The IOC has just released its Social Media, Blogging, and Internet Guidelines for Participants and Other Accredited Persons at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games. The Guidelines apply to all accredited persons, including all athletes, coaches,
officials, and personnel of National Olympic Committees and International
Federations and members of media accredited to the Olympic Games. The guidelines apply January 30th through February 26th.
Under the Guidelines, "video or audio content taken from within Olympic venues (including from
within the Olympic Villages or the Olympic Park) must only be for
personal use and must not be uploaded or shared on any website, blog,
social media page, public photo- or video-sharing sites or mobile
application." With the increased usage of cloud based services to save personal photos and videos, does this mean that participants may not utilize applications such as iCloud or Dropbox to save their videos or photos?
Olympians may not post about their sponsors during the games unless they
have received prior approval from the IOC or their National Olympic
Committee. In 2011, I predicted that the London Social Media Guidelines would cause some problems for Participants. Unfortunately, my prediction was correct. During the 2012 London Games, the Guidelines caused a major backlash with some of the Olympians. Therefore, it is imperative for Participants to understand the Guidelines so they can maximize their digital presence before, during, and after the Olympics so they are not penalized for non-compliance.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Friday, June 14, 2013
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Real Madrid Facebook Fans Are Being Targeted By Phishers
According to multiple media organizations, malware is spreading all over sports branded Facebook pages. Fans Against Kounterfeit Enterprises has uncovered a Trojan Horse that is spreading across NFL branded pages on Facebook. The New York Times has stated that this malware may drain Facebook users' bank accounts.
These malware attacks are not just targeting U.S. sports properties. According to Symantec, phishers are now going after Real Madrid's branded Facebook page. This demonstrates that there may be a coordinated attack against sports fans who visit the social media pages of major sports and entertainment properties.
The bottom line is that Facebook along with sports and entertainment properties must be very vigilant in policing their digital properties. Sports social media enthusiasts who visit Facebook and interact with sports branded pages must be very cautious so their computers are not infected and bank accounts drained.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
These malware attacks are not just targeting U.S. sports properties. According to Symantec, phishers are now going after Real Madrid's branded Facebook page. This demonstrates that there may be a coordinated attack against sports fans who visit the social media pages of major sports and entertainment properties.
The bottom line is that Facebook along with sports and entertainment properties must be very vigilant in policing their digital properties. Sports social media enthusiasts who visit Facebook and interact with sports branded pages must be very cautious so their computers are not infected and bank accounts drained.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Oregon Bans Schools From Engaging Social Media Monitoring Firms To Track Students and Coaches
Oregon has officially joined Delaware, California, New Jersey, Michigan,
Arkansas, Utah, and New Mexico in protecting their schools, school employees,
students, and taxpayers from the costs and legal liability
issues associated with social media monitoring students and employees. Under Oregon SB 344:
"A public or private educational institution may not: (a) Require, request, suggest or cause a student or prospective student to disclose or to provide access through the student's or prospective student's user name or password to a personal social media account. (b) Compel a student or prospective student, as a condition of participation in curricular or extracurricular activities or of acceptance, to add a coach, teacher, administrator or other employee or volunteer of the educational institution to the student's or prospective student's list of contacts associated with a social media website. (c) Take, or threaten to take, any action to discharge, discipline, prohibit from participation in curricular or extracurricular activities or otherwise penalize a student or potential student for refusal to disclose the information or take actions specified in paragraphs (a) and (b) of this subsection."
The enactment of SB 344 will greatly benefit schools, school employees, students, and taxpayers because collectively public and private educational institutions in Oregon may save millions of dollars in potential compliance costs and tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in potential costs associated with social media related lawsuits. SB 344 along with similar laws around the country have banned schools from being able to utilize the social media monitoring services of UDiligence, Varsity Monitor, Fieldhouse Media, and Jump Forward to track the personal social media accounts of students and school employees.
