Case Law & Court Rules

Ellis v. The Cartoon Network, Inc., CIVIL ACTION FILE NO. 1:14-CV-484-TWT., 2014 BL 283139 (N.D. Ga. Oct. 08, 2014) On October 8, 2014, the Northern District Court of Georgia dismissed a class action brought for violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”) concluding that a mobile device identifier does not constitute personally identifiable information. […]

On October 8, 2014, TD Bank agreed to pay $850,000 and enhance data security safeguards after an investigation by nine state attorneys general because of a data breach. In 2012 the attorneys started the investigation after a locked bag containing two Backup Tapes with personal information of the banks customers went missing. The conduct allegedly […]

European Court of Justice — Joined cases C-141/12 and C-372/12, Judgment of 17 July 2014 Topic Data Protection – Directive 95/46/EC and definition of personal data The European Court of Justice provided further directions on the definition of personal data for the purposes of EU law. The ECJ ruled that the legal analysis contained in […]

On September 25, 2014, the NY Appellate Division of the Supreme Court denied the New York County District Attorney motion to dismiss Facebook’s appeal of In re search 381 search warrants directed to Facebook and dated July 23, 2013. In July 2013, a trial court issued bulk search warrants directing Facebook to produce virtually all records and communications […]

For the first time after the ECJ’s decision of last May (“right to be forgotten” decision) a European court has condemned Google in a case concerning the “right to be forgotten”. On September 16, 2014, the TGI (Tribunal de Grande Instance) — court of first instance of general jurisdiction in Paris — issued a decision […]

On September 16, 2014, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) brought a complaint against Yelp Inc for violation of  Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule, 16 C.F.R. Part 312. 16 C.F.R. Part 312 applies to any operator of a commercial website or online service that has actual knowledge that it collects, uses, and/or discloses personal information from […]

On September 16, 2014, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) brought a complaint against TinyCo Inc for violation of the Commission’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule, 16 C.F.R. Part 312. 16 C.F.R. Part 312 applies to any operator of a commercial website or online service that has actual knowledge that it collects, uses, and/or discloses personal information […]

Irish High Court, Case 2013 765 JR, June 18, 2014 On June 18, 2014, the Irish High Court referred to the EU Court of Justice a number of questions concerning the application of the Safe Harbor principles regarding cross-border transfer of private data, the key issue being whether national judges are “absolutely bound” by a […]

After the oral argument that took place on April 29, 2014, in Riley v. California, on June 25, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police “may not, without a warrant, search digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested”. According to the Court “a warrant less search is […]

In a ruling handed down in British Columbia, Google was ordered to remove the infringing websites’ listings from its search results. Despite the fact that Google was not a part of litigation, and its protestations that the Canadian court had no jurisdiction over Google in the United States, the Judge targeted Google’s central database in […]