The Socially Aware Blog, published by Morrison & Foerster LLP, focuses on legal developments at the intersection of social media, technology, and consumer protection. It covers topics such as evolving auto-renewal laws for subscription services, social media platform policies and rebranding, intellectual property issues related to online content embedding, legislative challenges to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and emerging consumer contract regulations in digital services. The blog analyzes regulatory changes, court decisions, and policy debates affecting social media companies, digital platforms, and consumers, with attention to privacy, content moderation, copyright, and technology-driven legal challenges.
Eric Akira Tate spoke to TechRepublic about how businesses should think about establishing or updating corporate social media policies to account for the changing standards, especially as the U.S. is in the midst of a civil rights movement.
“Reviewing social media policies…
Online service providers typically seek to mitigate risk by including arbitration clauses in their user agreements. In order for such agreements to be effective, however, they must be implemented properly. Babcock vs. Neutron Holdings, Inc., a recent Southern District…
Alex van der Wolk, Marijn Storm, and Ronan Tigner authored an article for the IAPP covering the Belgian Data Protection Authority’s challenge to the “tell-a-friend” function on social media websites that enables users to share content with their…
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, children are spending more of their lives in the digital realm, both for education and entertainment purposes—but that doesn’t mean the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is cutting online operators slack for not complying…
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the process of implementing Brexit continues. One of the key Brexit issues for the tech sector is the extent to which the UK will either align or diverge its digital regulations with the EU.
Both the…
Is scraping data from a publicly available website trade secret misappropriation? Based on a new opinion from the Eleventh Circuit, It might be.
In Compulife Software, Inc. v. Newman, Compulife Software, a life insurance quote database service alleged that…
As we have noted many times in prior articles, courts often refuse to enforce “browsewrap” agreements where terms are presented to users merely by including a link on a page or screen without requiring affirmative acceptance. Courts typically look…
A new report from the U.S. Copyright Office suggests that Congress should fine-tune the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to, among other things, alter the takedown system that platforms must adhere to in order to be eligible for the safe…
China’s “internet police,” who coordinate online censorship, have become especially busy since the coronavirus outbreak.
Inspired by homicides that were precipitated by social media posts created by one group of teenagers to incite another, a Florida bill would allow law…
