The New York state attorney general’s office on Wednesday announced a $50,000 settlement with a company that made millions of dollars selling fake followers and engagement to social media users seeking to boost their online profiles. The settlement between New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and now-defunct social media company Devumi is one of the first legal actions in the U.S. cracking down on the practice of selling bot followers and fake “likes.” It is the first finding by a…

In the course of this week, the UK Competition and Markets Authority published a guidance note on Influencer Marketing and introduced new requirements which influencers should abide by. Popular bloggers, vloggers, celebrities and social media personalities (also referred to as ‘influencers’) can have a lot of influence over people’s buying decisions if they promote a product or service in their posts. Per the Authority, people need to know if influencers have been paid, incentivised or…

As reported in the Business Daily earlier this week, the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal by beer maker East African Breweries Limited (EABL) challenging a law passed a few years ago requiring health warning messages to beer bottles. The Honourable Court found nothing wrong with the law because there was a need to protect consumers of alcoholic beverages according to Article 46 of the Constitution on Consumer Rights. The court upheld a decision of Supreme Court…

Our Co – Organizer, Angela Wanjohi will be at this month’s Hacks/Hackers Nairobi #HHNBO to help make Kenya’s traffic laws easily accessible to citizens. Journalists sometimes call themselves “hacks,” a tongue-in-cheek term for someone who can churn out words in any situation. Hackers use the digital equivalent of duct tape to whip out code. Hacks/Hackers tries to bridge those two worlds. It’s for hackers exploring technologies to filter, visualize and distribute information in a narrative…

Impatient with a lack of World Trade Organization rules on the explosive growth of e-commerce, 76 members – including the United States, China, the European Union and Japan – agreed to start negotiating a new framework. China, which is locked in a trade war with the United States, signaled conditional support for the initiative but said it should also take into account the needs of developing countries. E-commerce, or online trade in goods and services,…

This past week, there have been several news reports and announcements that the Government seeks identifiable data of persons in order to improve public service delivery. One of the classes you have to go through as a law student is Jurisprudence. The theory of law. Where you’re taught about the various schools of thought that influence law and decision making. One that stood out for me years back and still resonates to date is the Social…

The Kenya Copyright Board recently announced the grant of license to three Collective Management Organizations to collect royalties on behalf of content creators for the year 2019. KECOBO licenses and supervises the collective management organizations in Kenya. Currently, there are three (3) such CMOs in Kenya and they are: Kenya Association of Music Producers (KAMP),  Music Copyright Society (MCSK) and the Performers Rights Society of Kenya (PRiSK). Collective management is the exercise of copyright and related…