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Those of you who were once frequent visitors to this blog may, by now, be asking one or more of the following questions: (a) Why haven't you guys posted anything for so many months? (b) Why does the site look different? (c) Who's going to win the NBA playoffs? (d) Why did they cancel My Name is Earl? Well, the first two at least. The truth is that this blog was started in August 2005, and ran steadily (sometimes more steadily than others) for about three years. As blogs go, that's a fairly... Posted on June 2, 2009 at 12:48 pm

This is a test. Posted on May 18, 2009 at 04:04 pm

Our recent Advisory Bulletin recounts how the FTC recently issued issued a gentle reminder that companies should be well along in getting their Identity Theft Red Flag programs in place in anticipation of the November 2008 compliance deadline. The FTC's notice announced that it also has launched an outreach effort to explain the rules, which included publication of a very general alert on what the rules require and what types of businesses must comply. The Identity Theft Red Flag Rules were... Posted on July 16, 2008 at 08:50 pm

/**/ Less than two months after the loss of the personal details of 25 million people by the UK's tax authorities (see this blog entry), another substantial loss of personal data has occurred in Britain. As the BBC website writes, a laptop containing personal details of 600.000 people has been stolen from a Royal Navy officer in the Birmingham area. The data are from people who have expressed an interest in, or joined, the Royal Navy, Marines, or Air Force, and they are the more detailed the... Posted on January 18, 2008 at 01:26 pm

Well, first of all, a happy new year to my readers! And I am glad to be able to report that page visits to this blog more than doubled in 2007 over 2006, to well over 5000 pageviews. I am very happy about this and will take it as a reminder to update this blog more often than I have recently done (take that with a grain of salt, like all new year's resolutions...). Another reason to be upbeat is a story reported by the BBC today. It concerns Jeremy Clarkson, a British TV presenter specialising... Posted on January 7, 2008 at 06:05 am

A crass case of neglect and breach of data protection legislation has led to the loss of discs containing the names, addresses, dates of birth, bank account details and National Insurance numbers of 25 million people in the United Kingdom, it was revealed today (see reports by the BBC, the Financial Times, the Guardian and The Times). The data (they are the complete records of all 7.25 million families in the UK with a child under 16 years of age) were on two CD-ROMS which the tax authority... Posted on November 20, 2007 at 01:54 pm

Perhaps the most important development in advertising law in several decades, the FTC's recently revised Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising go into effect on December 1, 2009. The revised Guides (available online at [www.ftc.gov]) have a number of new elements that are extremely important for all marketers to understand, including: * The elimination of the "results not typical" safe harbor for advertisements showing a consumer's experience with a product;... Posted on November 13, 2009 at 10:52 am

The United State Commerce Committee has expanded its investigation into e-commerce companies which present membership club enrollment offers to their online customers and have the customers agree to pass their customers' credit card or debit card numbers to enroll in the membership club. Senator Rockefeller who is the Chairman of the Committee has entitled the investigation is focusing on this practice because it has been the center of criticism by consumer advocates. Click here for more... Posted on November 12, 2009 at 12:18 pm

Retailers with stores in New York should take note that effective November 25, 2009, an amendment to the state's existing refund policy law takes effect. Set forth at New York General Business Law &#xc2&#xa7 218-a, the law requires retailers to disclose the store's refund policy in one of four defined locations and to make a written policy available to consumers who request it. The refund policy must state state whether or not it is the retailer's policy to give refunds and, if so, under what... Posted on November 11, 2009 at 11:07 am

On November 17, 2009, eight federal regulatory agencies released their final model privacy notice form that is intended to make it easier for consumers to understand how financial institutions collect and share information about them. The model privacy notice form, which features a version that offers consumers an opt-out and one with no opt-out, represents the culmination of extensive research and testing by the various agencies, which included a nationwide mall-intercept study (see our... Posted on November 20, 2009 at 05:57 pm

