Technology isn’t stuck in the 90s. Why is privacy? Open up any word processing system or many other apps, and you may notice the icon for “Save:” is a 3.5-inch floppy disk. We use this icon dozens of times a week, typically without thinking about it, but it conceals a striking fact. The most common… Read More
We hear the word “crisis” a lot these days. A phenomenon of our age is that issues are transformed into crises, and many crises are transformed into existential threats. Think about the way we looked at online harms and screen time for children. Just a year or two ago, the rage was the claim that… Read More
Last week, a federal judge dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s monopoly lawsuit against Facebook, concluding that the agency hadn’t made a sufficiently clear case that the social media giant controlled the market in a monopolistic way. At the same time, Amazon has demanded that FTC Chair Lina Khan recuse herself from any antitrust investigation into… Read More
If there’s one thing that social media loves, it’s talking about social media. It’s no surprise, then, that this week’s internal review at Facebook about whether Donald Trump’s account should be reinstated has chewed up hashtags and trends around the world. If you recall, social networks like Twitter and Facebook banned The Donald in the… Read More
Today is Data Privacy Day, a great time to remember that we live our lives increasingly in visible, recorded ways, and that privacy is something that belongs to all of us and to each of us. Also, it’s a day when privacy professionals post jargon-filled memes that no one understands. “Did you hear the one… Read More
Having a debate about the First Amendment in law school was never something that interested me. For some reason, everyone else was always energized by the idea of debating the contours of permissible expression, or what constituted the prior restraint on the press, but I always preferred structure and process-driven questions about federalism, the Administartive… Read More
The buzz over the dancing* robots hasn’t abated over the last few days, which is an interesting indicator of how many people either loved it or, like me, didn’t. What’s even more interesting is that so many people have taken to writing about what they saw, rather than simply moving on to the next big… Read More
Like most lawyers, I’m on Twitter a lot and, like most lawyers, I spend most of my time tweeting in an effort to seem funny. (To say the responses are “mixed” would be to assume that I ever get responses). But occasionally, something will crop up that demands a response more nuanced than 280 characters… Read More
Last time, we talked about the passage of the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), a ballot referendum that expands and enhances the scope and consequences of CCPA. Today, we’ll look a little deeper into why CPRA is such a big deal, and also why it may simultaneously be the cause of its own undoing. When… Read More
Like everyone, I’m exhausted by the confusion and controversy surrounding the election — this week has been a year. So, great news: today’s blog is going to be about a confusing, controversial law just passed in California by a wide margin! The law in question is the California Privacy Rights Act, also called Prop 24,… Read More
The mutually beneficial data partnership may sound like a unicorn, but it is actually quite common. Market forces drive these partnerships for one of three reasons: shared clients, operational teams, and marketing. This contrasts with innovator partnerships, which are driven by sales opportunities, product innovation and channel distribution. Mutually beneficial partnerships tend to between partners… Read More
Regular readers of our blog will be familiar with our frequent suggestion that you should deploy data review teams and use subject matter experts to come up with clever solutions to data-based problems. “That’s all well and good,” you might say, “for companies that have dedicated staff for working only on data problems or massive… Read More
It’s tempting, at this late stage of the year, to think that things are kind of baked in, and that we have to run the clock out until 2021, or to think that it’s necessary to continue on for the last few months as they have been. The former is a perfectly fair sentiment (2020… Read More
You may have heard from us (once or twice) that the phrase “data is the new oil” is not a particular favorite. Ok, more bluntly – we hate it. It not only ignores the reality of what data is and how it is created, the saying mischaracterizes the nature of personal data collection, how it… Read More
It’s a strange phenomenon of modern business that we are absolutely awash in data but, frequently, it seems like the additional information doesn’t lead to insights or meaningful tools. For many enterprises — especially small businesses — market necessity makes it seem like a move to a comprehensive system with data-analytics is the only way… Read More
Three-quarters of the way through 2020, it feels as though January was a decade ago. How could it not, given the social upheaval, economic turmoil, the fractured and fractious political campaign, and the deadliest, most consequential pandemic in four generations. We are living in a spin cycle that seems only to accelerate, a dizzying tumult… Read More
To create the maximum value, urgency, and leverage in a data partnership, you must present the data available for sale or partnership in a clear and comprehensive way. Partnerships are based upon the concept that you are offering value for value, whether paid or traded. Friendship might need no reasons, but partnerships require some understanding… Read More
Everybody loves a fad. You can pinpoint someone’s generation better than carbon dating by asking them what their favorite toys and gadgets were as a kid. Tamagotchi and pogs? You were born around 1988, weren’t you? Coleco Electronic Quarterback and Garanimals? Well well, an early X-er. A fad is cultural currency and social lubricant at… Read More
Any decent account of the last 30 years will certainly conclude that the high point of culture was 1990’s Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. History, philosophy, George Carlin, mylar tracksuits (it was the 90s) — it had everything you need. And, with its long-awaited second sequel coming out this week, I’m sure that if William… Read More
For those of us who pay attention to and care about these kinds of things, the Court of Justice of the European Union has issued a ruling today stating that the FTC’s Privacy Shield framework governing the transfer of personal data from Europe to the United States is no longer valid. This ruling is very… Read More