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Cybersecurity & Privacy
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January 07, 2025
HHS Fines Mass. Health Firm $80K Over Ransomware Attack
Elgon Information Systems, which provides digital medical record and billing support services, will pay $80,000 over alleged healthcare data protection rule violations following a ransomware attack on its systems in March 2023 that impacted roughly 31,248 customers, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday.
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January 07, 2025
'Cyber Trust Mark' To Soon Adorn Smart Devices, Gov't Says
The makers of internet-connected devices such as home security cameras and voice-activated assistants will soon be able to obtain a label to certify that their products meet certain cybersecurity standards, under a new program officially launched by the Biden administration Tuesday.
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January 07, 2025
9th Circ. Upholds Ore. Ban On Secret Audio Recordings
A split en banc Ninth Circuit panel on Tuesday upheld as constitutional an Oregon law prohibiting secret audio recordings of people's conversations, ruling in a published opinion that the statute was narrowly tailored to Oregon's significant interest in ensuring its residents know when their conversations are recorded, even in public.
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January 07, 2025
Hacked LA Law Firm Hill Farrer Beats Suit Over Cyberattack
A Los Angeles judge Tuesday tossed a proposed class action against Hill Farrer & Burrill LLP alleging it failed to stop a preventable cyberattack carried out by hackers and said he would not allow for the complaint to be amended because the case law cited by the lead plaintiff is deficient.
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January 07, 2025
FCC Urged To Revisit New Robocall Penalty Plan
Voice providers are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to ease robocall reporting requirements, with one prominent telecom trade group calling a potential agency proposal to fine companies $10,000 for submitting false or inaccurate compliance reports "unnecessarily punitive."
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January 07, 2025
H&R Block Accused Of Negligence In Data Breach
An H&R Block user who claims cybercriminals disseminated his personal information on the dark web, after a data breach at the tax preparation firm, accused the company in a proposed class action of failing to properly protect consumer data.
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January 07, 2025
Google Avoids Data Destruction Sanctions In Ad Privacy Suit
A California federal judge has declined to sanction and hold Google in contempt for purportedly intentionally destroying key evidence in a putative class action claiming the company's ad auction practices violate privacy rights, saying the consumers' motion came too late after fact discovery closed.
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January 07, 2025
Top Groups Lobbying The FCC
The Federal Communications Commission heard from advocates more than 50 times in December on issues ranging from prison phone rates to the use of artificial intelligence in text messages, shared use of the airwaves, marketing consent rules and more.
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January 07, 2025
Didi Investor Wants To Be New Leader Of Regulatory Suit
A Didi Global Inc. investor asked Tuesday to sub in as lead plaintiff in a proposed class action claiming the Chinese ride-hailing giant misrepresented the risks of a disciplinary crackdown from the Chinese government over alleged data security violations, as the suit's current leader plans to withdraw from the litigation.
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January 07, 2025
States Push For Jury Trial In Google Ad Tech Case
State enforcers accusing Google of monopolizing key digital advertising technology have urged a Texas federal court to reject Google's bid to have the case decided by a judge, saying the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Jarkesy decision confirms the right to a jury trial.
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January 07, 2025
Judge Looks To Finally Resolve Mass. 'Right To Repair' Suit
A long-stalled fight over Massachusetts' expanded "right to repair" law requiring open access to vehicle telematics software appears to be on a fast track after a new judge took over the case and said Tuesday she plans to rule in the near future.
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January 07, 2025
Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Special Counsel Report
A Florida federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the publication of a report by special counsel Jack Smith regarding his two now-dismissed prosecutions of Donald Trump, after lawyers for the president-elect said Smith was trying to continue a political crusade now that he can no longer pursue criminal charges.
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January 07, 2025
CFPB Accuses Experian Of 'Sham' Dispute Investigations
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday sued credit reporting giant Experian in California federal court, alleging it conducts shoddy investigations into consumer-flagged reporting errors and allows previously deleted errors to reappear.
