Privacy Roundup: 6/18/2014

Posted June 18, 2014 by Britnie Morris 0

European Court of Justice’s Recent Ruling Has Many Asking: “What Now?”, Google’s Response, And the EU’s Counter-Response

Mark Scott reported for The New York Times that 28 data privacy regulators from various agencies across the EU will carry out the European Court of Justice’s (EUCJ’s) recent ruling that Google can be forced to remove links from certain searches. “But”, wrote Scott, “the court gave agencies little guidance in applying the ruling, and they (the regulators) are likely to interpret it in different ways.” Scott reports that there are two other issues with the ruling: First, the question of whether non-Europeans would be eligible for petitioning European regulators to have information removed and second, the question of what obligation Google or other search engines will have in responding to requests to remove information.

Scott explained that, although Google has previously been confronted with requests to take down information, neither Google nor any other search provider has ever “faced the prospect of handling so many demands for unlinking online content that the new European ruling may have unleashed.”

The Candy Man Cometh: Candy Crush Developer King Crushes Sweet Dreams in Trademark Disputes

Posted April 17, 2014 by Britnie Morris 0

United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) records indicate that King, also known as Digital Entertainment PLC, publisher of the popular game Candy Crush Saga, applied to register a trademark for the word “candy” in February, 2013. (US Trademark Application Serial Number 85842584.) PCMag reported that King had already trademarked “candy” in the EU where, according to King’s spokesperson, the company’s intellectual property is constantly being infringed upon. The firm sought the same security in the US market, leading critics to pounce weeks before March 26, when, according to Forbes, the company tanked in its market debut.

The application to register the “candy” trademark was approved on January 15, 2014. One intellectual property commentator told the San Jose Mercury News that King’s move was “blatantly anti-competitive and not what trademark law is about”. Forbes contributor Eric Kain wrote “No corporation should have legal rights to any word I can use in Scrabble—words like ‘candy’ or ‘saga’ for instance.”

ICYMI: Privacy Laws Effective Jan 1, 2014

Posted March 11, 2014 by Britnie Morris 0

In case you missed it: We recently wrote here that over two dozen state privacy laws were passed in 2013. While little to nothing is happening in Congress – at least in terms of actual privacy legislation – state legislatures continue to fervently address the issue of privacy. Many new state laws became effective January 1st of this year. Here is just a sampling of those directly impacting both individuals’ privacy and technology.

Got WI-FI?: How Brick and Mortar Retailers Track Their Shoppers

Posted January 21, 2014 by Britnie Morris 0

Euclid Analytics is one of several companies that recently began assisting brick and mortar retailers in tracking consumer behavior, via their smartphones, as they enter, exit, and move around stores. It may be easy to label this technology, mobile location analysis, as “creepy”, but it is by no means illegal (at least not yet). Some may even find having a coupon for jelly pop up on your iPhone just a moment after you’ve tossed peanut butter into your cart very convenient- MIT Technology Review proposed this hypothetical scenario.

Just a few weeks ago we wrote about how online retailers monitor consumer behavior in order to customize their offerings to better fit both the consumers’ and the business’ needs. Brick and mortar retailers argue that they’re simply catching up with online retailers’ use of cookies and target marketing.

#PrivacyProblems: States Address Privacy and Data Security Concerns

Posted December 11, 2013 by Britnie Morris 0

Social issues such as jobs, healthcare and education take priority for citizens over privacy issues, the public’s concern for digital privacy has grown and looms large. In the absence of Congressional action in favor of consumer privacy, state legislators have begun to take matters into their own hands.

The New York Times’ Somini Sengupta reports that in 2013 alone more than 10 states passed over two dozen state privacy laws. Sengupta quotes John Pezold from Georgia’s House of Representatives: ‘”’[C]onsumers [are] becoming increasingly wary that their lives are going to be no longer their own… We have got to protect that.”’

Advertisers to Consumers: No Cookies, No Problem, We’ll find Other Ways to Track You!

Posted November 20, 2013 by Britnie Morris 0

Earlier this year, our colleague Bryce Cullinane wrote here on this blog about cookies or the tiny files created by websites you visit that store your information and allow sites to recognize your browser. Although cookies may have a profound impact on your desktop browsing activity, they’re steadily becoming obsolete due to both the growing ubiquity of mobile internet usage (cookies don’t work on mobile devices) and users’ conscious blocking of cookies. So far, marketers have developed just a few new technologies (that we know of) to continue to track consumers and deliver targeted ads.

The New York Times recently reported that the work of several new startups is dedicated to figuring out how to track people without cookies and also determine that multiple devices belong to the same person. California based Drawbridge is one company that is attempting to tackle this task, although COO Eric Rosenblum tells Claire Cain Miller and Somini Sengupta of the New York Times that “tracking is a dirty word” and explains that what they’re instead doing is “observing your behaviors and connecting your profile to mobile devices” (emphasis added).

