Tag Archives: Litigation

Online Tracking Practices Face Increasing Scrutiny

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Hunton & Williams LLP

Over the past several weeks, online tracking practices involving the use of Flash cookies and ETags have been the subject of new research studies, class action lawsuits and significant media attention.

Tags: Advertisement, California, Class Action, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Cookies, Etags, Litigation, New York, Wiretap

Next Jump Agrees to Stop Using Borders Customer List and Trademarks

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Hunton & Williams LLP

On September 6, 2011, a bankruptcy court approved an agreement between bankrupt bookseller Borders Group, Inc. (“Borders”) and Next Jump, Inc., (“Next Jump”) regarding Next Jump’s alleged trademark infringement and unauthorized use of Borders’ customer information. Next Jump stipulated that it will not communicate with persons on Borders’ customer list, and that it would remove the Borders name and marks from websites that Next Jump owns or operates. Continue reading…

Tags: Bankruptcy, Consumer Protection, Litigation, Service Provider

EEOC Letter Suggests Employers May Need to Increase Privacy Safeguards for Employee Medical Information

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Hunton & Williams LLP

As reported in the Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives Blog:

The EEOC recently released an informal discussion letter suggesting that employers may be obligated to do more than just maintain a separate file for employee medical records, especially when those records are in an electronic format. Both the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”), as amended, and the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act of 2008 (“GINA”) require employers to maintain a confidential medical record, which is separate from the employee’s other personnel file(s), for information about the employee’s medical conditions, medical history or “genetic information.” The statutes do not, however, specify how such records are to be maintained or what level of security must be in place to protect the confidentiality of medical or genetic information.

Tags: Genetics, Litigation, Protected Health Information

Class Action Suit Filed Against Cloud Service over Data Breach

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Hunton & Williams LLP

A putative class action complaint filed on June 22, 2011, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California alleges that the popular cloud-based storage provider Dropbox, Inc. failed to secure users’ private data or to notify the vast majority of them about a data breach. According to the complaint, Dropbox announced in a blog post on its website that it had “introduced a bug” on June 19, 2011, which allowed users logged in to its system to log into other users’ accounts and access those users’ data stored on Dropbox. The complaint further claims that Dropbox did not notify most, if not all, of its 25 million users that their information had been compromised. The complaint defines the plaintiff class as all current or former Dropbox users as of June 19, 2011, whose accounts were breached. Continue reading…

Tags: California, Class Action, Litigation

Supreme Court Strikes Down Vermont Prescriber Privacy Law

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Hunton & Williams LLP

On June 23, 2011, in a 6-3 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled in IMS Health Inc. v. Sorrell that a Vermont law prohibiting the sale of prescriber-identifiable data to drug companies was an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment right to free speech. Thomas Julin, a partner at Hunton & Williams LLP, represented IMS Health in this case. The Supreme Court’s ruling affirmed the holding of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, resolving a split with the First Circuit (which upheld a similar law in New Hampshire), and likely preventing the enactment of similar restrictive laws across the country.

Tags: Litigation, New Hampshire, Supreme Court, Vermont

Senators Franken and Blumenthal Co-Sponsor Location Privacy Protection Act

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Hunton & Williams LLP

On June 15, 2011, Senator Al Franken (D-MN) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced the Location Privacy Protection Act of 2011 (the “Act”). As we reported previously, Senator Franken is chairman of the newly-created Senate subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. In his press release, Senator Franken explained that the Act is designed to “close current loopholes in federal law” while giving customers the ability to learn about and prevent the collection of their location information. The Act would apply only to non-government entities and would not impact law-enforcement activities. At a May 10, 2011 hearing, both Google and Apple were questioned about their privacy practices, and Franken subsequently challenged them to require their application developers to adopt clear and understandable privacy policies.

