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that the FTC’s Privacy Shield framework governing the transfer of personal data from Europe to the United States is no longer valid.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
Fads are a big part of January. Everyone wants to hashtag their efforts at keeping up their New Year’s Resolution (#NoCheeseMonth, #NoCarbMonth, #NoFunMonth), and our collective refusal to acknowledge that the holidays are over means we’re all still desperate for distractions. But nobody minds, because we all love fads — it’s why we get obsessed… Read More
It’s been a week, folks. Not even a week. And we’ve already got a looming hot war, an active cyberwar, three major data breaches, and the promise of a major fight over GDPR on the very near horizon. Apparently, 2020 is going to be like 2019, just more so. Normally, this is the time of… 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
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
Summer is always an interesting time for lawyers, because it’s the time of year when the Supreme Court’s term comes to a close and when, typically, they issue their most controversial or difficult rulings. In fact, the Court sometimes waits until the actual last day of the term before handing out the tough, 5-4 split… 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
The Internet went into full “give me a Drudge Report siren” mode last week about Facebook’s announcement that it anticipates a fine of three to five billion dollars from the FTC in the coming months. The fine, a result of Facebook’s violation of a 2011 consent decree with the Commission related to privacy practices, tracking,… Read More
Ask any young litigation associate in a large law firm what the most important skill they learned in their first few years practicing was, and the honest ones will say “Control-c, Control-v.” Yes, Copy-and-Paste activities occupy an enormous portion of young associates’ time, for a number of reasons. They’re risk averse, so they want to… Read More
The longer you spend in data-oriented businesses, the more you notice a funny thing about the language used to describe data sets and their uses. While, early on, the language sounds a lot like what you’d use to describe currency (“valuable,” “fungible,” “velocity,”), eventually it all starts to sound like you’re talking about food (“organic,”… Read More
It’s easy to criticize companies like Facebook or Google for their conduct when it comes to data, largely because they are so frequently the subject of widely-publicized reports and news articles. The stories documenting tech giant misdeeds (ironically, often displayed in Facebook’s newsfeed) demonstrate a growing awareness of surveillance capitalism and surveillance states, as well… Read More
We’re starting something new, a weekly collection of some of the stories that we saw or found interesting but, for some reason, didn’t have time to address meaningfully (by which we mean throw as many gifs at as possible). This week is heavy on government action, which is a good indication of the trends we’re… Read More
It’s that time of year again – the FTC has released its report on enforcement activity in 2018, including its efforts at enforcing privacy promises. It was, as you might expect, a busy year, with major proceedings instituted against a number of high-profile entities like Uber, Paypal, and Facebook. Although the total amount in fines… Read More
I think Facebook could probably characterize 2019 year-to-date as “less than fantastic.” The ongoing fallout from Cambridge Analytica in the UK, massive consumer distrust, the internal strife between what appears to be Team Zuck versus Team Cheryl, and now the looming multibillion-dollar fine that FTC seems to be preparing. It’s enough to make you drink.… Read More
Now that it’s January and everyone is finally returning to the reality where things don’t always taste like peppermint or eggnog (or both, which is just….no), it’s a good time to think about how you’re going to approach 2019. This time of year is rife with predictions and, more often, guesses about what privacy, tech,… Read More
We are proud to announce the release of our book, Data Leverage: Unlocking the Surprising Growth Potential of Data Partnerships. This book, which outlines our approach to establishing partnerships, sharing data, and protecting data assets, is a single-source guide for what we believe the most important aspects of data management programs are. We could not be… Read More
It should be clear by now that we are most comfortable expressing our thoughts in the form of movie quotes, falling as we do into that demographic of Americans who believe that if you can’t say it with a gif from an 80s movie, you don’t need to say it at all. Really, it works… Read More
One day before the midterm elections, and we’re fully into the silly season of data-related legislation in the United States, with prospective members of Congress setting forth their approach to managing privacy and security with a variety of proposals that are….let’s call them “interesting.” I say “interesting” because it’s intriguing to see that candidates treat… Read More
“There’s no way the federal government is going to create a federal privacy law.” “It’s just not going to happen.” “Not a chance, no way, forget it.” “There isn’t a political will in Washington to get it done, and so we can all just assume that it’ll all be only the states issuing regulations for… Read More
We’ve reached that time of year when everyone is basically in summer mode – non-work plans being made, last day of school or first day of camp lunches being packed, the inevitable first sunburn (for me, not the kids). It’s the time of year when there’s also a downshift in activity, and (even in the… Read More