CLIP-ings

Internet Governance

No Bite Of The Apple: The Department of Justice withdrew its legal action against Apple, which sought to compel the tech company to provide means to access the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, after it independently found a way to unlock the phone.

Privacy

Non, Merci: The French data privacy regulator fined Google €100,000 for violating the European Union’s “right to be forgotten” rule by not removing requested links from search results on a worldwide basis, thus rejecting Google’s efforts to balance the EU rule with free speech principles by only delisting links to users with a French IP address.

Get A Warrant: A Maryland appellate court upheld a lower court ruling that police use of stingrays requires a warrant based upon disclosure to the court of the “particularity” of the stingray’s functions and the “manner of the search,” because “cell phone users have an objectively reasonable expectation that their cell phones will not be used as real-time tracking devices” by police.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

Exposing Inadequacy: CNBC published a story to help readers judge their passwords’ adequacy but inadvertently made the inputted passwords available to other users on the same network and to advertisers.

Intellectual Property

Image Control: Retired world-famous soccer player Pelé brought suit against Samsung for $30 million dollars in a Chicago federal court, alleging Samsung impermissibly used his likeness to advertise one of its products after his endorsement negotiations with the company failed.

Court Spikes Publicity Claims: An Ohio federal court dismissed Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords as defendants in a lawsuit alleging that a couple’s publicity and privacy rights were violated when an author used their engagement photograph on the cover of his self-published book “A Gronking to Remember.”

Practice Note

Disclosure Duties: A California federal district court judge gave counsel in the Google v. Oracle case the choice of agreeing to a ban on internet research of potential jurors or disclosing the method and extent of their internet research.

On The Lighter Side

Wrong Demo Turn: Google Maps wrong directions may lead to your house being demolished.

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

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Victoria Geronimo
Dean’s Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Carey McConnell and Idalys Núñez
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Fantasy Fulfilled: Virginia is the first state to legalize the operation of daily fantasy sports sites through a series of regulations, which include annual audits, banning employees from using the sites, and paying a $50,000 fee.

Privacy

Employer Do Not Track: The Netherlands Data Protection Authority held that Dutch companies may not track their employees’ active movements and other sensitive health information acquired by a wearable fitness tracker, even with consent.

ISP Privacy Proposal: The FCC introduced a proposal which would prevent internet service providers from giving consumers’ information to a third party without express consent.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

High Tech On The High Seas: Pirates hacked into a shipping company’s server to identify and locate the ship’s cargo and minimize the amount of time the pirates spent sifting through the cargo for valuable items.

Intellectual Property

Creative Coding? A federal district court held that HTML and CSS formatting codes may be copyrightable, despite the Copyright Office Compendium’s assertion that those codes generally do not satisfy the requisite level of creativity for protection.

Free Expression And Censorship

School Sexting: A California state legislator introduced a bill that would allow public schools to expel students under 18 for “sexting” photos or videos “with the purpose or effect of humiliating or harassing” another student.

Practice Note

Patented Privilege: The Federal Circuit held that a limited privilege applies to communications between non-attorney patent agents and their clients, primarily because of a statute authorizing such agents to prosecute patents before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and a Supreme Court ruling that such prosecution constitutes the practice of law.

On The Lighter Side

Hackers, A Retrospective: Daniel Solove rounds up another batch of hacker stock photos, featuring liberal use of ski masks and questionable typing habits.

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

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Victoria Geronimo
Dean’s Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Carey McConnell and Idalys Núñez
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Privacy Shield: Details of the proposed EU-U.S. “trans-Atlantic data transfer agreement” were released, and it recommends stricter regulations for companies and promised limits on America’s surveillance of Europeans’ online information.

Privacy

Unlocking Precedence: A New York federal magistrate judge denied the government’s motion requesting that the court force Apple to unlock an iPhone in connection with a criminal trial, holding that the governments’ interpretation of the All Writs Act was too broad.

Facebooked: A Brazilian Facebook executive was released from jail after refusing to turnover WhatsApp messages in connection with a pending criminal case.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

Phishing Snaps: Snapchat’s payroll department fell victim to a phishing attack when a scammer obtained employees’ information by impersonating the company’s CEO.

