The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has sent a challenge to Texas’s controversial online age verification law back to district court for additional clarification, while leaving the lower court’s injunction...more
11/14/2024
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Blogging Platforms ,
Canada ,
Domain Names ,
Electronic Devices ,
Fake Reviews ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Fraud ,
Minors ,
Mobile Apps ,
Online Platforms ,
Online Reviews ,
TikTok ,
Verification Requirements
Often derided as clickbait, listicles get a bum rap. They can be light on substantive content, sure, but sometimes that’s a good thing, especially for the busy readers of legal blogs, who would do well to treat themselves to...more
Welcome to the newest edition of Socially Aware, our Burton Awardwinning guide to the law and business of social media.
In this edition, we explore the threat to U.S. jobs posed by rapid advances in emerging technologies;...more
4/21/2017
/ Communications Decency Act ,
Copyright ,
Cross-Device ,
DMCA ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Google ,
Mobile Apps ,
Safe Harbors ,
Snapchat ,
Stored Communications Act ,
Technology Sector ,
Tracking Systems ,
Trump Administration ,
WhatsApp
A federal district court judge refused to grant summary judgment to the copyright owners of the Star Trek franchise in the infringement suit they brought against the team behind a fan-made, crowdfunded prequel to the original...more
1/23/2017
/ Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Ownership ,
EU ,
Instagram ,
Internet ,
Mobile Apps ,
Personal Data ,
Snapchat ,
Sponsored Ads ,
Star Trek ,
Summary Judgment ,
Yelp
Every December and January you can count on the trade press and the mainstream media to run lists of predictions for the upcoming year and retrospectives on the year past ranking the “best” and “worst” of everything from...more
Facebook at Work, the on-the-job version of the web’s most popular social media platform, will launch in London on October 10th.
Add iHeartRadio to the list of Internet radio platforms that will be offering an on demand...more
Instagram now allows users to zoom in on photos in their feeds and at least 11 brands are already capitalizing on the new feature.
Pinterest acquired Instapaper, a tool that allows you to cache webpages for reading at a...more
9/6/2016
/ Advertising ,
Facebook ,
Instagram ,
Investment Adviser ,
Investment Funds ,
Investors ,
Journalism ,
Mobile Apps ,
Photographs ,
Pinterest ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Snapchat ,
Social Media
Facebook introduced technology that disables ad blockers used by people who visit the platform via desktop computers, but Adblock Plus has already foiled the platform’s efforts, at least for now....more
8/15/2016
/ Ad-Blockers ,
Amicus Briefs ,
Copyright ,
Facebook ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
LinkedIn ,
Mobile Apps ,
PETA ,
Snapchat ,
Social Media ,
Software ,
Twitter ,
Web Scraping
Facebook Messenger joins the elite “one billion monthly users” club just four years after its release as a standalone app....more
7/25/2016
/ Criminal Prosecution ,
Distracted Driving ,
Evidence ,
Facebook ,
Mobile Apps ,
Revenge Porn ,
Snapchat ,
Social Media ,
Trial Court Orders ,
Trolls ,
Twitter ,
User-Generated Content ,
Video Games
We have become inured to the sight of people staring at their phones rather than engaging with one another or enjoying their real-life surroundings. But, over the past two weeks, enslavement to mobile devices rose to new...more
The UK wants to use the blockchain to track the spending of welfare recipients.
Some believe that a recent Ninth Circuit holding could turn sharing passwords into a federal crime under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act....more
7/18/2016
/ Blockchain ,
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) ,
Facebook ,
Live Streaming ,
Mobile Apps ,
Patent Applications ,
Patents ,
Snapchat ,
Social Media ,
UK ,
Vine ,
Virtual Reality
The Internet is abuzz over the Facebook algorithm change. Here are the implications for marketers and publishers and for regular users.
