to being tracked by Facebook and potentially damages a key revenue stream for the social media monolith. Clearview AI Used By Numerous Police Agencies: A recent interview with the CEO of the controversial facial recognition technology company revealed that more than 2,400 police agencies throughout the country, including agencies in New York, Miami, and Philadelphia, have entered into license agreements with Clearview AI for access to information used to identify protestors and other persons of interest.

Information Security and Cyberthreats Former Uber Security Chief Charged For Covering Up Hack: The Department of Justice indicted Joe Sullivan for covering up the 2016 hack that exposed the private information of over 50 million ride-sharing users by paying the hackers $100,000 and having them sign a nondisclosure agreement; Sullivan is charged with obstruction of justice for failing to follow California’s laws requiring public disclosure of the hack.

Free Expression and Censorship Facebook Removes Group Following Thai Government Order: Facebook took down the “Royalist Marketplace,” a group of over a million members dedicated largely to discussing the Thai government and monarchy, at the request of the country’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society; Facebook later issued a statement protesting the action as having a “chilling effect” on the Thai peoples’ ability to express themselves. Facebook Failed To Censor Kenosha Guard Group Prior To Shooting: The social media platform failed to censor posts “inciting violence” by the “self-proclaimed militia group the Kenosha Guard” prior to the deadly shooting in Kenosha, WI, despite at least two reports that the group was violating community standards by issuing a “call to arms;” the group was not removed by Facebook until more than nine hours after the shooting for violating the platform’s “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy.”

Practice Note Ride-Sharing Continues In California After Court-Ordered Reprieve: Shortly before Uber and Lyft threatened to shut down across the state, a California state judge issued an emergency stay of an order that would have required Lyft, Uber, and other ride-sharing companies to classify their drivers as employees.

On the Lighter Side Network Outages Cause “Zoom Day” For U.S. Schoolchildren: A widespread outage of Zoom’s service early in the week disrupted schooldays and meetings across North America and Europe, giving students an unexpected “snow day” for the COVID era.

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, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance Trump Extends TikTok’s Deadline: Following the original executive order requiring the sale of TikTok to a U.S.-based company within 45 days, President Trump has since extended the deadline to 90 days, with sale now required by November 12th; companies such as Microsoft and Twitter have “been in talks to acquire TikTok.” Facebook Objects To Apple Store Fees: The social media giant has outwardly opposed Apple’s fees, which take 30 percent “for purchases that take place within apps running on iPhones,” stating that such fees dramatically hurt small businesses trying to sell products or services through Facebook’s in-app features.

Privacy Clearview AI Wins $224,000 ICE Contract: An ICE division focused on “cross-border criminal activity” entered into a software licensing agreement with Clearview AI, the controversial facial recognition company that has faced broad scrutiny for its questionable methods of collecting data for its face-matching database.

Information Security and Cyberthreats 235 Million Social Media Profiles Exposed In Data Leak: Profiles details of 100 million Instagram users, 42 million TikTok users, and 4 million YouTube users were exposed on an unsecured database; despite being publicly available information, the profiles are now more valuable to scammers engaged in phishing campaigns because they were “leaked in aggregate as a well-structured database.”

Intellectual Property Google Campaigns Against Australian Revenue-Sharing Rule: In response to a proposed law intended to require it to pay media outlets to display their content, Google published an open letter criticizing the regulation and also created a pop-up message to launch on all Australian users’ searches that argues that the regulation would endanger the quality of search results and risk user data being “handed over to big news businesses.”

Free Expression and Censorship Facebook Removes 790 QAnon Extremist Group Accounts: Under the aegis of a new, more comprehensive moderation policy directed towards “borderline violent content” rolled out this summer, Facebook eliminated nearly 800 groups associated with the anti-government fringe movement and further curtailed the group’s ability to organize using the platform.

Practice Note Ninth Circuit Favors FCC In Preemption Case: A three-judge panel ruled that several cities’ ordinances imposed excessive fees on wireless carriers deploying 5G networks, and were therefore preempted by FCC “just compensation” rules capping such locality fees at a discrete amount based on the actual public cost of building 5G network infrastructure in an area.

On the Lighter Side Google Maps To Provide More Detail: The widely used app plans to add more “granularity and detail” to street-level views of New York City, San Francisco, and London in the coming months, including sidewalk locations, street signage, and road width; outside of these major cities, all users will see an improvement to colors representing “how natural features are presented.”

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, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Uber And Lyft Must Classify Drivers As Employees: The Superior Court of the State of California issued a preliminary injunction requiring that the ride-hailing services classify drivers as employees in accordance with the state’s AB5 law; in response, Uber’s CEO has stated that the service will likely “shut down temporarily” in California if the ruling is not overturned on appeal.

