The Federal Trade Commission has announced that it will host a workshop on April 26, 2012, to discuss mobile payments. In addition to exploring payment technologies and business models, the workshop will likely cover consumer protection issues such as the risks of financial loss, the need for information disclosures, data protection concerns, and the remedies
January 2012
NIST Issues Guidelines on Public Cloud Security, Privacy
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology on Tuesday released a final version of its guidelines for how organizations — particularly federal agencies — should manage security and privacy concerns when considering the use of public cloud-computing services. Public cloud services, unlike private clouds, require users to store their data on…
Pineda One Year Later
Just under a year has passed since the California Supreme Court ruled that asking for a customer’s ZIP code during a credit card transaction violates California’s Song-Beverly Credit Card Act. According to media reports, the court’s decision in Pineda v. Williams-Sonoma Stores, Inc. has spurred more than 200 suits against California retailers. A roundup of…
Senate Privacy Subcommittee Schedules Video Privacy Hearing
As we previously reported, the Video Privacy Protection Act reform bill sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) passed the House. And now the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law has scheduled a hearing on video privacy, to be held next Tuesday, January 31.
The VPPA has come under scrutiny…
European Commission Proposes Comprehensive Data Protection Reform
By Mark Young
Following more than two years of consultations and intense speculation in recent weeks, the European Commission today proposed comprehensive measures to reform the European data protection framework. We currently are analysing the proposed reforms in detail, but it appears that the proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation largely mirrors earlier leaked drafts.
For example,…
Supreme Court: Attaching GPS Tracker to Suspect’s Car Constitutes Search For Purposes of Fourth Amendment
The federal government conducted a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment when it attached a GPS tracking device to a suspect’s car and used the device to track the suspect’s movements for 28 days, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday.
All nine justices voted to uphold the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals…
France – A ‘Sunshine Act’ for the Healthcare Industry
Originally published as Covington E-Alert on January 20, 2012
Law No 2011-2012 of 29 December 2011 on the Strengthening of Health Protection for Medicinal and Health Products (“loi relative au renforcement de la sécurité sanitaire du médicament et des produits de santé”) (the “New Law”),creating Articles L. 1453-1 and L. 1454-3 to L. 1454-5 of…
Class Action Filed Following Zappos Data Breach
A putative class action was filed on Monday against Amazon.com following an online hacking attack that potentially compromised the personal information of up to 24 million customers of its online shoe retailer Zappos.com. An email sent to customers from Zappos.com’s CEO on Sunday assured users that full credit card information and other payment information was…
Commenters Urge FTC to Streamline COPPA Rule “Multiple Operator” Provision
Nearly 200 individuals, businesses, and industry organizations recently filed comments with the Federal Trade Commission on proposed revisions to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) Rule. COPPA requires operators of certain websites or online services to, among other things, provide notice and obtain parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing personal information online…
Federal Court Holds Terms of Service Disclosed via Link to ISP’s Home Page Not Reasonably Conspicuous
Denying the motion of the defendant internet service provider, Clearwire, to compel arbitration, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington held last week that Clearwire’s e-mail confirmation to the plaintiffs was inadequate notice of the terms of service. This e-mail confirmation included, on the third page of the e-mail, a link to Clearwire’s home page rather than…