By combining alerts sent by partners companies when you visit specific websites or use certain apps with statistical modeling, Drawbridge and its competitor companies like Greystripe can conclude that several devices belong to the same person. Once a consumer has been identified in this way, advertisers can ensure that this user receives specifically-targeted ads across all devices based on his or her activities. Or in other words, cross-device advertising.

Think about this. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? Maybe you check e-mail on your phone. (Maybe you do something else before even that, ok we’ll grant you that.) From there, you may use your tablet for a few minutes to catch up on some news or check the weather. Then you might browse from your desktop at work. Fast-forward (perhaps many hours) and you’re in bed with your tablet (sadly), checking out your social media steams. Cross-device advertising makes it possible for flights to Europe to display on your tablet at night when you had been looking up similar flights earlier in the day while using another device. The same goes for purses you’ve browsed, restaurants for which you’ve read reviews and so on.

Although privacy advocates may be sighing in relief as cookies become increasingly irrelevant, their rest may be short-lived and not so easy in light of the coming attractions of future (and creepier) developments in online advertising.

Streaming Abroad: Why You Can’t and How You Can with (or without) a Virtual Private Network

Posted October 15, 2013 by Britnie Morris 0

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a technology that allows anyone to create a secure connection over a public or private network, such as the internet, enabling users to tunnel through the web and access specific servers. VPNs have a few different uses. One way to use a VPN is to set up a network to protect your online privacy. Another way you may already use a VPN is to access an intranet, or a network used by individuals belonging to large organizations such as schools and corporations, remotely. Arguably, however, the coolest way to use a VPN is to get around various restrictions.

Many of those restrictions are government-imposed, famously in recent years in countries restricting many civil and personal rights including tightly restricting access to media and other information. Here, in countries such as China, Iran, and Turkey, VPNs grant people access to a wider world web. A similar-ish use of VPN technology allows others to access geo-blocked content, such as streaming services for music and video which, depending on your location, might be inaccessible.

Privacy by Design: Isn’t Everybody Doing It? And if Not, Why Not?

Posted August 20, 2013 by Britnie Morris 0

Privacy by Design refers to a design of technology that emphasizes privacy as its default setting and is proactive in its approach to building and ensuring privacy throughout the life cycle of data storage.

About twenty years ago, Ann Cavoukian, now Information & Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada, coined the term “Privacy by Design” to address privacy concerns if (ever) law and regulation failed to protect consumer needs. Today, although some technologies are created in adherence to the core principles of Privacy by Design (PbD), many new product developments do not begin implementing privacy on Day 1. If this seemingly practical approach to privacy is, in fact, good practice, then why isn’t everybody doing it?

Some theories:

Businesses do not fully appreciate consumer needs.
Alternatively, while businesses do appreciate that default privacy could benefit consumers, businesses calculate that there is no actual demand for it, thus no need to supply.
Alternatively, we (who no speak legalese) don’t know what’s really going on.

So what exactly is Privacy by Design?

The option to go off the record in GChat is one example of Privacy by Design.

Put simply, PbD is built-in privacy. (A brief summary of the 7 Foundational Principles of Privacy by Design is included at the end of this post.) Dr. Cavoukian, who was recognized as the founder of Privacy by Design by the Best Practices Institute, identified default practices as a preventive solution to address the need for privacy, a need which she had anticipated. So, for example, the option to go “off the record” during a conversation in Google’s Gchat application illustrates PbD. Another example is 2-step security verification, used by companies such as Twitter and Evernote, which protects a user’s account against a third party discovering the user’s log-in information. PbD is not yet ubiquitous, but it is already incorporated into some of the products that many of us use every day. Nonetheless, at least according to the Future of Privacy Forum, a Washington, DC based think tank, businesses often struggle to implement Cavoukian’s principles into practice.

New (York City) Employment Law: NYC Employers Required to Provide Paid Sick Leave

Posted July 30, 2013 by Britnie Morris 0

The Law

New York City recently joined Portland, OR, Seattle, WA, Washington, DC, San Francisco and the State of Connecticut in passing laws requiring employers to provide paid sick leave to employees. New York City’s legislation, initiated by Councilwoman Gale Brewer, was introduced in 2010 and, unless the economy takes a downturn, will take effect April 1, 2014. Enactment could be postponed if on December 16, 2013, New York’s Independent Budget Office determines that a specific economic success index is not at or above its January, 2012 level. The text of the new law can be found here.