Intellectual Property

Country Confusion: The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded a Court of International Trade decision affirming a U.S. Customs’ finding that jeans manufactured in China under the “C’est Toi Jeans USA” unregistered mark did not meet the “country-of-origin labeling requirement,” holding that the meaning of “trademark” within the customs regulation is subject to the Lanham Act’s definition, not the agency’s interpretation.

Free Expression And Censorship

Emoji Crisis: A 12-year old girl in Virginia is being criminally charged with “threatening the school and computer harassment,” after posting certain messages comprised of words and emojis on Instagram.

Practice Note

Food Truck Speech Curbed: A New York federal judge dismissed a lawsuit alleging that New York State officials’ interpretation of what constitutes “government speech” violated food truck owners’ First Amendment rights by refusing to let them operate in front of a state building due to an ethnic slur contained in the name of the truck.

On The Lighter Side

Selfie Free, Way To Be? Mumbai, India has designated 16 spots throughout the city as no-selfie zones in order to limit the amount of selfie-related injuries.

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

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Victoria Geronimo
Dean’s Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Carey McConnell and Idalys Núñez
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

A New Strategy: The Department of Justice has reached out to social media companies and community organizations to support a “counter messaging” approach to attempt to curb the spread of online radicalization.

Privacy

DoD Outed: A court order related to the ongoing criminal investigation of a Silk Road 2.0 administrator confirmed that the Department of Defense paid the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University to share data related to Tor research and also stated that the administrator lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in his IP address while using the browser.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

How Not To Lose: The Department of Homeland Security released guidelines to aid organizations in the execution of rights granted to them under the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which allows companies to report and share information about cybersecurity threats with the government without breaching privacy obligations.

Das Backdoor: Police in Germany may now push spyware into suspects’ computers and mobile devices to monitor their communications with the “outside world” when lives or national security are at risk and after receiving a court order.

Intellectual Property

Trademark Grounded: The TTAB upheld the USPTO’s decision to deny the registration of a “BOOKING.com” trademark to the website of the same name on the grounds that the term is generic for travel reservation services.

Free Expression And Censorship

Express Yourself? A Pennsylvania federal judge ruled that the right to passively record police conduct is not protected by the First Amendment unless the recording is done for an “expressive” purpose such as to challenge or criticize police behavior.

Your Words Are Ours: After the Chinese government released regulations designed to increase control of foreign media content in the country, President Xi Jinping declared that the country’s news media exists primarily to serve the Communist Party’s objectives.

On The Lighter Side

“Selfie Pay:” MasterCard wants your Insta-skills to enhance online security.

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

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Victoria Geronimo
Dean’s Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Carey McConnell and Idalys Núñez
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Pushing iOS Boundaries: A U.S. magistrate judge ordered Apple to help the FBI decrypt the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters in order to allow it to access the phone’s data; Apple opposes the order as “an unprecedented step which threatens the security of [its] customers.”

Privacy

Their Eyes Are Watching You: Employers, insurers, and employee wellness firms are hiring health care analytics companies to track employees’ daily habits to predict possible health risks and conditions, prompting concerns over what sensitive information they might uncover.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

Holding Health Hostage: Ten days after hackers seized control of its computer systems, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center agreed to pay a ransom of 40 bitcoins worth $17,000 to restore its network access.

Intellectual Property

Copyright Confusion: Wikimedia voluntary removed The Diary of Anne Frank from its website upon finding that the work is protected by U.S. copyright, after mistakenly believing that the copyright had expired.

Free Expression And Censorship

Keyboard Equality? Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has requested that LINE, an Internet messaging service, remove all emojis that portray signs of affection among same-sex couples on the basis that some consider the emojis offensive.

Practice Note

Quoter Beware: A New York judge upheld a lower court’s denial of a motion to dismiss a legal malpractice suit against an attorney who was quoted in The Wall Street Journal about his client’s pending employment dispute; the client alleges that the quote triggered a no-comment-clause in his employment contract and resulted in the loss of his severance pay.

On The Lighter Side

Flexing It: Was the iPhone 6 ahead of its time?

