Court Upholds Formation of a Lengthy Contract Presented on a Mobile Device–Hidalgo v. AAU
The plaintiffs are suing over a data breach. The defendant sought to invoke its arbitration clause in its membership agreement. The court finds the contract formed and sends the case to arbitration. The case involves the following screenshot as part…
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…
Brokerage Account Formation Process Upheld–Valelly v. Merrill Lynch
The plaintiffs contend that their Merrill Lynch brokerage money was swept into unduly low-earning accounts. Among other things, they alleged breach of a quasi-contract, a claim that cannot work if there was an express contract. So, at issue in this…
Section 230 Ends Demonetized YouTuber’s Lawsuit–Lewis v. Google
Lewis ran a YouTube channel called “Misandry Today.” Misandry is hatred of men, like misogyny but with reversed genders. I didn’t look at Lewis’ content but I worry that its examples of alleged misandry actually might be presented to advance…
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…
A Sure Way to Ruin My Day: The Phrase “Enforceable Browsewrap”–HealthplanCRM v. Avmed
Cavulus is a software licensor. Avmed is the customer/licensee. Avmed decided to migrate from Cavulus to Salesforce, and it asked vendor NTT to help with the data migration. Avmed purportedly sublicensed software access to NTT (as the license allegedly permitted),…
Lime’s User Agreement Sends Another Case to Arbitration–Babcock v. Neutron
This is another personal injury lawsuit against Lime for e-scooter rentals. You do know that rent-a-e-scooters are death sticks, right? Lime invoked the arbitration clause in its User Agreement. As usual, the key question is: was the User Agreement properly…
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…
Instagram’s TOS Authorizes Third-Party Embedding of Photos–Sinclair v. Mashable
Sinclair is a professional photographer. Like many photographers, she posts photos to Instagram. Mashable wished to use a photo of Sinclair’s and asked for a license. Sinclair declined. Using Instagram’s API, Mashable then embedded the photo into its story. Sinclair…
Another Court Significantly Limits the Scope of Criminal CFAA–Sandvig v. Barr
The plaintiffs want to create fake job profiles to research algorithmic discrimination. Fearing that their research activities would expose them to criminal CFAA prosecution, they challenged the CFAA as violating their First Amendment rights. Venkat blogged a preliminary ruling in…