U.S. Customs wants to start collecting the social media accounts for foreign...more
Welcome to the newest issue of Socially Aware, our Burton Award winning guide to the law and business of social media. In this edition, we offer tips for a successful—and legal—advertising campaign; we examine a New York...more
3/9/2016
/ Advertising ,
B2C ,
Big Data ,
Digital Goods ,
Discovery ,
Discovery Rule ,
EU ,
Facebook ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Internet Retailers ,
Marketing ,
Mobile Apps ,
Native Advertising ,
Social Media ,
Terms and Conditions ,
User-Generated Content
January is the month when lists—lists of predictions, lists of trends, lists of feats and lists of failures—pervade social media newsfeeds and publications’ headlines. Here at Socially Aware we’re making an annual tradition...more
Five social media law issues to discuss with your clients -
The explosive growth of social media has clients facing legal questions that didn’t even exist a few short years ago. Helping your clients navigate this...more
10/15/2015
/ Anonymity ,
Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Blogging Platforms ,
Browsewrap Agreement ,
Class Action ,
Clickwrap Agreements ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Customer Lists ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
Defamation ,
Discovery ,
Discrimination ,
Electronically Stored Information ,
Employee Privacy Rights ,
Employee Training ,
Enforceability ,
EULA ,
Evidence ,
Facebook ,
Facebook Friends ,
False Advertising ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Internal Investigations ,
Job Applicants ,
Mobile Apps ,
Motion to Compel ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Online Endorsements ,
Online Reviews ,
Passwords ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Popular ,
Privacy Policy ,
Protected Class ,
Protected Concerted Activity ,
RadioShack ,
Representations and Warranties ,
Screening Procedures ,
Section 5 ,
Social Media ,
Social Media Account Ownership ,
Social Media Policy ,
Subpoenas ,
Terms and Conditions ,
Terms of Use ,
Third-Party ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices ,
Workplace Investigations
Websites sometimes present their terms of use (“TOU”) to users merely by including a link to those TOU on the website without requiring users to affirmatively accept the terms by, for example, checking a box or clicking an “I...more
8/17/2015
/ Browsewrap Agreement ,
Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
False Advertising ,
Fraud ,
Mobile Apps ,
Notice Requirements ,
Popular ,
Software ,
Terms of Use ,
Websites ,
Young Lawyers
Pin pain. As a primarily visual social media platform whose self-described purpose is to help users bookmark and save “good stuff you find anywhere around the web,” Pinterest has raised copyright infringement questions since...more
Information wants to be (not quite) free. In its early years, the Internet was often seen as a vehicle for democratizing data, taking information that was previously accessible only to a select few and making it available to...more
Searching social. At long last, tweets will appear in Google search results as soon as they’re sent, as the result of a deal that the two Internet giants recently struck. As part of its efforts to increase user growth and...more
In This Issue:
- What’s in a Like?
- R.I.P.: The Facebook “Like” Gate
- Facebook Dislikes Fake Likes
- Privacy in the Cloud: A Legal Framework for Moving Personal Data to the Cloud
- Click...more
12/17/2014
/ Advertising ,
Clickwrap Agreements ,
Cloud Computing ,
COPPA ,
Counterfeiting ,
Data Protection ,
EU ,
Facebook ,
Infringement ,
Internet ,
Mobile Apps ,
Social Media ,
Terms of Use ,
UK ,
Websites
Yik Yak arrests. For several months now we at Socially Aware have been writing about how college students have been using the purportedly anonymous messaging app Yik Yak to communicate deeply offensive remarks and threats of...more
12/4/2014
/ Anonymity ,
COPPA ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Data Collection ,
Google ,
GPS ,
Mobile Apps ,
Offensive Language ,
Privacy Concerns ,
Students ,
Uber ,
Video Recordings ,
YouTube
..Clearing the air. Aereo, the startup broadcasting service that lost big in the U.S. Supreme Court last June, just lost another, and possibly its last, court battle. A U.S. district judge in the Southern District of New...more
In This Issue:
FFIEC Issues Final Guidance on Social Media Usage by Financial Institutions; Uncovering a Line in the Sand: Employee Social Media Use and the NLRA; Website Operators Await Final Guidance Regarding...more