In a decision with important implications not only for Facebook but potentially for many companies not primarily located in Europe but with European customers, on February 14 the Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht) for the German State Schleswig-Holstein decided that German data protection law is not applicable to U.S.-based Facebook Inc. as well as its European subsidiary, Facebook Ireland Ltd., […]
Tag Archives: Facebook
FTC Announces Settlement with Facebook
The Federal Trade Commission this afternoon announced a proposed consent decree with the prominent social network Facebook, settling allegations that Facebook violated Section 5 of the FTC Act by failing to live up to representations made to consumers regarding its privacy practices. Among other remedial measures, the FTC required Facebook to obtain independent privacy compliance audits for the next 20 years. Along with the FTC’s recent consent decrees with Google and Twitter, the FTC now effectively has regulatory oversight over the privacy and data security practices of the three most prominent social networking companies in the United States.
CNIL Cites French Yellow Pages Operator for Illegal Use of Social Media Data
The French CNIL found the French provider of universal telephone directory services “Pages Jaunes” guilty of violating several provisions of the French data protection law due to Pages Jaunes’ collection of personal data in social media sites.
Privacy Blog Content Now Available on Facebook, Twitter and Through Mobile Apps
The Hogan Lovells Chronicle of Data Protection — our blog — has gone social. This entry tells you about our Facebook page (where all of the content of the blog is available) and our Twitter account.
Round Up of Developments in Social Media Law
This blog entry provides a summary of the Hogan Lovells Chronicle of Data Protection’s recent coverage of legal developments regarding social media.
CAN-SPAM Held to Apply to Social Media Messaging
On March 28, 2011, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California held, in Facebook, Inc. v. MAXBOUNTY, Inc., case no. CV-10-4712-JF, that messages sent by Facebook users to their Facebook friends’ walls, news feeds or home pages are “electronic mail messages” under the CAN-SPAM Act. The court, in denying the defendant MAXBOUNTY’s motion to dismiss, rejected that CAN-SPAM applies only to traditional e-mail as it is commonly understood. The ruling is the most expansive judicial interpretation to date of the types of messages falling within the purview of the CAN-SPAM Act. The court did not reach or otherwise address the underlying merits of the CAN-SPAM claims.
Two Hogan & Hartson Advisories on the Use of Social Media
Many people remember the now-dated cartoon from the New Yorker magazine showing two dogs sitting in front of a computer, with one observing to the other “the best part about the Internet is that no one knows you are a dog”.