Website owners often struggle to design privacy policies that are not only comprehensive, but also comprehensible. The tension between these competing concerns was in sharp focus in a recent Ninth Circuit decision, Calhoun v....more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been actively flexing its authority as a privacy regulator in recent months. The agency has been especially focused on identifying data practices it views to be “unfair”, thereby...more
Recently, the FTC finalized an order banning a software provider from engaging in the sale, disclosure, or licensing of web browsing data for advertising. The order resolves the FTC’s accusations that the company monetized...more
According to Chair Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) recent action against Avast Limited and its subsidiaries for $16.5 million is the “highest monetary remedy in a de novo privacy violation case” and the first...more
Advertising and privacy. In 2024, it’s hard to talk about one without the other. Almost like peanut butter and jelly. A recent case from the Federal Trade Commission is an important reminder about the privacy and...more
Avast Limited, a United Kingdom-based company that marketed its browser extensions and antivirus software to protect consumer privacy did just the opposite—storing consumer browsing data indefinitely and selling it...more
Regulators and plaintiffs’ attorneys are increasingly focused on privacy harms related to the collection and use of personal data. Could privacy enhancing technology (PETs) be a solution to these concerns?...more
The case of Popa v. Harriet Carter Gifts, Inc. “began with a quest for pet stairs.” Plaintiff Ashley Popa searched Harriet Carter Gifts’ website, added pet stairs to her cart, but never completed the purchase. During her...more
Following -by a day- a privacy-related claim challenge brought against another advertiser, the National Advertising Division found that advertiser DuckDuckGo had sufficiently substantiated its privacy claims. These cases are...more
Welcome to the third installment in our eight-part series preparing you for the post-cookie world. In our first post, we provided a deep dive into third-party cookies for a baseline understanding of the technology and the...more
Giving consumers choices to control the collection, use, and disclosure of their personal information has been a key feature of privacy law and guidance for decades. However, in the United States, until the advent of the...more
For 25 years – since the introduction of Internet Explorer 2 – our browsers supported third-party cookie technology that formed the basis of internet advertising. The cookie party is ending. Tech lawyers and business...more
While most people are vaguely aware, even if they are in denial, that their browsers give advertisers access to their search histories, they are probably unaware that information is being sold or given to third parties via...more
It’s hard to imagine a world in which the U.S. Postal Service is permitted to peer inside our personal mail, or gather and track the address and other data we place on our mail, and then use and sell what it learns about us....more