In Joffe v. Google, Inc., the Ninth Circuit held this yesterday: In the course of capturing its Street View photographs, Google collected data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. Google publicly apologized, but plaintiffs brought suit under federal and state law, including the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2511. Google argues that its data collection did not violate […]
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
CFPB director Richard Cordray sat down with the Washington Post for this Q&A on what's next for the agency.
Read the third and final part of the Washington Post's investigative report on the District of Columbia's tax lien program that has caused poor people to lose their homes. Part three discusses how "tax officials have made hundreds of mistakes in recent years by counting property owners as delinquent even after they paid their taxes, […]
That's the name of this article by Ellen Goodman concerning disclosure requirements and the First Amendment. Here is abstract: The ability of government to “nudge” with information mandates, or merely to inform consumers of risks, is circumscribed by First Amendment interests that have been poorly articulated. New graphic cigarette warning labels supplied courts with the […]
by Brian Wolfman We've blogged here about the difficulty of altering unhealthy or economically destructive behavior through public-education campaigns or mandated disclosures. Bringing down smoking rates took a lot of work. In 1964, the U.S. government said for the first time that smoking causes cancer. The next year, cigarette packages were required by law to […]
Read it here. Here's the page-one, top-of-the-paper headline in today's Washington Post: This man [pictured above the fold in the Post] owed $134 in property taxes. The District [of Columbia] sold the lien to an investor who foreclosed on his $197,000 home and sold it. He and many other homeowners like him were LEFT WITH […]
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), individuals and families can buy private health insurance coverage through in state-sponsored markets (also known as "exchnages"). The markets open for business in October 2013. The insurance coverage purchased in those markets will take effect on January 1, 2014. We posted earlier that health insurance premiums will be 50% […]
That's one of the topics of an article by Nathan Newman entitled "The Costs of Lost Privacy: Consumer Harm and Rising Economic Inequality in the Age of Google." Here is the abstract: This article emphasizes the broad consumer harm from the extraction of personal user data deployed by Google and many other online companies for […]
Unless you live in a handful of states, the answer is no, according to this informative article by Chris Morran. An excerpt: Many of us have the option of taking at least one brief lunch and/or rest break during the work day (whether you take it or not is a different discussion), and lots of […]
Read about it here. Here's an excerpt: Hiring a nonlawyer to do legal work carries the risk of a bad outcome, but the stakes can be especially high for immigrants. Misfiled forms or missed deadlines can lead to deportation. Legal fraud targeting immigrants is on the rise, according to immigration lawyers who blame confusion arising […]