Is Sacramento The World’s Capital of Internet Privacy Regulation? (Forbes Cross-Post)
It’s only two hours between Sacramento, California’s state capitol, and the Silicon Valley, the world’s technology capital, but when it comes to regulating the Internet, philosophically they are worlds apart. The two worlds collided in 2013 when Sacramento enacted a…
Video Privacy Protection Act Plaintiffs Can Proceed Against Hulu Absent Showing of Actual Injury
Plaintiffs sued Hulu asserting violations of the Video Privacy Protection Act based on alleged disclosures to Comscore and Facebook of plaintiffs’ viewing information. The court denied an initial motion to dismiss by Hulu based on standing. Hulu later brought a…
Company That Facilitates Digital Access to Public Records Uses CFAA to Block Scraper
[Eric’s introduction: this post has been sitting in our tank over a month. I put a hold on it when I was considering using this fact pattern for my Internet Law exam. I decided to go in a different direction,…
Revenge Porn Plot Leads To Criminal Conviction–New York v. Piznarski (Forbes Cross-Post)
Recently, the California Attorney General’s office got a lot of attention for arresting Kevin Bollaert, the alleged operator of a revenge porn website. While the arrest was widely popular, it raised many questions. Why did the prosecutors seemingly stretch to…
Should We Cheer The California Attorney General’s Revenge Porn Arrest–Or Find It Alarming? (Forbes Cross-Post)
The California Attorney General’s office announced the arrest of Kevin Christopher Bollaert for his role in a revenge porn scheme. Most folks are cheering the arrest for understandable reasons: revenge porn is odious, especially when victims must pay to remove…
My Testimony on California’s Efforts to Regulate Internet Privacy
Introductory note: today Santa Clara University hosted “Balancing Privacy and Opportunity in the Internet Age,” An Informational Hearing of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, the Assembly Business, Professions & Consumer Protection Committee, and the Assembly Select Committee on Privacy. My prior…
Ill-Advised Student YouTube Video Leads to Conviction For Misusing Computerized Communication System–In re Kaleb K.
Kaleb, a high school student, allegedly created a YouTube video with a rap song about his Spanish teacher that contained “crude and vulgar language” about the teacher. He was found guilty of disorderly conduct and unlawful use of a “computerized…
California Assembly Hearing, “Balancing Privacy and Opportunity in the Internet Age,” SCU, Dec. 12
Santa Clara University is hosting a joint hearing of the California State Assembly’s Judiciary Committee, Business, Professions And Consumer Protection Committee, and Select Committee On Privacy on December 12, 2013, 9 am to 1 pm. The hearing is entitled “Balancing…
Google Gets Dismissal of Lawsuit Over Privacy Policy Integration–In re Google Privacy Policy
This is another potentially important but head-scratching Northern District of California ruling in an Internet privacy lawsuit. This lawsuit involves Google’s integration of its various product-specific databases of user information into one giant across-Google Database of Ruin. It was inevitable…
Privacy Plaintiffs Lose Because They Didn’t Rely on Apple’s Privacy Representations — In re iPhone App Litigation
Plaintiffs sued Apple claiming they relied on privacy representations from Apple and that the iOS environment was designed to “easily” allow for transmission of user information to third parties. A separate sub-class alleged that Apple collected location information even when…