New Media and Technology Law Blog

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Oludolapo Akinkugbe
Ryan Blaney
Emily Chan
Wai Choy
Sandra Crawshaw-Sparks
Margaret A. Dale
Trevor Dodge
Nolan Goldberg
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Daryn Grossman
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Vincent Indelicato
Stephanie Kapinos
Alexander Kaplan
Frances P. Kelley
Arianna Lacerte
Charley Lozada
Steve Ma
Kevin Milewski
Jonathan Mollod
David Munkittrick
Jeffrey Neuburger
Joshua M. Newville
Louis Rambo
Proskauer Rose
Michael Saliba
Jennifer R. Scullion
Kathleen R Semanski
Anisha Shenai-Khatkhate
Theresa Smith
Divya Taneja
Samantha M. Weiner
Steven O. Weise
Andrew Wingfield
Maja Zerjal

Latest from New Media and Technology Law Blog

On May 14, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order revoking, among other things, his predecessor’s action (Executive Order 13295 of May 28, 2020) that directed the executive branch to clarify certain provisions under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (“Section 230” or the “CDA”) and remedy what former President Trump had claimed was the social media platforms’ “selective censorship” of user content and the “flagging” of content that does not violate…
On April 30, 2021 a California district court trimmed various federal privacy-related claims, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) claim, from a highly-visible, ongoing putative class action against fintech services company Plaid Inc. (“Plaid”), but allowed other state law privacy claims to go forward.  The lawsuit involves Plaid’s alleged collection and use of consumers’ banking login credentials and later processing and selling of such financial transaction data to third parties without adequate notice…
Last week, the Italian data protection authority (the “GPDP”) opened an investigation after reports that a dataset allegedly containing data compiled from 500 million LinkedIn profiles and other websites was available for sale on a hacker forum.  Apparently, this data represents more than two-thirds of LinkedIn’s estimated 740 million users.  The hacker reportedly posted approximately two million records visibly online as evidence of the dataset, and offered to sell the rest for an undisclosed bitcoin…
In a narrowly drawn, yet significant decision, the Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit and ruled that Google LLC’s (“Google”) copying of some of the Sun Java Application Programming Interface (API) declaring code was a fair use as a matter of law, ending Oracle America Inc.’s (“Oracle”) infringement claims over Google’s use of portions of the Java API code in the Android mobile platform. (Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., No. 18-956, 593…
Happy Silver Anniversary to Section 230 of Communications Decency Act (“CDA” or “Section 230”), which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in February 1996. At that time, Congress enacted CDA Section 230 in response to case law that raised the specter of liability for any online service provider that attempted to moderate its platform, thus discouraging the screening out and blocking of offensive material. As has been extensively reported on this blog, the …
With the change in administrations in Washington, there has been a drive to enact or amend legislation in a variety of areas. However, most initiatives lack the zeal found with the bipartisan interest in “reining in social media” and pursuing reforms to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA).  As we have documented,, the parade of bills and approaches to curtail the scope of the immunities given to “interactive computer…
On January 14, 2021, Southwest Airlines Co. (“Southwest”) filed a complaint in a Texas district court against an online travel site, Kiwi.com, Inc. (“Kiwi”), alleging, among other things, that Kiwi’s scraping of fare information from Southwest’s website constituted a breach of contract and a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). (Southwest Airlines Co. v. Kiwi.com, Inc., No. 21-00098 (N.D. Tex. filed Jan. 14, 2021)). Southwest is no stranger in seeking…
As reported last week, it appears that a state-sponsored security hack has resulted in a major security compromise in widely-used software offered by a company called SolarWinds. The compromised software, known as Orion, is enterprise network management software that helps organizations manage their networks, servers and networked devices. The software is widely-used by both public and private sector companies. The exposure, in the form of “spyware” inserted into one or more updates to Orion, is…
On December 9, 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple and Google will block the data broker X-Mode Social Inc. (“X-Mode”) from collecting location data from iPhone and Android users. Apple and Google have reportedly informed app developers to remove the X-Mode social tracking SDK from all of their apps within a short period of time or risk removal from the platforms’ app stores.  This action apparently was prompted by reports that X-Mode was…