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
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that the FTC’s Privacy Shield framework governing the transfer of personal data from Europe to the United States is no longer valid.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
I think we can all agree that March 2020 lasted approximately 11 years and that April lasted about 11 minutes. Seriously, what happened to April? Why did time seem to absolutely whiz by while just a few weeks earlier it felt like we were waking up on March 78th? Perhaps it has something to do… Read More
Zoom, the videoconferencing platform on everyone’s lips this month, has had an roller coaster of a first quarter. As remote working became the norm for hundreds of millions, the company rapidly emerged as a favorite in the United States, where its simplicity and video quality made it stand out from competitors. Its daily usage swelled… Read More
We’ve spent a lot of time talking about data partnerships because we believe in their potential as vehicles for growth, success, and innovation. But sometimes it’s valuable to lay out particular versions of those partnerships to give you an idea of what data you can deploy and how it can be valuable. Use this discussion… Read More
As many people adjust to the reality of working from home, we find ourselves in a situation that we largely didn’t anticipate: seemingly everyone else doing the same thing. In the past, a day or two here or there doing Zoom meetings or conference calls was interesting, anomalous, and largely ad hoc, so there wasn’t… Read More
One of the biggest concerns we have when we talk to clients about how to create data partnerships is the security and protection of data. We don’t mean cybersecurity and the literal safeguarding of information, though that’s undoubtedly essential too. Instead, we’re talking about ensuring that datasets are used only as appropriate, are kept within… Read More
There is an unconventional data partnership structure based around controlling the data that others have about you. Remember, most businesses gather datasets from their operations. However, each record of those datasets is usually referencing one particular entity, like a person or a business or a product. There is an entire partnership structure around the entities… Read More
Okay, There’s An App For That. Why? Ho boy. The Iowa Caucuses were…they happened. And they happened in a way that was both completely unprecedented and utterly, exhaustingly predictable. It’s a story line that’s becoming, frankly, a little boring: people use old process, someone decides that an app (or AI) will be better, lots of… Read More
When you’re a lawyer and you write about truth, you’re basically asking to be insulted because….you know….you’re a lawyer. It’s true, some of my fellow legal professionals have occasionally had a less than intimate connection with the truth, but, in general, even the best lawyers squint their eyes and look wary when someone talks about… Read More
After a whirlwind start to this year (let’s leave the decade debates aside please), we’re finally ready to start making our 2020 predictions for privacy, data partnerships, and data strategy. This is where we lay out our view for how businesses, regulators, government, and internet users will shift the rules and change the way we… Read More
To me, the most meaningful meme of this year was “OK, Boomer” (Baby Yoda was a non-event, don’t @ me). It not only perfectly captures the very real, politically potent generational conflict going on right now, but it also reflects how completely ignored Generation X is in our current culture wars. (I feel no guilt… Read More
Like all right-thinking people, I love Marvin Gaye’s rendition of I Heard it Through the Grapevine — ironic though it may be that a privacy lawyer would enjoy a song about unauthorized release of sensitive personal data. You’re probably hearing it in your head right now, the bassline kicking in and maybe thinking about times… Read More
You may recall that we made some predictions way back in January about what would happen in privacy, privacy law, and data partnerships over the course of 2019. Well, we believe in accountability, and so it’s time to check out how well we did. There’s a reason that most people don’t reflect on their New… Read More
Very often, we hear clients or businesses express the idea that “we want to give our customers control over the privacy of their data, and that sounds good, but making it a reality is much more complicated.” That’s a fair assessment — operationalizing privacy is something that companies in the U.S. have a difficult time… Read More
Not every data partnership involves equals. Often, a smaller company with a new idea, or a new take on an established idea, will offer partners the ability to revise their own business strategy. These small but creative firms are often looking for what we call an innovator data partnership, which means they have a potentially… Read More
One of the questions I hear most frequently is “will the GDPR be as big a deal as everyone promised?” Of course, the real question is “will the GDPR be as big a deal as you, Jay, promised,” and it is a fair one. Privacy commentators spent a great deal of time in 2018 talking… Read More
You may have seen yesterday that Apple took another step in its recent efforts to become the public’s favorite privacy-protecting tech giant. At WWDC, the company’s annual developer conference, CEO Tim Cook unveiled the new “Sign In with Apple” feature, a user authentication platform. Like the secure sign-on (SSO) platforms designed by Google and Facebook,… Read More
The Internet is a risky place for “expertise.” Because it is both a platform and a megaphone, it creates its own multiplier effect for whatever you put into it. If the arguments of the last few years have proven anything, it’s that even a poorly concocted lie spreads far faster than a well-explained truth, largely… Read More