Copyright in Photography: Harney v. Sony and A&E and Other Cases

Posted June 24, 2013 by Britnie Morris 0

A few months ago Christian Gerhartsreiter (right), or Clark Rockefeller, made headlines after being found guilty of first-degree murder for a crime which he committed 28 years ago. Gerhartsreiter is an interesting man and a photo in which he appears makes for a very interesting copyright infringement case. (The Guardian/AP)

When it comes to photographs, how does one measure whether a copying rises to the level of infringement? This was the question before the court in Harney v. Sony Pictures Television, Inc. and A&E Television Networks, LLC. The United States Court for the District of Massachusetts determined that although the defendants had copied another’s work, the original photo and the re-created image lacked the substantial similarity required to satisfy a copyright infringement claim. The court’s decision was subsequently affirmed on appeal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston.

Background:

Freelance photographer Donald Harney approached a father and daughter as the pair was exiting a Boston church on Palm Sunday, April, 2007 and asked to photograph them for a local paper. The young girl, Reigh Storrow Mills Boss, had long blonde hair, wore a pink coat and rode piggyback on her father’s shoulders. Her father, Christian Gerhartsreiter, at the time was presumed to be Clark Rockefeller. He kidnapped his daughter later that year.

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E-SIGN and Copyright: Uploading Photos to Website Equals Consent (and Copyright Assignment)

Posted February 13, 2013 by Britnie Morris 0

Does use of a website constitute implicit consent to the site’s Terms of Use (TOU)? And if the TOU provides for copyright assignment, does that use thus constitute a valid assignment of copyright under the federal Copyright Act? Those were the questions last August before the US District Court for the District of Maryland, which granted the real estate multiple-listing service known as “Metropolitan Regional Information Systems” (MRIS) a preliminary injunction against defendant American Home Reality Network (AHRN). The court’s opinion can be found here. The case was discussed in some detail by RIS Media, a real estate technology blog, particularly the role of electronic signatures under the federal E-SIGN Act for valid assignments under the Copyright Act.

The court enjoined AHRN from copying and uploading MRIS’ photographs to AHRN’s website Neighborcity.com. Pamela Chestek, in her blog “Property, intangible”, points out that although the preliminary injunction was granted solely on the claim of infringement of photos in the MRIS database, MRIS had alleged infringement on its entire database.
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Shorts: Phoning Home in the 21st Century: Call US and Canadian Numbers from Virtually Anywhere… For Free

Posted November 6, 2012 by Britnie Morris 0

I highly recommend that you consider leaving your smartphone at home while traveling abroad. My colleague Andy Mirsky asked me to write this post while I spoke with him from Spain. He called my 202 number, and we chatted for about 15 minutes and planned to speak again next week. What’s the significance of this, you ask? Well, I’m in Europe. Until I was pickpocketed in Puerta Del Sol, Madrid, last week, I was able to text and phone home as much as my poor, little homesick heart desired without being charged a dime. So pack your smartphone, enable Airplane mode, and forget about roaming fees.

Talkatone is a free app officially available for iPhone, iPod, iPad (iOS 4.0 and later). You can also download Talkatone on some Android devices although it’s not officially supported by the app. Talkatone uses Voice Over IP (VOIP) technology to connect users to any US or Canadian number via a Google Voice account. Talkatone is also an alternative to stay connected via your mobile device when you’ve got weak cell tower reception but can access WIFI.

Here are the steps:

Get a free Gmail account if you don’t already have one.

Sign up for a free Google Voice account here.

Download both the Google Voice app (I prefer Google Voice for texting) and Talkatone on your mobile device.

Sync your Google voice account with your Talkatone app.

Call and text home for free from anywhere, although you’ll have to be able to access the internet – awesome, right?

Although services like Skype are great for chatting with friends and colleagues during your travels, you cannot use these applications to contact individuals at institutions such as banks and medical offices who do not subscribe to these services. Since I’m without iPhone, I have spent the past week trying to figure this out: If for some reason you’re ever abroad and all you’ve got is a computer and WIFI, how do you phone people at home… for free? Google Voice has an awesome extension for Chrome users that, just like Talkatone, allows you to send unlimited, free SMS text messages and also make and receive calls all via your desktop.

Quick tips:

I prefer the texting interface on the Google Voice App over Talkatone’s so I would recommend downloading this app as well.

Call quality will depend on strength of your data signal. And, if both parties use Talkatone, expect a clearer conversation.

If you’re in my position and feel totally disconnected from the world, there are plenty of other options to keep in touch with loved ones and work. However the more well-known apps for making calls (Skype and Google Voice, most obviously) charge fees. Their rates are competitive and modest, but of course I like free.

Enjoy your time abroad, watch out for pickpockets, and please share this information with friends and family with whom you want to stay connected!
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MediaTech Law

By MIRSKY & COMPANY, PLLC