Cyberside Chats: Everyone wants to be Batman. Hacking Back & Cybersecurity Law
Looking back at 2021 and ahead to 2022
Monthly Minute | Protecting Against Data Scrapers
Death of Activist Aaron Swartz Could Spur Changes to Computer Fraud & Abuse Act
Employer’s Takeover of Former CEO’s LinkedIn Account Lawful Under CFAA
Mass arbitration is posing significant challenges for businesses, as it creates a new battleground in dispute resolution with the potential to overwhelm companies with a flood of simultaneous claims. Consumer-facing companies...more
Over the last several years, litigation (often class actions) premised on the use of technology like session-replay products, web beacons, pixels, and cookies has proliferated. Typical theories include plaintiffs claiming...more
While French skincare company L’Occitane (the “Company”) successfully thwarted a mass arbitration effort by plaintiffs’ firm Zimmerman Reed and approximately 3,000 customers (the “Claimants”), the Southern District of...more
Summary - A class action lawsuit filed against OpenAI and its primary investor, Microsoft, seeks damages and injunctive relief for the alleged theft and commercial misappropriation of consumer personal data processed by and...more
A recent motion for preliminary approval of a class action settlement filed in federal court in Georgia will bring to a close claims asserted on behalf of a class of Porsche owners for a purportedly botched over-the-air...more
Pandora’s Virtual Try-On Tool Leads to BIPA Class Complaint - On November 15, 2022, a group of plaintiffs brought a purported class action against Pandora Jewelry LLC, claiming that its virtual try-on tool violates...more
This week, a lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for its use of a COVID-19 contact-tracing app for residents’ mobile phones. However, very few residents...more
On August 5, 2021, a proposed class action settlement was reached in the closely-watched privacy action against fintech services company Plaid Inc. (“Plaid”). The settlement features a $58 million settlement fund and certain...more
It’s hard to keep up with all the recent changes to labor and employment law. While the law always seems to evolve at a rapid pace, there have been an unprecedented number of changes for the past few years—and this past month...more
TikTok is once again making news, but not because of a viral dance or fashion trend. A class action lawsuit is now pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against the popular video sharing...more
In November 2020, Yodlee and its parent company Envestnet filed separate motions to dismiss the class action lawsuit brought over Yodlee’s alleged data collection and use practices. Yodlee’s motion to dismiss argued that...more
In our March Insurance Update, we discuss four state supreme court cases and four cybercrime cases. The state high courts address: •From whose perspective should a consent-to-settle provision be judged? •What standard...more
In 2020, COVID-19 collided with a presidential election, forever altering the workplace as we knew it. In 2021 employers are faced with reimagining the employer/employee relationship while simultaneously trying to keep pace...more
As we face mounting data breaches and fears over loss of privacy, the article notes that, “as the public opinion evolves and increasingly concludes that merely possessing private data puts consumers at risk, consumers may...more
In this month's edition of our Privacy & Cybersecurity Update, we examine the Identity Theft Research Center's findings on data breaches in 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court's denial of certiorari that leaves in place the circuit...more
With new developments regarding Uber Technologies Inc.’s 2016 data breach coming out almost daily, lawsuits against the company continue to pile-up. We previously reported that within days of Uber disclosing the data theft...more
The Supreme Court recently declined to review In re Google Inc. Cookie Placement Consumer Privacy Litigation—a consolidated class action alleging that Google and third-party advertisers evaded web browser privacy settings,...more
Security experts recently discovered that about 50 different consumer PC models sold by Lenovo since September 2014 were shipped with adware known as Superfish Visual Discovery that could be exploited by hackers to spoof...more
A number of class actions have recently been filed in federal district courts, predicated, in part, on alleged violations of the federal computer crime statute, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, complaining of tracking...more
In a decisive victory for Google and several co-defendants, a Delaware federal court dismissed the claims of a putative class of individuals who alleged that they were injured by Google’s practice of circumventing certain...more
In a notable decision that may lead to an increase in privacy class actions under federal law, the Seventh Circuit in Harris v. comScore, Inc. upheld the certification of a class action for alleged privacy violations under...more
In its recent decision in Harris v. comScore, Inc., the Seventh Circuit declined to review a trial court order certifying a plaintiff class consisting of hundreds of thousands of computer owners who downloaded software that...more
As reported here in April, an Illinois federal district court certified a privacy class that could number tens of millions of plaintiffs in the case of Harris v. comScore....more