In response to feedback received at a public hearing held in September, the Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation has released what it purports to be final regulations under Massachusetts' "Act Relative to Security Freezes and Notification of Data Breaches," which was enacted in Jul 2007. Regulation 201 CMR 17.00 ("Standards For The Protection of Personal Information of Residents of the Commonweath") was previoulsly amended in August in response to industry backlash.... Posted on November 2, 2009 at 06:16 pm

Today, at the urging of Members of Congress, the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") announced that it will delay enforcement of its Red Flags Rule for the fourth time. Financial institutions and creditors subject to enforcement by the FTC will now have until June 1, 2010 to develop written policies and procedures to detect and respond to so-called identity theft "red flags." The FTC's announcement does not impact the separate timeline of the proceeding we reported on here (in which the U.S.... Posted on October 30, 2009 at 09:45 pm

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) takes effect on November 21, 2009. How does GINA impact employers? GINA does the following: (a) prohibits employers from discriminating against an employee based upon genetic information, (b) places broad restrictions on an employer's deliberate acquisition of genetic information, (c) mandates confidentiality for genetic information that employers lawfully collect; (d) strictly limits disclosure of such information, and (e) prohibits... Posted on November 18, 2009 at 01:33 pm

Identity theft is a booming business. Each year, millions of Americans fall victim to identity theft or have their personal privacy otherwise compromised through unlawful means. Whether it comes in the form of a lost or stolen credit card, or computer hackers accessing social security numbers from employment records, financial institutions, medical records, or government agencies, the costs are staggering. Studies demonstrate that victims spend anywhere from a few hours to, in some cases,... Posted on November 2, 2009 at 09:19 am

Less than one week after a state court judge halted New York state's emergency regulation requiring mandatory H1N1 flu shots for most health care workers, Governor Paterson announced that the State Health Commissioner is suspending the requirement due to a limited supply of vaccine - approximately 23% of the anticipated amount. Available vaccines will instead be used for populations most at risk of serious illness or death, e.g., pregnant women and young people between the ages of 6 months and... Posted on October 23, 2009 at 11:43 am

In the better late than never category, I wanted to mention Marc Randazza's victory over Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck brought a UDRP action against Isaac Eiland-Hall over Eiland-Hall's registration and use of the domain name <glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com>. Another way to put it is that Beck went to a non-US tribunal in an attempt to bypass a domain name registrant's First Amendment rights. You can follow the links at Randazza's to get the details, but in a nutshell Randazza... Posted on November 17, 2009 at 10:52 pm by Venkat

Professor Goldman interviews Cindy Cohn, legal director of the EFF. Access the interview here. It's well worth listening to for a couple of reasons: as far as organizations go, the EFF has probably been most influential in shaping the law in cyberspace (purveyors of adult content and other less mainstream content peddlers have been pretty influential but they obviously don't influence the law in a concerted policy-driven manner); great career advice - they chat in the interview about the "call... Posted on November 17, 2009 at 11:21 am by Venkat

A lost laptop computer containing the personal information of Starbucks employees prompted a class action lawsuit against Starbucks (in Washington). The lawsuit received some coverage (see, for example Bob McMillan here, and Starbucks Gossip here), but the trial court's dismissal of the lawsuit received almost no coverage. (I mentioned the lawsuit, but failed to note the court's dismissal of it. Here is the one mention I came across.) Plaintiffs appealed the dismissal to the Ninth Circuit, and... Posted on November 15, 2009 at 09:49 pm by Venkat

Just took the MPRE. I don't get the results for 5 weeks, but for those who've yet to take it: don't worry too much. Despite being given by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, it pales in comparison to the actual bar. On the adolescent-sex-exploration-scale it's like drinking out of the same soda can as your boyfriend. Shout out to Mark Shipley (my first) who, on second thought, deserves a double-shout: when we couldn't find a bottle that would actually spin, he improvised with my tube of... Posted on November 7, 2009 at 07:07 am by brynn rovito

One of my super-smart law school buddies (who has recently graduated: congrats) never got any grade below an A- in all of his law school career. A year ahead of me, he actually spent a considerable amount of his own study time helping me understand very basic legal concepts. One day, he confessed to me that he felt like a fraud. He was afraid; it was a matter of time before someone called him out for the idiot he really was. At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about; I chalked it up... Posted on August 22, 2009 at 11:00 am by brynn rovito