Tags: Al Franken, Apple Inc., Class Action, Consumer Protection, Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Google, Legislation, Litigation, Privacy Policy, Richard Blumenthal, Video Privacy Protection Act

Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Google for Tracking Android Users’ Location Data

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Hunton & Williams LLP

On June 9, 2011, two plaintiffs filed a class action complaint against Google in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The complaint alleges that Google’s Android phone “engaged in illegal tracking and recording of [p]laintiffs’ movements and locations … without their knowledge or consent” and that Google violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Florida statutory and common law by failing to inform Android users that their movements were being tracked and recorded through their phones.

Tags: Class Action, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Consumer Protection, Florida, Google, Litigation

Google and GroupMe Lawsuits Claim Group Texting Services Violate TCPA

Posted on June 9, 2011 by Hunton & Williams LLP

On May 27, 2011, a class action complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Google and its recently acquired subsidiary, Slide, alleging that they violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) when they sent text messages to people’s cell phones without first obtaining their consent.

Tags: California, Class Action, Consumer Protection, Google, Litigation, Text Message

Twitter and AmEx Lawsuits Highlight Gap Between Text Message Law and Industry Standards

Posted on June 9, 2011 by Hunton & Williams LLP

In a pair of lawsuits filed against Twitter, Inc. and American Express Centurion Bank, plaintiffs in a California federal court are seeking class-action status to assert claims that the defendants violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) by sending each plaintiff a single text message to confirm that they had processed the plaintiff’s request to opt-out of receiving further text messages. This litigation highlights a potential vulnerability in the mobile marketing programs of companies that have not fully considered how telemarketing law should inform their implementation of the Mobile Marketing Association’s U.S. Consumer Best Practices (the “MMA’s Best Practices”), the authoritative compilation of policies enforced by the major wireless carriers.

Tags: California, Class Action, Federal Communications Commission, Litigation, Telemarketing, Text Message, Twitter

Court Issues Final Order and Approves Awards in Google Buzz Settlement

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Hunton & Williams LLP

On May 31, 2011, an Order was filed in the District Court for the Northern District of California granting final approval of the Google Buzz class action settlement and cy pres awards for organizations focused on Internet privacy policy or privacy education. Pursuant to the Order, the court adopted the Google Buzz settlement agreement and certified the proposed settlement class, which includes “all Gmail users in the United States presented with the opportunity to use Google Buzz through the Notice Date.” The court also approved the following list of organizations and award amounts for distribution of the cy pres funds to be paid by Google as part of the settlement agreement:

American Civil Liberties Union – $7,000,000
Berkeley Center for Law & Technology – $500,000
Berkeley Law School, Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic – $200,000
Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University – $500,000
Brookings Institution – $165,000
Carnegie Mellon, Cylab Usability, Privacy & Security Lab – $350,000
Center for Democracy & Technology – $500,000
Electronic Frontier Foundation – $1,000,000
Indiana University, Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research – $300,000
Stanford, Center for Internet & Society – $500,000
YMCA of Greater Long Beach – $300,000
The Electronic Privacy Information Center – $500,000
The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Santa Clara University – $500,000
Youth Radio – $50,000

Tags: California, Class Action, Google, Litigation, Penalty, Social Media

Privacy and Information Security Law Blog - Global privacy and information security law updates and analysis

Tag Archives: Litigation

Online Tracking Practices Face Increasing Scrutiny

Next Jump Agrees to Stop Using Borders Customer List and Trademarks

EEOC Letter Suggests Employers May Need to Increase Privacy Safeguards for Employee Medical Information

Class Action Suit Filed Against Cloud Service over Data Breach

Supreme Court Strikes Down Vermont Prescriber Privacy Law

Senators Franken and Blumenthal Co-Sponsor Location Privacy Protection Act

Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Google for Tracking Android Users’ Location Data

Google and GroupMe Lawsuits Claim Group Texting Services Violate TCPA

Twitter and AmEx Lawsuits Highlight Gap Between Text Message Law and Industry Standards

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