Category Archives: Privacy

The FTC’s inadequate Kochava proposed privacy settlement

Back in 2022, the FTC accused Kochava of engaging in unfair practices because it sold vast amounts of data obtained from smart phones, including geolocation data (where the phones were); profiles of consumers, including their marital status, ethnicity, gender identity, political association, employment; what phone apps they had and how much time they spent on […]

California Law Review Symposium on Surveillance Prices & Wages

UC Berkeley School of Law is holding a symposium on surveillance pricing on Friday April 24 which will be both in person and livestreamed. Here’s the announcement: Spring 2026 California Law Review Symposium Surveillance Prices & Wages Friday, April 24, 2026 9:00am-4:30pm UC Berkeley School of Law Warren Room Reception to follow from 4:30-6:00pm Please RSVP by Friday, April […]

Solove article on why private claims are essential to enforce privacy claims

Daniel J. Solove of George Washington has written Enforcing Privacy Law: Why Private Litigation Is Essential. Here’s the abstract: Enforcement is an essential dimension for effective privacy and data protection laws—and it is probably the most important one. No matter how many privacy laws are enacted and how strong the laws are, if enforcement falls short, […]

Ninth Circuit finds no standing to challenge use of session-replay technology

Many commercial websites have adopted the use of “session-replay” technology, by which embedded code on a website records the visitor’s communications within that website, including their mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and pages visited. Businesses can then use this information in deciding how and whether to tweak their websites, and gain other consumer data. In Popa v. […]

Eleventh Circuit vacates FCC TCPA robocall rule on consent

As we await agency reversals on pro-consumer positions, a decision today from the Eleventh Circuit reminds us that many pro-consumer rules may be eliminated without the Administration doing anything. In 2023, the FCC issued a rule defining the term “prior express consent” as used in the TCPA, and providing that a consumer’s consent to a […]

CFPB report on carve-outs for financial institutions in state data-privacy laws

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has released a report examining federal and state-level privacy protections for consumers’ financial data. The report notes that protections under federal regulations for financial data have limits. Yet, many new state data privacy protections exempt financial institutions and consumer financial data covered by federal law, even though states generally have […]

Who is a “consumer” under the Video Privacy Protection Act?

Enacted in 1988, the Video Privacy Protection Act  (VPPA) makes it unlawful for a “video tape service provider” to “knowingly disclose[], to any person, personally identifiable information concerning any consumer of such provider.” The statute further defines “consumer” as “any renter, purchaser, or subscriber of goods or services from a video tape service provider.”  The […]