TikTok Sues Trump Administration Over Ban: The lawsuit in the the Southern District of California challenges the President’s recent executive order, which forbids “any transaction” between U.S. citizens and TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance–including sending the software updates the app needs to function on U.S. smartphones–on the basis of executive overreach and lack of due process.

Privacy

Privacy Shield Faces Renegotiation Hurdles: After the Court of Justice of the European Union struck down the transatlantic framework last month, the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce announced they have entered talks to renegotiate terms to attempt to meet the EU’s higher privacy standards.

UK Appeals Court Curtails Facial Recognition Use: A high court found that the South Wales police violated UK human rights laws in their use of a facial recognition system called AFR Locate to identify suspects on watchlists, reasoning that individual officers had “too much discretion” in matching people, that it was unclear both “who can be placed on the watchlist” and what criteria determined where the technology could be used, and that the police did not “sufficiently investigate if the software in use exhibited race or gender bias.”

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Reddit Communities “Vandalized” With Pro-Trump Content: In what is believed to be a coordinated attack, the moderator accounts of numerous popular subreddit pages including r/food, r/Japan, r/nfl, r/podcasts, and r/space were infiltrated by hackers who changed the subreddits’ designs to appear “in support of President Donald Trump.”  

Intellectual Property

Apple Alleges Trademark Infringement Against Small Company: The tech giant has taken legal action to prevent food-preparation company Prepear from using a pear-shaped logo, which Apple alleges infringes upon its own apple-shaped logo; Prepear has created a petition, now with over 20,000 signatures, asking Apple to drop the case lest costly legal fees run the small company out of business.

Free Expression and Censorship

Facebook To Label Politically-Connected Publications: In light of the approaching presidential election, the social media platform will now require publications affiliated with political parties to “disclose their affiliation when they buy political ads.” 

Practice Note

New Jersey Supreme Court Joins Phone-Decryption Split: The state’s highest court ruled that law enforcement could compel an individual to unlock his cell phone without running afoul of the Fifth Amendment, theorizing that because the phone in question was registered in the defendant’s name, he presumably knew the passcodes, and he therefore was not being forced to provide any information the government did not already know. 

On the Lighter Side

World’s Last Blockbuster Becomes Airbnb Destination: Airbnb is offering $4 nightly stays for the next month at the sole remaining Blockbuster video rental shop in Bend, OR, where the owners have set up a 1990s-themed “living room” for guests, complete with a VHS player and full access to the store’s movie library. 

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, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance EU Launches Google-Fitbit Antitrust Investigation: The European Commission will open an intensive investigation of Google’s $2.1 billion bid to acquire Fitbit– a purchase that, if cleared, will allow the company to compete in the international smartwatch and fitness-tracking markets currently dominated by Apple, Samsung, Huawei, and Xiaomi. Microsoft Poised To Purchase TikTok: After a conversation with President Trump, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the company would continue discussions with TikTok parent company Bytedance, with the aim of purchasing TikTok operations in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand “subject to a complete security review” and with the assurance that American users’ data will be “deleted from servers outside the country after it is transferred” to U.S. domains.

Privacy DHS Surveilling Portland Protest Reporters: Intelligence memos leaked from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis revealed the agency assembled “intelligence reports” on two prominent journalists who had investigated the chaotic handling of the Portland civil rights protests by federal agents; acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf called for an immediate halt to the agency’s “practice of collecting information on members of the press.”

Information Security and Cyberthreats Teenage Twitter Hack “Mastermind” Arrested: A 17-year-old Tampa, Florida, resident Graham Ivan Clark was arrested by FBI agents last Friday for leading the recent hack on several public figures’ Twitter accounts; Clark faces 30 felony counts, and it’s possible that Florida authorities will charge him as an adult.

Intellectual Property Triller Files Lawsuit Against TikTok For Patent Infringement: Triller has filed a lawsuit against rival TikTok, alleging infringement of its patents for“systems and methods for creating music videos synchronized with an audio track;” Triller is allegedly planning to pursue claims against other video competitors as well, including Dubsmash, Lomotif, and Instagram.

Free Expression and Censorship David Duke Banned From Twitter: Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke has been “permanently suspended” from Twitter for violating the platform’s updated policy which restricts posts that promote violence against persons on the basis of “religion, race, or ethnic origin.” Twitter And Facebook Penalize Trump’s Accounts Over Misinformation: After the accounts shared a video in which President Trump claimed that children are “almost immune” to COVID-19, the social media platforms froze the Trump and the Trump campaign accounts until the posts had been deleted, on the basis that the posts violated platform rules on COVID-19 misinformation.

On the Lighter Side TikTok To Host First “Cross-Reality Experience” On August 7th: TikTok will host its first-ever live, virtual concert performed by The Weeknd, in which a “digital avatar” will represent the artist, which viewers can interact with as he performs; during the concert, The Weeknd will be accepting donations for the Equal Justice Initiative.

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, Fordham CLIP