Online Data Broker Need not Comply With Licensing Requirements for Private Investigators – Brown v. Intelius
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani with a comment by Eric] Brown v. Intelius, 4:12cv00852 AGF (E.D. Miss. Nov. 21, 2012) Intelius brokers data about individuals. The information comes from a variety of sources, including public sources. Plaintiff paid a fee and…
Court Kicks Data Breach Claim Against Valve – Grigsby v. Valve
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Grigsby v. Valve Corp., No. C12-0553JLR (W.D. Wash. Nov. 14, 2012) Valve is facing a putative class action over a hacking incident involving a breach of Valve’s security system and access to the personal information of…
Court Orders Password Turnover and In Camera Review of Social Media Accounts – EEOC v. Original Honeybaked Ham Co.
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] EEOC v. Original Honeybaked Ham Co. of Georgia, Inc., 11 cv 02560 MSK MEH (D. Col. Nov. 7, 2012) This was a lawsuit brought by the EEOC on behalf of 20-22 persons who were allegedly subject…
Scribd Botches Its Frictionless Sharing Implementation…AGAIN (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman I’m generally a skeptic of “frictionless sharing,” such as automatically publishing to my friends a list of the articles I’ve read. Frictionless sharing takes a good idea–sharing with my friends the best things I’ve seen in the day–and…
Confirmatory Opt-out Text Message Not Actionable Under the TCPA — Ryabyshchuck v. Citibank
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Ryabyshchuck v. Citibank, 11-CV-1236 – IEG (WVG) (S.D. Ca. Oct. 30, 2012) Ryabyshchuck filled out an online credit card application. A pop-up message displayed when he entered his information alerted him to the fact that by…
Data Breach Claim Survives Based on Allegation of Misuse of Personal Information — Burrows v. Purchasing Power
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Burrows v. Purchasing Power, LLC, 12-cv-22800-UU (S.D. Fla. Oct. 18, 2012) [pdf] This is another data breach lawsuit. Some of the claims survive defendants’ motion to dismiss. Purchasing Power runs a preferred purchasing (or discount purchasing)…
How Zappos’ User Agreement Failed In Court and Left Zappos Legally Naked (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman In re Zappos.com Inc., Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, 2012 WL 4466660 (D. Nev. Sept. 27, 2012). In January, Zappos (part of $AMZN) announced a massive data security breach affecting 24 million consumers. As typically happens in these…
Social Media Discovery Case Update and Tips for Those Seeking Discovery
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] I’m tired of social media discovery cases. Maybe I’m just tired of discovery (that’s civil discovery I’m talking about, not discovery in the conventional sense). Anyway, we keep seeing these cases, courts (and litigants) continue to…
Class Action Against Path Over Cellphone Address Book Access Keeps Going — Hernandez v. Path
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani with a comment from Eric] Hernandez v. Path, Inc., 2012 WL 5194120 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 17, 2012) This is another lawsuit alleging that apps improperly accessed address book and contact information on mobile devices. The related…
Q3 2012 Quick Links, Part 3 (Advertising, Privacy, Consumer Protection)
By Eric Goldman and Jake McGowan Advertising * Marketing Land: Google Results Position: How Much is First Place Really Worth? * Tom O’Toole recaps the ubiquity of text messaging marketing by NHL teams…and their need to clean up their privacy…