WeChat Executive Order Enjoined Because (Of Course) It’s Unconstitutional–WeChat Users v. Trump
A federal district court preliminarily enjoined Executive Order 13943 seeking to kick WeChat out of the United States. This is a good ruling blocking an obviously unconstitutional executive order, but the fact the federal government issued and aggressively defended yet…
Facial Recognition Database Vendor May Not Qualify for Section 230–Vermont v. Clearview
As you recall, Clearview AI is a facial recognition database vendor. Some law enforcement departments have adopted its service, but we aren’t sure how many. We also aren’t sure about its facial recognition accuracy (or, for that matter, how much…
Californians: VOTE NO ON PROP. 24, The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA)
On November 3, Californians will vote on Prop. 24, the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). Like most other ballot propositions, it’s designed to bypass the legislative process. Californians are usually inclined to vote “no” on those propositions, and that’s the…
Trump’s Twitter Tantrums Are Affecting How Judges Evaluate Online Discourse–US v. Cook
The state unsuccessfully prosecuted Cook for drug offenses. “Not content to quietly accept his victory, Cook made disparaging remarks on the internet about various players in his Calhoun County prosecution.” The government prosecuted him again, this time for the federal…
California’s Effort to Suppress the Publication of Age Information Violates the Constitution–IMDb v. Becerra
IMDb has a subscription service, where subscribers can remove their age from their personal profiles (this feature wasn’t at issue in this case), and a free service, where IMDb displays an actor’s age (compiled from unspecified sources) even if the…
A Review of the “Final” CCPA Regulations from the CA Attorney General
On June 2, the California Attorney General’s office (the DOJ) released hundreds of pages of new material about its CCPA regulations, including 11,000+ words of its “final” regulations and a 59 page “final statement of reasons” purportedly explaining the DOJ’s…
The CCPA Proposed Regs’ Data Valuation Calculation Provisions Provide Flexibility, But Raise Ambiguity & Transparency Concerns
by guest blogger Lourdes M. Turrecha, Privacy Tech & Law Fellow at Santa Clara Law [Eric’s Note: I am working on a mondo blog post about the AG’s final CCPA regulations. In the interim, I’m sharing this post from Lourdes…
Court Sends Google Assistant Privacy Lawsuit Back for a Redo
This is a putative class action against Google alleging that Google Assistant actively listened (mistakenly) based on a misperceived voice command. The lawsuit complains about the fact that Google used the recordings from these “false accepts”. The court grants Google’s…
2H 2019 and Q1 2020 Quick Links, Part 5 (Privacy)
* Campbell v. Facebook, No. 17-16873 (9th Cir. March 3, 2020): “Plaintiffs identified a concrete injury by claiming that Facebook violated ECPA and CIPA when it intercepted, catalogued, and used without consent URLs they had shared in private messages.” *…
Ninth Circuit Reinstates Decade-Old Lawsuit Against Facebook For Tracking Logged-Out Users–In re Facebook Internet Tracking
Users sued Facebook in 2012 alleging it improperly tracked users’ browsing while they were logged out of Facebook. Facebook apparently included code in its “like” button on third party websites that would inform Facebook when the user visited the website…