Legal Alert | Wiretap Laws in the United States
Keypoint: In this post: (1) California considers a “commercial exception” to wiretapping and pen registry laws; (2) a rise in federal wiretapping claims against websites; (3) more courts impose “knowledge or intent”...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
Readers of this blog may recall a recent favorable decision handed down by Massachusetts State’s highest court in which it found that Massachusetts Wiretap Act claims (“MWA”) do not extend to consumer interactions with...more
Companies frequently wish to record telephone conversations related to their operations, customers, or business transactions. In response, the U.S. Congress and most state legislatures have enacted statutes and regulations...more
Keypoint: Courts reject personal jurisdiction arguments and suggest the Shopify decision will be overturned; Courts continue to show differing approaches to VPPA claims at the pleading stage with a large VPPA class action...more
Perhaps at no time in modern history have employers seemingly had less of a grip on their workforce. The amorphous, pre-COVID, practices of “flex time” and work-from-home have been stretched and snapped back to a point of...more
The Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division released a joint statement reiterating document preservation obligations for companies and individuals that are the subject...more
Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems like ChatGPT and Google’s Bard have been widely successful and used in applications ranging from science, law, art, business, and even medicine. Generative AI has been called a...more
With so much going on in the privacy space, it can be hard to keep track of everything. For example, while you were struggling to keep pace with rapidly advancing state privacy laws, FTC and EU privacy developments, market...more
On both a federal and state level, there has been a concerted push to protect employee privacy more thoroughly. As the law continues to develop or, as in the case of the NLRB, new methods of enforcement come into play,...more
The gas stove wars continue to heat up. On April 17, 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit took a stand and ruled that the City of Berkeley does not have the authority to prohibit connecting natural...more
As artificial intelligence (“AI”) technology continues to advance, more and more people are logging on and experimenting with the technology. ChatGPT, one free and popular AI, is reportedly the fastest-growing consumer...more
Whether you are a James Beard Award-winning chef or a self-taught home cook dreaming of that shiny new gas stove, you can rest somewhat easier. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled that the federal...more
Along with the increasing number of remote work arrangements available to employees in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has come an exponential rise in employers’ use of employee monitoring technology. Nearly 80% of major...more
Whether because of our new "work from home" world or advances in technology (or both), many employers now electronically monitor their employees in the workplace. A variety of electronic surveillance techniques are...more
Leading on the data privacy front again after passing one of the toughest biometric data privacy laws in the nation, Illinois is now the first state to expressly limit law enforcement access to household digital device data....more
Facial recognition technology, drones the size of a butterfly, secure microchips replacing magnetic stripes on credit cards, sensors the size of a grain of sand swallowed by patients that transmit data directly to the...more
Across the economy, businesses are using digital technology to pivot into innovative service lines, accelerate growth and transform their businesses altogether. These businesses’ digital strategies and data assets play...more
Never before have we welcomed a year with quite the hope and exuberance as we welcome 2021. While some good things did happen in 2020, for most employers, 2020 added layers of complexity to the role of human resources that...more
Following Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins,1 lower courts across the country were tasked with applying the Supreme Court’s “concrete” injury standard to a wide range of privacy and cyber claims. These claims range from the improper...more
Courts scrutinize class action settlements to ensure they result from arms-length negotiations and are fair and reasonable to absent class members. Applying that standard to a nationwide settlement of a privacy lawsuit...more
Since the last post to this blog on the evolving issue of access to a decedent’s digital assets (Death and Digital Content: Protecting Digital Assets After the Death of a User, March 29, 2019), New York Courts have issued a...more
Over a year following enactment of the U.S. “Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data” or CLOUD Act, significant questions remain unanswered about the law and its potential impact on global investigations involving cloud stored...more
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a Virginia federal court’s dismissal of a challenge to an arbitration award. The underlying dispute arose out of a lawsuit filed by Alvin Moore against his email service provider,...more
The United States government has a powerful new tool to gain access to data stored overseas – the CLOUD Act, which was enacted this spring. If you are a company based overseas, particularly if you use a cloud service provider...more