August 2011

By Dan Cooper and Helena Marttila On 24th of August 2011, the Government of India’s Ministry of Communications & Information Technology finally issued clarification on the application of the 2011 Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules (the “Rules”). As we blogged here, much ambiguity has surrounded…

The Federal Communications Commission has adopted rules implementing the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act. Like the Act, the FCC’s rules require elementary and secondary schools that have applied for discounted Internet access services through the FCC’s E-rate program to certify that the school’s Internet safety policy provides for the education of minors about appropriate online behavior,…

Resolving the FTC’s first complaint against a mobile app developer under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”), W3 Innovations, LLC, a developer of children’s games for the iPhone and iPod touch, has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle allegations that it collected and disclosed the personal information of thousands of children under the age of 13 without first providing…

The South Korean Ministry of Public Administration and Security reiterated support this week for its plans to abolish legislation that requires Internet users on social networks to use their real names on websites.  Currently, the law requires websites with more than 100,000 visitors per day to require users to register with their real names.  In…

Speaking at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in Toronto, Commissioner Brill informed the audience that “We will soon be seeing some enforcement actions on [mobile] apps.”  Commissioner Brill emphasized that Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices, applies to mobile applications and criticized many app developers for…

China’s Internet regulator, the Ministry of Information and Industry Technology, or MIIT,  is close to releasing the final version of China’s first national standards for personal information protection.  Drafted with the assistance of two other government departments, the release of  “Information Security Technology – Guidelines for Personal Information Protection” (信息安全技术个人信息保护指南) represents China’s first foray into…

New York start-up SocialGuide has launched from beta and released its first television ratings report this week, based on information mined and filtered from more than 10.5 million social media comments by more than 2.6 million unique users.  This report, the Social100, gets most of its information from Facebook and Twitter, using application programming interface (“API”) streams to…

Your company has just launched an innovative new social media service, and you’ve received fanfare from the press, increased website traffic, and a spike in advertising revenues.  In short, the service is a complete success — until you’re served with a class action complaint seeking millions of dollars in damages and a civil investigative demand…