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

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Victoria Geronimo
Dean’s Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Carey McConnell and Idalys Núñez
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Forgotten Euro-wide: Google will begin removing information under “Right to be Forgotten” requests from all its search engines accessible to searchers located in Europe.

Privacy

Post-Safe Harbor: The French CNIL ordered Facebook to stop tracking non-users’ Internet activity and cease some data transfers to the United States within three months.

Unified Approach? Congressman Ted Lieu has introduced a bill named the ENCRYPT Act of 2016, which would preempt states from enacting their own anti-encryption laws.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

A Bunch Of Hacks? A hacker group claims to have released the personal information of over 25,000 FBI and DHS employees­—including job titles, names, and contact information—after hacking a DOJ web portal using “fairly basic” techniques.

Intellectual Property

Birthday Reveal: After a California district court found Warner Music Group’s copyright of the “Happy Birthday” song invalid last year, Warner has reached a settlement agreement obligating it to pay $14 million dollars to claimants and to declare the song part of the public domain.

Free Expression And Censorship

Joined By Damages: Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal rejected a divorced couple’s First Amendment defense and upheld a $350,000 damage award against them for writing various defamatory reviews about their divorce attorney on Yelp and Avvo.

Practice Note

Exculpatory API: A Pennsylvania judge rejected a defense attorney’s request to inspect the source code of a computer program used to process DNA evidence so the attorney could challenge the validity of the evidence against his client on the grounds that the source code is a trade secret.

On The Lighter Side

Super Bowl Blur: Apple’s CEO Tim Cook probably won’t win the photography world championship.

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

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Victoria Geronimo
Dean’s Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Carey McConnell and Idalys Núñez
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Safe, For Now: United States and European Union officials reached an agreement on privacy obligations to replace the recently expired Safe Harbor data transfer framework; the agreement still must be approved by the European Commission and analysts expect it to be challenged in European courts.

Privacy

Super Bowl MCMLXXXIV: Over sixty local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies announced they will be surveilling Super Bowl attendees this weekend but have declined to specify which tracking methods they will use and how they will store the data.

Google Me Not: University of California, Berkeley students filed suit against Google, claiming it violated the Electronic Communication Privacy Act by scanning their “academic-affiliated” Gmail accounts for analytical data to sell to advertisers, despite its pledge to cease this practice.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

Bank Heist? A rising threat to banking security are bank tellers, who are susceptible to bribes for selling consumer information due to their access to sensitive information and low pay.

Intellectual Property

Full Court Press: Solid Oak Sketches filed suit against Take-Two Interactive for copyright infringement over the video game company’s use of several NBA players’ tattoo designs in its NBA 2K16 game, which Solid Oak had licensed from the tattoo artists.

Free Expression And Censorship

Down With The Media: Internet censorship by Southeast Asian governments is increasing with Indonesia blocking Netflix; Malaysia banning media site Medium due to corruption claims; and Thailand pressuring Google, Facebook, and Line to censor content.

Practice Note

Patents In SCOTUS: The Supreme Court will review several patent cases this term including ePlus v. Lawson, examining whether an administrative agency may “override a federal court’s judgment on a question of law,” and Halo Electronics v. Pulse Electronics, reviewing the willfulness doctrine and its effect on enhanced damages.

On The Lighter Side

Bird Against The Machine: Police in the Netherlands are training eagles to prey on drones to help enforce no-fly zones.

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

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Victoria Geronimo
Dean’s Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Carey McConnell and Idalys Núñez
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Questionable Tactics: In an attempt to catch online pedophiles, the Federal Bureau of Investigation ran a child pornography site for two weeks without ensuring that the illegal content on the website could not be further disseminated.

Unlocking The Box: The Federal Communications Commission announced a proposal that would compel cable and satellite providers to allow third-party “top box” device manufacturers access to their programming, thus encouraging innovation and competition in the industry

Privacy

Let Us In: Two dozen civil liberties, human rights, and government transparency advocacy organizations asked the House Judiciary Committee to allow them into next week’s “members only” hearing, which will discuss Section 702 of the FISA Amendment, the law the NSA claims authorizes its PRISM surveillance program.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

Baby Beware: New York City Department of Consumer Affairs subpoenaed several manufacturers of Wi-Fi enabled baby video monitors to investigate reports of serious security vulnerabilities, such as hackers’ ability to access the live video feed.

