On June 8, magazine publisher Trusted Media Brands, Inc. settled a class action lawsuit for $8.2 million after purportedly disclosing the personal information and magazine choices of customers to third parties. The lawsuit, Taylor v. Trusted Media Brands, Inc., No. 7:16-cv-01812 (S.D.N.Y. June 8, 2017), alleged that the publisher’s actions violated Michigan’s Video Rental Privacy […]
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Allows Wikimedia Upstream Suit to Proceed
On May 23, 2017, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion on Wikimedia foundation v. NSA/CSS. The Court vacated and remanded the NSA’s previously successful motion to dismiss Wikimedia’s Fourth and First Amendment claims against the NSA’s Upstream surveillance program, while a 2-1 majority upheld the dismissal of the eight other organizations joined […]
Facebook Fined for WhatsApp Data Linking Fallout
On 18 May 2017, the European Commission (“Commission”) fined Facebook €110 million ($122 million) for misrepresentations made in its application for competition clearance of the company’s acquisition of WhatsApp. In its merger application, Facebook claimed that it would be unable to automatically match Facebook users’ accounts and WhatsApp users’ accounts for marketing and other purposes. […]
Court Holds Forensic Investigator’s Report is Protected from Disclosure
Third-party forensic investigations performed at the direction of counsel are part-and-parcel of virtually every data breach. There has been little case law, however, directly addressing the extent to which the attorney-client privilege and/or work product doctrine protects those forensic investigations from disclosure. Last week, the Central District of California held that, under the specific facts […]
President Trump Signs Long-Awaited Cyber Executive Order
On May 11, 2017, President Trump signed a long-awaited executive order on cybersecurity (the “Order”). The Order directs executive agencies to complete a risk management report based on the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (the “Framework”) and also requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other agencies to undertake activities in support of effective cybersecurity risk […]