November 18, 2019
Information governance (IG) is a key corporate strategy than can help companies realize the value and minimize risk from the data they generate and receive. This is evident from the guidance on antitrust compliance programs the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently promulgated. Companies with an IG program including information retention policies and education on inappropriate document destruction stand a much greater chance of obtaining relief from antitrust violations than enterprises lacking IG measures.
November 12, 2019
One might assume that the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) and associated FTC COPPA Rule provide actual protection over our children’s personal information when they are online. In reality, however, COPPA and the COPPA Rule merely install a minor speed bump on the well-traveled information superhighway, requiring online content providers in the United States to get a parent or guardian to check a box before marketers, data brokers and the advertising technology (“ad tech”) industry can proceed to harvest and exploit the personal data of children 12 and under.
October 9, 2019
On September 4, 2019 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Google and its subsidiary YouTube agreed to “pay a record $170 Million to settle allegations by the Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General that the YouTube video-sharing service illegally collected personal information from children without their parents’ consent” (the “Google-YouTube Settlement”). Specifically, the FTC and the State of New York (NYS) jointly alleged that YouTube violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule by collecting personal information from minors under the age of 13 by persistent identifiers, commonly known as cookies, to deliver targeted behavioral advertising to children on a variety of “child-directed” YouTube channels.
October 4, 2019
CCPA may have been just the beginning of California’s privacy framework. On September 25, 2019, Californians for Consumer Privacy, the group behind the California ballot initiative that resulted in California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), filed a new initiative intended for California’s November 2020 general election ballot, which they have labeled as the “California Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act” or CPREA. This time the group is expanding its efforts to implement additional privacy and data protection standards for California citizens, including minors, to create a formal governmental privacy enforcement agency, and to address the use of personal information in political campaigns.
September 18, 2019
Litigation readiness is an essential step for parties who wish to be prepared for the electronic discovery process. While significant for the production phase of discovery, litigation readiness has proven indispensable for helping clients preserve relevant electronically stored information (ESI). This is particularly the case under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e), which generally safeguards parties from sanctions who have implemented and followed litigation readiness measures.