Intellectual Property

Wedded To Attorneys’ Fees? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the award of attorneys’ fees against a patent troll for aggressively attempting to protect its matchmaking patent through threats and intimidation.

Free Expression And Censorship

Shaq Attack: An emotional distress lawsuit against Shaquille O’Neal for allegedly mocking the plaintiff’s rare skin disease by reposting his Instagram photo with the caption “SMILE PEOPLE” has survived O’Neal’s motion to dismiss.

Practice Note

Poke, You’ve Been Served: An Eastern District of New York magistrate judge allowed a plaintiff unable to locate his ex-wife, who he accuses of “absconding with” their daughter, to serve her with the summons and petition through associated Facebook and email accounts.

On The Lighter Side

Top Secret? Locations around the world are pixilated by Google Earth for various reasons, and the reasons for some are unclear.

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

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Victoria Geronimo
Dean’s Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Carey McConnell and Idalys Núñez
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Pro-Encryption: The French government declined to add a backdoor requirement as part of an upcoming digital rights bill, asserting that such a “vulnerability by design” condition is an inappropriate solution to national security concerns.

Password Protection: Even after supplying Apple with her husband’s death certificate and will, a Canadian woman was told by the tech company to get a court order if she wanted his Apple ID password.

Privacy

United States: State legislators and citizens formed a coalition to introduce privacy legislation in 16 states and the District of Columbia; the bills address issues such as student privacy, stingray technology, and government surveillance of electronic communications.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

Craps: A casino operator filed suit against Trustwave, alleging that the information security firm performed “a woefully inadequate” investigation into a data breach and did not fully remove malware from the casino’s systems.

Intellectual Property

SCOTUS Review: The Supreme Court granted certiorari in Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC v. Lee, which addresses whether, in cases challenging patent validity, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) may use a different claims construction standard than a federal district court and whether the PTAB’s decision to commence such a proceeding is judicially unreviewable.

Free Expression And Censorship

We’re Back(ish): The Government of Pakistan unblocked YouTube under the condition that it may filter and block content it finds offensive.

Practice Note

No Harm? Two federal district courts dismissed separate data breach lawsuits on the grounds that insufficient harm was alleged.

On The Lighter Side

Heavy Lifter: Norwegian drone the “Megakopter” set a Guinness World Record for lifting about 134.5 pounds – the “heaviest payload” by a remote-controlled multicopter.

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

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Victoria Geronimo
Dean’s Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Still Buffering: The Federal Communications Commission circulated a draft of its 2015 Broadband Progress Report, which found that over 30 million Americans still do not have access to wired broadband service.

Privacy

Scanner Darkly: A federal court denied Shutterfly’s motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit alleging that the online image publishing service violated an Illinois state biometric privacy law by using facial recognition technology on user photographs.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

Disabled: Users promptly received malware from advertisements on Forbes’ website after the news company required them to turn off their adblocking technology in order to view its content.

NY Encryption Bill: A New York state legislature referred to committee a bill that would require manufacturers to design smartphones with a back door so law enforcement can decrypt a phone’s contents.

Intellectual Property

Yogurt Wars: After receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Dannon, Greek yogurt manufacturer Chobani is seeking a court ruling that its advertisement campaign, which spells out the different ingredients in its yogurt and those of Dannon and Yoplait, does not violate the Lanham Act.

Free Expression And Censorship

Stingray Suit Still Swimming: A state court denied a Chicago Police Department (CPD) motion to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to compel the CPD to respond to a public records act request for documents regarding its use of stingrays, declining to treat the surveillance technology the same as a pen register device.

Terrorist Censorship? Members of the Obama administration are meeting with Silicon Valley executives to discuss how their companies can combat terrorism, including by censoring online speech.

On The Lighter Side

Sound And Vision: The iconic David Bowie, who passed away this week, had a few ideas for the future of intellectual property in the Internet age.

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

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Victoria Geronimo
Dean’s Fellow, Fordham CLIP