Balough
December 22, 2013
Tweets along with the tweeter’s email address and other user information may be subpoenaed by the government under the Stored Communications Act, a New York criminal court judge found. The New York District Attorney’s Office issued a subpoena to Twitter in connection with a disorderly conduct charge against defendant, an Occupy Wall Street protester who […]
Balough
December 22, 2013
The collection and use of an app user’s personal information, including the user’s location, without his or her consent does not violate the user’s right to privacy under the California Constitution, the Stored Communications Act, the Federal Wiretap Act, or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. However, the use may violate California’s unfair competition law, […]
Balough
December 17, 2013
A juror who posted comments on his Facebook page during a trial must give the trial court judge a copy of all of his posts, including deleted posts. A California appellate court found that the trial court was correct in ordering the juror to produce to the court for review all of his posts to […]
Balough
December 17, 2013
It’s not a federal offense to use your company computer for personal browsing, even if it is contrary to corporate policy—at least in the Ninth Circuit. The appellate court upheld the dismissal by the trial court of criminal charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) against David Nosal, a former employee of the executive search […]
Balough
December 17, 2013
Richard C. Balough was a guest lecturer at the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, Bloomington. Mr. Balough spoke to the students on March 1, 2012, concerning protecting intellectual property rights for start-up companies. His talk covered such issues as trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, non-disclosure agreements, and […]
Balough
December 17, 2013
The issue of whether individuals have any expectation of privacy concerning their location was explored as part of a presentation by Richard C. Balough at the American Bar Association’s Cyberspace Law Committee Institute in San Francisco. Geolocational privacy involves the ability of mobile devices to second-by-second track the physical location of individuals. The question is whether […]
Balough
December 17, 2013
Richard C. Balough discussed the implications of geolocation technologies on the right of privacy at a seminar sponsored by the State Bar of Wisconsin’s non-resident lawyers division in Chicago. Mr. Balough’s presentation on November 16, 2011, concerned the changing expectations of privacy in light of both the technology that allows undisclosed 24-hour monitoring of a person’s physical […]
Balough
December 17, 2013
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has published its final report setting forth best practices for businesses to protect consumers’ privacy and give them greater control over the collection and use of their personal data. Entitled “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change, Recommendations for Businesses and Policymakers,” the report recommends that businesses follow […]
Balough
December 17, 2013
If you lose your smartphone, you have a 50-50 chance of someone contacting you to return it—but even then the person probably has tried to access private or company data on the phone. That’s the conclusion reached in a “honey stick” experiment by Symantec that was recently released. For the experiment, 50 smartphones were “lost” in five […]
Balough
December 17, 2013
Law enforcement officers do not need a warrant to search a suspect’s cell phone to obtain the phone’s number, the Seventh Circuit ruled. The court said obtaining the phone number was “minimally invasive of privacy” and justified because it was possible that the number could have been erased remotely before the arresting officers obtained a […]
