Earlier this week, U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairwoman Edith Ramirez gave the keynote address at a technology conference, in which she focused on the privacy challenges of so-called “big data.” Her remarks provide some guidance about what the FTC considers “best practices” in terms of deploying big data analytics without raising privacy concerns.
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This post originally appeared on our sister blog, InsideMedicalDevices.
At the end of May 2013, the French government released the long awaited Decree implementing the 2011 French Sunshine Act. The Decree requires companies to publicly disclose — in French — any benefit over 10 Euros and agreements (except commercial ones) concluded with…
Obscure pay-to-play rules are having a big impact on U.S. elections. In an article in today’s The Hill, we examine how these little understood rules provide institutional fundraising advantages for certain candidates at the expense of others. We also point out how these laws are changing the operational rules of the road, forcing candidates to…
On 19 June 2013, the European Commission imposed fines totaling EUR 146 million to Lundbeck and several producers of generic medicines, including Alpharma, Merck KGaA/Generics UK, Arrow, and Ranbaxy, for infringement of Article 101 TFEU. This is the first Commission decision dealing with so-called “reverse payment” patent settlements or “pay for delay” agreements.…
Many employers have been surprised by recent rulings that two common employment policies run afoul of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) even if their employees are not union members. Based on a legitimate interest in preserving confidentiality and privacy, many employers have adopted social media policies limiting what employees may post on Facebook or…
A federal appeals court recently ruled that a private equity fund might be responsible for the unfunded pension liabilities of its bankrupt portfolio company. This ruling could have broader repercussions for private investment funds and the companies they own. If the companies are considered to be related employers under the rules that govern employee benefits,…
A pair of recent decisions—one involving a work of street art used by the band Green Day for an in-concert video; the other about a single line from a William Faulkner novel paraphrased in a Woody Allen film—offer two distinct examples of the important role that copyright’s fair use doctrine plays in today’s popular media.…
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has allowed a putative class action under Michigan law to proceed against several magazine publishers that allegedly sold lists of their customers’ names, addresses, and subscription choices to third parties. Earlier this week, in a case styled Halaburda v. Bauer Publishing Co., Judge Steeh…
The Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”) recently released a guidance document titled Application of Self-Regulatory Principles to the Mobile Environment (“Mobile Guidance”). The Mobile Guidance does not purport to establish new principles, but rather to explain how the DAA’s existing principles — the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising and for Multi-Site Data — apply to the…
On August 6, federal prosecutors in Chicago unsealed a criminal complaint against two men alleged to have worked on behalf of the government of Zimbabwe and President Robert Mugabe to generate political support in the United States to lift the U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe. The two men – Prince Asiel Ben Israel and C. Gregory…