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January 06, 2025
Trump Selects Long Island Judge For EDNY's Top Prosecutor
President-elect Donald Trump, who was born in Queens, has picked a Long Island state court judge to serve as the next U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, according to an announcement made Monday on Truth Social.
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January 06, 2025
9th Circ. Urged To Extend Freeze On Calif. Social Media Law
Tech trade group NetChoice is pressing the Ninth Circuit to stop California from beginning enforcement of a new social media addiction law on Feb. 1, arguing that the lower court "flouted" precedent when it refused to find that restricting minors' access to personalized feeds violates the First Amendment.
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January 06, 2025
FTC Urges Individuals And Cos. To Exercise Caution With AI
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Friday encouraged individuals and companies to exercise caution when it comes to interacting with and deploying so-called artificial intelligence systems and tools, citing the potential for various "real-world instances of harm," including privacy and security risks.
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January 06, 2025
LinkedIn Beats Federal Privacy Claims In Suit Over DMV Info
A California federal judge has again freed LinkedIn from proposed class allegations it violated federal protections on licensed drivers' personal information, saying a LinkedIn user didn't sufficiently allege that her personal information was transmitted to the professional social media company from a Department of Motor Vehicle record.
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January 06, 2025
Google Looks To Toss Big Tech Litigant's Antitrust Claims
Google asked a Florida federal court on Monday to dismiss antitrust claims from web development company Greenflight over the search giant's reverse phone number lookup, saying the newly amended suit does not rectify the pleading problems already pointed out by the court.
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January 06, 2025
FCC Chief Floats Spectrum Sale To Fund Network Security
The outgoing head of the Federal Communications Commission on Monday proposed to quickly get a spectrum auction off the ground with proceeds going toward a key U.S. network security program.
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January 06, 2025
DOD Adds WeChat Owner, CATL To Chinese Military Co. List
The U.S. Department of Defense added dozens of businesses Monday to its list of companies affiliated with the Chinese military, including electric-car battery maker CATL and Tencent Holdings Ltd. — owner of the popular text-messaging app WeChat — prompting Tencent to slam the designation as "clearly a mistake."
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January 06, 2025
T-Mobile's Lax Policies Led To 2021 Data Hack, Wash. AG Says
Washington's attorney general on Monday accused T-Mobile of repeatedly ignoring cyber-threat warnings leading up to a 2021 data breach that exposed sensitive personal data belonging to more than 2 million customers in the state.
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January 06, 2025
KKR Pushes Fuji Soft To Pursue Legal Action Against Bain
Private equity giant KKR called on the board of Fuji Soft on Monday to take legal action against Bain Capital amid a bidding war for the company between the two competing investors, arguing that Bain's unauthorized use of confidential information and breach of its nondisclosure agreement "significantly jeopardizes" the reputation of private equity funds in Japan.
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January 06, 2025
7th Circ. Affirms 'Do Not Call' Liability, But Balks At $28M Fine
The Seventh Circuit vacated a $28.6 million penalty against two sales companies over unwanted telemarketing calls Friday, but upheld a district court ruling that they shared liability, ordering the lower court to reconsider the penalty and whether the companies could pay it.
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January 06, 2025
Girard Sharp Launches Into New Year With New Leadership
San Francisco-based Girard Sharp has kicked off the new year with a major leadership change, announcing Monday that Daniel C. Girard had stepped down as managing partner of the prominent plaintiffs complex litigation boutique he founded in 1995 and that longtime partner Dena C. Sharp was taking the reins.
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January 03, 2025
Feds Fight Trump-Backed Bid For Justices To Stop TikTok Ban
The Biden administration on Friday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a call backed by President-elect Donald Trump to freeze the looming deadline for TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company or face a nationwide ban, arguing that the video-sharing app's First Amendment claims continue to fall flat.
Expert Analysis
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Open Questions In Unsettled Geofence Warrant Landscape
The Fourth and Fifth Circuits recently reached radically divergent conclusions about the constitutionality of geofence warrants, creating an uncertain landscape in which defendants should assert and preserve the full range of conventional Fourth Amendment challenges, says Charles Fowler at McKool Smith.
