This month, an Illinois district court considered another in the series of web scraping disputes that have been working their way through our courts. In this dispute, CouponCabin, Inc. v. PriceTrace, LLC, No. 18-7525 (N.D....more
In the wake of the Illinois Supreme Court decision that held that claimants need only allege a procedural violation to have standing to bring an action under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) and the...more
Senators Brian Schatz (D) and Roy Blunt (R) recently introduced S.847, the “Commercial Facial Recognition Privacy Act of 2019,” a bill that would, subject to certain important exceptions, generally prohibit the commercial use...more
3/26/2019
/ Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Consumer Privacy Rights ,
Covered Entities ,
Data Collection ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
IL Supreme Court ,
Personal Data ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Proposed Legislation
In a recent blog post, we wrote about how the Second Circuit found the arbitration clause in a web service’s terms and conditions unenforceable because the user did not have reasonable notice of the terms that were...more
In Starke v. SquareTrade, Inc., No. 17-2474, 2019 WL 149628 (2d Cir. Jan. 10, 2019), the Second Circuit affirmed a ruling that denied a web service’s motion to compel arbitration, finding that the user did not have reasonable...more
In a long-awaited decision, the Illinois Supreme Court issued its ruling in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp., 2019 IL 123186 (Ill. Jan. 25, 2019), on whether a person “aggrieved” by a violation of the Illinois...more
Yesterday January 3, 2019, Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer filed an unfair competition lawsuit on behalf of the People of the State of California against the operator of the popular Weather Channel app (“TWC app”) for...more
Yes, it’s time for the end-of-year blog post – a look back at interesting issues of 2018 and a look forward to what we see coming down the pike in the new year....more
This post discusses some of the contractual requirements imposed by Apple and Google regarding the collection and sharing of locational information. What consents, if any, do Apple and Google require that app publishers...more
12/19/2018
/ California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) ,
Consumer Information ,
Data Collection ,
Data Protection ,
Data-Sharing ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Geolocation ,
Location Data ,
Location Privacy ,
Mobile Apps ,
Mobile Devices ,
Privacy Concerns ,
Third-Party Service Provider
A recent dispute between an advertiser AXTS Inc. (“AXTS”) and a video production company GY6vids (“GY6”) produced an interesting issue involving the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) – that is, whether an entity...more
On Friday, the WSJ published an article detailing how companies are monetizing smartphone location data by selling it to hedge fund clients. The data vendor featured in the WSJ article obtains geolocation data from about...more
11/7/2018
/ Anti-Fraud Provisions ,
Breach of Contract ,
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Collection ,
Data Protection ,
Electronic Communications ,
Fund Managers ,
Material Nonpublic Information ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Popular ,
Smartphones
Last December, we noted the continuing robust wave of Illinois biometric privacy suits. At that time, dozens of suits had been filed in Illinois state court against Illinois-based employers and other businesses alleging...more
Late last month, an Illinois appellate court reversed a lower court’s dismissal of biometric privacy claims against a tanning salon franchisee that had collected the plaintiff’s fingerprint to allow entry in its own salon and...more
Licensors of software typically utilize software license agreements providing for their ownership of the licensed software and related IP, as well as restrictions barring licensees from reverse engineering the code at issue....more
A D.C. district court ruled that an eBay user did not assent to a later-added arbitration clause to the user agreement by virtue of a provision that stated eBay could amend the agreement at any time, as the user may not have...more
In a closely-followed dispute, the California Supreme Court vacated a lower court order, based upon a default judgment in a defamation action, which had directed Yelp, Inc. (“Yelp”), a non-party to the original suit, to take...more
8/1/2018
/ CA Supreme Court ,
Communications Decency Act ,
Defamation ,
Due Process ,
First Amendment ,
Online Platforms ,
Online Reviews ,
Publishers ,
Section 230 ,
Statutory Immunity ,
Yelp
An Illinois district court remanded to state court for lack of standing a biometric privacy suit brought by employees over the collection and storage of individuals’ fingerprints allegedly in violation of the Illinois...more
7/19/2018
/ Article III ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Collection ,
Data Security ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fingerprints ,
IL Supreme Court ,
Injury-in-Fact ,
Standing
This past week, an Illinois district court dismissed, with leave to amend, claims relating to a competitor’s alleged scraping of sales listings from a company’s website for use on its own site. (Alan Ross Machinery Corp. v....more
Last December, an Illinois appellate court, in the Rosenbach v. Six Flags decision (2017 IL App (2d) 170317 (Dec. 21, 2017)), dismissed biometric privacy claims lodged against theme park operators for collecting fingerprints...more
This past week, a Texas district court denied a bid from a web service for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to enjoin a competitor that allegedly scraped a large amount of proprietary data from its closed site via several...more
Courts are increasingly taking a magnifying glass to electronic contracting processes, particularly how the presentation of the terms of service and call to action are displayed. As such, companies might take a second look at...more
6/19/2018
/ Arbitration ,
Clickwrap Agreements ,
Consumer Contracts ,
Contract Terms ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
Mobile Apps ,
Motion to Compel ,
Privacy Policy ,
Terms and Conditions ,
Terms of Service ,
Uber
As discussed in past posts about the long-running Facebook biometric privacy class action, users are challenging Facebook’s “Tag Suggestions” program, which scans for and identifies people in uploaded photographs for photo...more
6/1/2018
/ Article III ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Class Certification ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Dormant Commerce Clause ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Photographs ,
Private Right of Action ,
Standing
There has been a lot of attention in the media lately with respect to the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica issue and its fall-out (including today’s coverage of the announcement that Facebook suspended almost 200 apps pending a...more
5/17/2018
/ Apple ,
Cambridge Analytica ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
Facebook ,
Mobile Apps ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Privacy Concerns
Content owners and their attorneys have been enthusiastically anticipating the use of blockchain as a mechanism for royalty accounting, recording the chain of title of intellectual property interests, and protecting, tracking...more
5/16/2018
/ Bitcoin ,
Blockchain ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Digital Currency ,
Digital Media ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
DMCA ,
Encryption ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Popular ,
Royalties ,
Technology
Such Scraping “Plausibly Falls within the Ambit of the First Amendment”
The Ninth Circuit is currently considering the appeal of the landmark hiQ decision, where a lower court had granted an injunction that limited the...more
5/1/2018
/ Breach of Contract ,
Cease and Desist ,
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Cyber Crimes ,
Data Collection ,
DMCA ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Privacy Policy ,
Terms of Use ,
Web Scraping ,
Websites