Following up on its initial notice from last September, the Federal Communications Commission (the Commission) has released a draft Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to address unwanted text messages that “invade consumer privacy and are vehicles for consumer fraud and identity theft.” The Commission will consider adopting the proposed rules at
Some would say that Commissioner Christine Wilson foreshadowed her resignation in her recent GoodRx concurrence. Indeed, Commissioner Wilson has been vocal in recent months about some of her concerns with how the FTC is doing business. Much of her criticism came after the Supreme Court’s AMG Capital Management, LLC v. FTC decision, which stripped the FTC of certain powers. Of course Privacy World has kept you in the know with how the FTC reacted to AMG HERE, HERE, and HERE. Much of the FTC’s reactions center on increasing rulemaking efforts, especially as the rulemaking impacts privacy and advertising programs, while also escalating its enforcement actions. Recently, the U.S. Chamber sent an open letter to Congress requesting more congressional oversight of the FTC in light of Commissioner Wilson’s resignation. Here are three points from the U.S. Chamber’s open letter that reflect what Commissioner Wilson’s resignation may mean for Congress and the FTC over the coming year:
Continue Reading What Commissioner Wilson’s Resignation Means for the Year Ahead
746 years. That is the total amount of time criminal defendants have been sentenced to prison from consumer fraud cases the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has referred to prosecutors the past five years. Indeed, the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection Criminal Liaison Unit (Bureau) highlighted these figures in its recently published Criminal Liaison Unit Report. Notably, this report emphasized the FTC’s growing enforcement concern over the use of deceptive negative option marketing (or dark patterns) and its intended aim to push egregious cases to prosecutors in the future. The Criminal Liaison Unit Report (the Report) is consistent with FTC’s November 4, 2021 Enforcement Policy Statement Regarding Negative Option Marketing, and the Report outlines four key takeaways for companies going forward.
Continue Reading FTC Signals More Criminal Referrals for Negative Option Fraudsters
The start of a new year always brings New Year’s resolutions. If privacy by design is one of yours (just months after the Irish watchdog announced a €265 million fine for a breach of this concept, it seems reasonable to have it on your radar), 2023 is off to a good start with a new
Key Takeaway: Organizations must conduct a fact-based analysis to determine whether health data collection and tracking technology deployed on their websites and mobile apps complies with the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) and other applicable laws and guidance.
Cookies, web beacons, and similar technology are used to collect and analyze data
In a decision on October 27, 2022, the European Court of Justice has clarified the operators’ obligations regarding consent and the right to object in relation to public directories and information services.
Legal Context
The ePrivacy Directive contains several provisions relating to public directories and information services of telecommunications operators.
In particular, EU Member States
Welcome to the 2022 Q3 edition of the Artificial Intelligence & Biometric Privacy Report, your go-to source for keeping you in the know on all recent major artificial intelligence (“AI”) and biometric privacy developments that have taken place over the course of the last three months. We invite you to share this resource with your colleagues and visit Squire Patton Boggs’ Data Privacy, Cybersecurity & Digital Assets and Privacy & Data Breach Litigation homepages for more information about our capabilities and team.
Also, we are extremely pleased to announce that our own Kristin Bryan was named as a 2022 Law360 Cybersecurity & Privacy MVP. As Law360 notes, “[t]he attorneys chosen as Law360’s 2022 MVPs have distinguished themselves from their peers by securing hard-earned successes in high-stakes litigation, complex global matters and record-breaking deals.” You can read more about Kristin’s Law360 award here: Law360 MVP Awards Go to 188 Attorneys From 78 Firms.Continue Reading 2022 Q3 Artificial Intelligence & Biometric Privacy Report
Since October 1, 2022, new obligations relating to the warranties of conformity and of hidden defects, as well as new warranties for digital content and services, have come into force and require the update of the consumer Terms and Conditions.
Context
The changes were made by the decree n°2022-946 of June 29, 2022, “relating to the statutory warranty of conformity for goods, digital content and digital services,” which came into effect on October 1, 2022.
This decree revises and completes the regulatory provisions of the French consumer code following the reform carried out by Ordinance No. 2021-1247 of September 29, 2021, which transposed European Directives (EU) 2019/770 “on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services” and (EU) 2019/771 “on certain aspects concerning contracts for the sale of goods.”
The objective of these texts is to modernize the statutory warranty of conformity and consumer contracts to strengthen consumer protection and create a statutory warranty for the provision of digital content or digital services.Continue Reading Have You Updated Your French B2C T&Cs Yet?
In case you missed it, below are recent posts from Consumer Privacy World covering the latest developments on data privacy, security and innovation. Please reach out to the authors if you are interested in additional information.
On Monday, it was announced that the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) was taking action against education technology provider Chegg Inc. (“Chegg”) for its deficient data security practices that exposed the sensitive information of millions of its customers and employees, including Social Security numbers, email addresses and passwords. According to the FTC, Chegg allegedly failed to fix problems with its cybersecurity despite experiencing four breaches since 2017. This latest development is another reaffirmation of the FTC’s prioritization of privacy and security, as previously covered on CPW.
Continue Reading Ed Tech Company’s Four Data Breaches in Three Years Leads to FTC Enforcement Action