Su. Ku. Dogra’s Post

"A settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit claiming that Defendant, BOSTON GLOBE MEDIA PARTNERS, LLC, disclosed its subscribers' personally identifiable information ("PII") to Facebook via Facebook Tracking Pixel without consent in violation of the Viedo Privacy Protection Act ("VPPA"). The VPPA defines PII to include information that identifies a person as having requested or obtained specific video materials or services from a video tape service provider. Defendant denies that it violated any law, but has agreed to the settlement to avoid the uncertainties and exp continuing the case." Is it believable that Globe's personnel did not benefit from violating the VPPA? If Globe disclosed my PII in "VIOLATION" of the VPPA, how can the Globe claim it did not violate the VPPA? If Globe did not have a policy in place to prevent this illegal disclosure, why not? Is GLOBE unaware of the law? Globe should fire its IT and legal teams and hire new teams that know how to comply with the laws, including VPPA. Thank you for your comments. Twitter Elon Musk Linda Yaccarino Boston Herald New York Post The New York Sun Howie Carr The Washington Times Washington Examiner Washington Free Beacon Commentary Magazine National Review #privacyviolation #settlements Legal Tech Industry News MIT Technology Review

Social media is a quickly-evolving technology that connects billions of people, but also provides a platform for social mischief. The fast-paced nature of the technology makes it difficult to regulate, and many internet-based platforms benefit from broad liability protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. US courts have played a leading role in defining the scope of Section 230, with the Supreme Court hearing two cases challenging protections previously granted under Section 230 this year (Gonzales v. Google LLC and Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh). In Science Policy Review's 3rd volume, John Akula reviews the role of the courts in interpreting Section 230 and the current policy debate over reform: https://lnkd.in/eZVUG9xi

The tech giants are pushing the simplistic position that any such conduct is “speech” (and any sorting or blocking of that speech is “editing”). If the justices buy this argument, they would be granting constitutional protection to nearly anything a social media platform does, putting both their actions — and those of tech companies more broadly — beyond the reach of lawmakers who want to constrain them. Doing so would create a kind of immunity verging on sovereignty that it is hard to imagine the framers of the Constitution ever intended. #privacy #privacylaw #tech #constitutionallaw https://lnkd.in/gCmpQKaP

Happy #TrustTuesday Everyone! The day almost escaped me but I couldn't let the torch go out. This Tuesday, let's put a spotlight on #Section230 Passed as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Congress enacted Section 230 to encourage the emerging internet industry to take down harmful posts on their platforms while protecting them from a deluge of lawsuits for third-party content. Here we are, 25 years later, and much of this law has not changed. This is a tough problem to solve for. Reform has no clear pathways and its still debatable of who can solve it, or should. As we saw last Thursday, #bigtech was able to bypass some major liabilities related to Section 230. On the other hand, the topic of #misinformation and #badactors using #socialmedia and #AI for targeting end users with violating content is not making the interest a safe place to be. We need to hope that some new changes can emerge that will be a healthy balance between not upending the building blocks of the modern internet, but also holding companies accountable for their users' privacy and safety. #TrustandSafety #Policy #privacyprotection #AIforGood https://lnkd.in/g7cF7DT3

There should be no portion of an antitrust case that is shielded from the public. No exceptions. The entire point of an antitrust case like this, is because, the company in question, has used a team full of expensive legal experts and abused EULAs, to intentionally circumvent & undermine the legal system, with the intention, of obstructing and limiting any competition. Allowing them to hide this information from the public, only further demonstrates the leverage they have over the justice system, & shows complete disregard for it. Effectively stating, that the laws thy apply to the rest of us, don’t apply to them. In Google’s case, they without question, have done this, & continue to do so. I can provide detailed examples of this, to help the justice department, if their case is lacking. Google, the biggest web scraper in the entire world, does not allow apps to do the same things, which they themselves do, every single minute, of every single day, in order to maintain a monopoly on the data they themselves actively scrape. If this isn’t a ridiculous double standard, & a massive antitrust issue, then the laws for antitrust violations, need to be rewritten, in order to prevent this kind of flagrant abuse in the future. #wearebetterthanthis #stopIOI

EU Legal Opinion on Facebook Case Spells Trouble for Data Transfers EU court adviser recommends keeping popular data-transfer mechanism, but in warning to U.S. tech firms, opens door to narrower bans. Companies, including U.S. tech giants, should be blocked from transferring European users’ data in some cases if they can’t guarantee it will be handled in compliance with European Union privacy laws, an adviser to the EU’s top court recommended. The recommendation, if followed by the EU’s Court of Justice, could unleash a series of legal challenges against companies such as Facebook it will be handled in compliance with European Union privacy laws, an adviser to the EU’s top court just recommended. (Very hard to achieve)

On August 30, Atheria partner Julie Hawkinson will be a panelist in the ABA Litigation Section webinar, “The Web Tracking Litigation Tsunami: Trends, Tactics and Tales from the Trenches.” Attendees will learn about trends in the wave of privacy class action litigation arising out of the use of internet tracking tools, including the Meta Pixel. Registration is now open: https://lnkd.in/gwNw7wBP #cybersecuritylaw #cyberlaw #internetlaw #lawyer #legal 

Last week, Judge Alsup (Cal Northern District) held the X's anti-scrapping provision is preempted as being in conflict with the Copyright Act. On Eric Goldman's blog I explain the significance of that decision. TL; DR: really important, both because courts so rarely use conflict preemption, and because it puts into question all anti-scrapping provisions. A good decision for machine learning. https://lnkd.in/gWRa83S3

There are some juicy nuggets in Prof Goldman's Internet Law Year-in-Review blog post, including: *DSA and UK Online Safety Act which aim to give regulators more control over the internet *Social media 'defective design' lawsuits to circumvent CDA, among other things *State legislators adopting 'child safety' regulations requiring age authentication *The over-regulation of AI compared to the wild west of Internet 1.0 Highly recommend you check it out here: https://lnkd.in/eD_ibFyf