So glad I walked home from work today instead of taking the Metro. I rounded the corner right as the mural outside of Mama Ayesha's Calvert Cafe was being updated. Posted on July 21, 2009 at 01:40 pm by brynn rovito

The proposed settlement has been thrown out! What did I think of the decision? What do I want to see happen? The media is asleep on the job? Answers: What did I think of the decision? We won a round! I am heartened and thrilled that Chief Judge Vaughn Walker's order rejecting the settlement cited my argument that the settlement TD [...] Posted on October 27, 2009 at 02:23 pm by Matthew Elvey

THE SNOWJOB TD Ameritrade's PR goons pulled is unraveling. UCAN's Privacy Rights clearinghouse run by Beth Givens has corrected its database entry for the breach. Attrition.org/datalossdb.org have corrected their entry. Both now indicate that social security numbers were compromised. Today is the hearing on approval of the settlement - at 10 AM (September 10th) in Courtroom [...] Posted on September 9, 2009 at 11:52 pm by Matthew Elvey

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post. Posted on July 8, 2009 at 07:26 pm by Matthew Elvey

A tweet from @AbbieCitron brought me to the Medical News Today post Electronic Medical Records Could Help Predict Domestic Abuse. The article discusses forecasting patients' risks by using electronic medical records. Specifically, the article deals with domestic abuse screening or predictions. Dr Ben Reis of the Children's Hospital Informatics Program at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Children's Hospital Boston; and Harvard Medical School, co-authored the study,... Posted on October 1, 2009 at 08:32 am

An ABA Journal post by Martha Neil, Could Your New Facebook 'Friend' Be a Bill Collector? notes there is little regulation of collection practices on the Internet because current laws are focused on traditional technology. As the number of consumers giving up landlines increases, and while the information age continues advancing, consumer protections will need to continue undergoing changes in order to keep up with the times. The Congressional Findings and Declaration of Purpose found in The... Posted on September 29, 2009 at 10:08 am

Ways may someday be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. - Justice Louis Brandeis (1928) A recent ABA Journal article on privacy law (Feds Can Monitor Personal E-Mail Sent Privately to Gov't Workers, DOJ) began as follows: You might think that a private-mail sent to another U.S. citizen's personal account isn't subject to... Posted on September 25, 2009 at 12:17 am

/**/ Cloud Computing has become one of the more influential tech trends of our day. The Cloud is roughly analogous to remote computing, where computing and storage move away from your personal device to servers run by companies. A simple example might be online photo albums, which allow users to move their pictures off personal computers and into a secure and accessible space on the Web. Some Cloud services, like Hotmail, have been around for roughly a decade. And others have appeared since;... Posted on April 16, 2009 at 02:53 am by Peter

I did a little OpEd in the French paper Liberation on Google's Street View and privacy. Only fair, I guess, to put a picture of my own house on this blog. I confess, I did hesitate a minute before posting it. In any case, I do believe in taking one's own medicine, or eating one's own dogfood, as the case may be. D'ici une centaine d'ann&#xc3&#xa9es, quelles avanc&#xc3&#xa9es auront marqu&#xc3&#xa9 notre &#xc3&#xa9poque ? Nos progr&#xc3&#xa8s politiques comme la cr&#xc3&#xa9ation de l'Union europ&#xc3&#xa9enne ? Les avanc&#xc3&#xa9es scientifiques ? Selon... Posted on March 6, 2009 at 09:49 am by Peter

Lead Data Protection Authority: how EU data protection regulation can catch up with other areas of European law Being a global company means having employees, partners and users who interact on a worldwide basis without geographical or jurisdictional limitations. Maximising efficiency is a key driver so most global companies attempt to adopt a consistent way of doing business internationally. Whilst cultural differences may have an impact on some activities, economic globalisation encourages a... Posted on February 9, 2009 at 12:49 am by Peter