| Internet Governance Parents Hit Social Media Companies With Wrongful Death Lawsuits Following Their Children’s Suicides: Parents are suing social media companies, such as Meta and Snap, alleging that social media addiction played a role in their children’s deaths. While the families have an uncertain road ahead of them, the recent Big Tech Congressional hearings and the so-called “Facebook Files” may help persuade judges and juries that the companies can be held liable. |
| Privacy Apps Can Reportedly Circumvent Apple’s Privacy Update: A study from Oxford University found that, while Apple’s privacy update makes it more difficult to track individual users, opportunities still exist to do so. Large companies, like Facebook and Google, are particularly likely to continue tracking users, which reinforces their market power as gatekeepers of first-party data. |
| Information Security and Cyberthreats Text Message Phishing Scams Are on the Rise: According to the Federal Trade Commission, 21% of all fraud reports filed in 2021 involved “smishing”—a word created by combining “SMS” and “phishing” used to describe text message scams. Another report from cybersecurity firm ProofPoint found that smishing attempts have increased by 24% in the United States and 69% globally. British Officials Were Reportedly Targets of NSO Spyware Attacks: Prime Minister Boris Johnson was informed that 10 Downing Street, the London headquarters of the British government, and the British Foreign Office, were targeted by bad actors using Pegasus spyware. It is suspected that the attacks were orchestrated by operators linked with the United Arab Emirates, but the specific individuals who were hacked are not known. |
| Freedom of Expression and Censorship New Child Safety Feature on UK iPhones Will Scan Messages for Nudity: If a parent turns on the feature, AI technology will scan all photos sent to and from the phone, and will blur any photo that contains nudity. If nudity is found, the feature will also direct the child to children’s safety groups, will encourage the child to not send nude images, and will give the child an option to “Message a Grown-Up.” |
| Practice Note Scraping Data from Public Website Does not Violate CFAA: Following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Van Buren vs. United States, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in hiQ vs. Linkedin reaffirmed its 2019 decision that scraping data from public portions of websites does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, even if the scraping violates a website’s terms of service. |
| On the Lighter Side Digital Pill Can Let Your Doctor Know if You Miss a Dose: Pfizer has created a version of its antipsychotic drug Abilify that includes a microchip that can connect via Bluetooth to a smartphone app. While the technology has been marketed as a way for users to stay on top of their treatment, there are concerns about the app’s accuracy, its effectiveness in actually helping patients remember their medication, and its role in further stigmatizing mental health. |
| If you enjoy reading CLIP-ings, please consider making a contribution to Fordham CLIP. Your support provides crucial funding at a time when the study of information law and policy is more important than ever. |
| Ron Lazebnik Academic Director, Fordham CLIP Tom Norton Executive Director, Fordham CLIP Elyssa Diamond Editorial Fellow |