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A Look At 5 States' New Data Privacy Laws
With new data privacy laws in Utah, Florida, Texas, Oregon and Montana recently in effect or coming into force this year, state-level enforcement of data privacy creates significant challenges and risks for how businesses interact with employees and consumers, and for companies that provide and use technologies in multiple jurisdictions, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.
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Antitrust In Retail: Why FTC Is Studying 'Surveillance Pricing'
The Federal Trade Commission's decision to study targeted "surveillance pricing" should provide greater clarity into the nature of the data aggregation industry, but also raises several issues, including whether these practices are in fact illegal under any established interpretations of U.S. antitrust law, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
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Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys
Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.
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Licensing And Protections For Voice Actors In The Age Of AI
While two recently enacted California laws and other recent state and federal legislation largely focus on protecting actors and musicians from the unauthorized use of their digital likenesses by generative artificial intelligence systems, the lesser-known community of professional voice actors also stands to benefit, says attorney Scott Mortman.
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2 High Court Securities Cases Could Clarify Pleading Rules
In granting certiorari in a pair of securities fraud cases against Facebook and Nvidia, respectively, the U.S. Supreme Court has signaled its intention to align interpretations of the heightened pleading standard under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act amid its uneven application among the circuit courts, say attorneys at V&E.
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What 2 Key Rulings Mean For Solicitation Under TCPA
Two recent rulings from federal district courts in New York and California — each of which came to a different conclusion — bring to light courts' continued focus on and analysis of when an alleged communication constitutes a solicitation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, say Felix Shipkevich and Jessica Livingston at Shipkevich.
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Series
Collecting Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer
The therapeutic aspects of appreciating and collecting art improve my legal practice by enhancing my observation skills, empathy, creativity and cultural awareness, says attorney Michael McCready.
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Navigating The Complexities Of Cyber Incident Reporting
When it comes to cybersecurity incident response plans, the uptick in the number and targets of legal and regulatory actions emphasizes the necessity for businesses to document the facts underlying the assumptions, complexities and obstacles of their decisions during the incident response, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.
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Managing Sanctions Defense Across Multiple Jurisdictions
Companies called before multiple regulators to account for the same conduct in this era of increased global sanctions and import-control enforcement should consider national differences in law and policy, and proactively coordinate their responses in certain key areas, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.
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Litigation Inspiration: Honoring Your Learned Profession
About 30,000 people who took the bar exam in July will learn they passed this fall, marking a fitting time for all attorneys to remember that they are members in a specialty club of learned professionals — and the more they can keep this in mind, the more benefits they will see, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.
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4 Ways To Prepare For DOD Cyber Certification Rule
Given the U.S. Department of Justice's increased scrutiny of contractor compliance with cybersecurity requirements, it is critical that contractors take certain steps now in response to the U.S. Department of Defense's proposed Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification implementation rule, say Townsend Bourne and Lillia Damalouji at Sheppard Mullin.
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Opinion
AI May Limit Key Learning Opportunities For Young Attorneys
The thing that’s so powerful about artificial intelligence is also what’s most scary about it — its ability to detect patterns may curtail young attorneys’ chance to practice the lower-level work of managing cases, preventing them from ever honing the pattern recognition skills that undergird creative lawyering, says Sarah Murray at Trialcraft.
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Takeaways From Texas AG's Novel AI Health Settlement
The Texas attorney general's recent action against a health tech company marks another step in rapidly proliferating enforcement against artificial intelligence and privacy issues across multiple states, and highlights important risk mitigation considerations for health companies that implement AI systems, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.
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What To Know About Latest Calif. Auto-Renewal Law Update
While businesses have about nine months to prepare before the recently passed amendment to California's automatic renewal law takes effect, it’s not too early to begin working on compliance efforts, including sign-up flow reviews, record retention updates and marketing language revisions, say Gonzalo Mon and Beth Chun at Kelley Drye.