It appears that the only way for the above mentioned social media monitoring services to properly track students or school employees is if a student or employee either downloads an application onto his personal digital account(s), or provides a username(s) and/or password(s) to his personal account(s), or if a student authenticates his social media account(s). These services may claim that all they need to properly work is a student's name or alias to search for a public social media account. However, performing an Internet search and guessing that an account belongs to a particular student just because it is on the Internet may put you in the same position as one of the people portrayed in this hilarious State Farm Commercial. According to CNN, as of last August, Facebook may have at least 83 million fake accounts and according to PRWeek, Twitter may have as many as 20 million fake accounts.
At least 36 states have introduced social media privacy legislation along with Congress. It may only be a matter time before every state bans schools from utilizing the social media monitoring services of the above mentioned companies.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
"A public or private educational institution may not: (a) Require, request, suggest or cause a student or prospective student to disclose or to provide access through the student's or prospective student's user name or password to a personal social media account. (b) Compel a student or prospective student, as a condition of participation in curricular or extracurricular activities or of acceptance, to add a coach, teacher, administrator or other employee or volunteer of the educational institution to the student's or prospective student's list of contacts associated with a social media website. (c) Take, or threaten to take, any action to discharge, discipline, prohibit from participation in curricular or extracurricular activities or otherwise penalize a student or potential student for refusal to disclose the information or take actions specified in paragraphs (a) and (b) of this subsection."
The enactment of SB 344 will greatly benefit schools, school employees, students, and taxpayers because collectively public and private educational institutions in Oregon may save millions of dollars in potential compliance costs and tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in potential costs associated with social media related lawsuits. SB 344 along with similar laws around the country have banned schools from being able to utilize the social media monitoring services of UDiligence, Varsity Monitor, Fieldhouse Media, and Jump Forward to track the personal social media accounts of students and school employees.
It appears that the only way for the above mentioned social media monitoring services to properly track students or school employees is if a student or employee either downloads an application onto his personal digital account(s), or provides a username(s) and/or password(s) to his personal account(s), or if a student authenticates his social media account(s). These services may claim that all they need to properly work is a student's name or alias to search for a public social media account. However, performing an Internet search and guessing that an account belongs to a particular student just because it is on the Internet may put you in the same position as one of the people portrayed in this hilarious State Farm Commercial. According to CNN, as of last August, Facebook may have at least 83 million fake accounts and according to PRWeek, Twitter may have as many as 20 million fake accounts.
At least 36 states have introduced social media privacy legislation along with Congress. It may only be a matter time before every state bans schools from utilizing the social media monitoring services of the above mentioned companies.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
Social Media Monitoring Companies May Be Creating Millions Of Dollars in Legal Liability for NCAA Athletic Departments
State legislatures around the country are banning public and private schools from being able to utilize social media monitoring companies to track the personal digital accounts of their athletic department personnel and student-athletes. At least 11 states (Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington), have enacted laws that ban schools from being able to verify the social media user names and/or passwords of their coaches and/or student-athletes. Several other states have passed legislation that is waiting final approval by their state's governor.
At least 36 states along with Congress have introduced bills to protect schools and students from companies that are selling legal liability time bombs to NCAA schools. Some of these companies may claim they are a "leader" in social media monitoring services and/or in "educating" student-athletes. Common sense and due diligence prove otherwise.
Varsity Monitor, UDiligence, JumpForward, and Fieldhouse Media each sell social media monitoring services that schools in at least 11 states may not utilize to track the personal digital accounts of either their coaches and/or their student-athletes because of new laws. Schools deploying the social media monitoring services of these companies may be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars, and/or be sued for violating their student's first and/or fourth amendment rights, and/or lose millions of dollars in federal funding.
According to Deadspin, Varsity Monitor may have some troubling ethical and legal problems to address. According to Time Magazine, UDiligence was monetizing the personal photographs of the student-athletes it was monitoring to advertise their services. JumpForward has advertised that they utilize the usernames and passwords of student-athletes for their social media monitoring service.
The most troubling service may be Fieldhouse Media because it appears to be trying to differentiate itself as having less invasive tactics than the other companies. NCAA athletic departments should not be fooled. It appears that in order for Fieldhouse Media's social media monitoring service to properly work student-athletes need to verify their social media username(s). Arkansas, California, Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, and New Mexico have already generally banned schools from being able to ask a student to verify this information.
Fieldhouse Media's Kevin DeShazo's business practices appear to raise serious ethical questions. For example, last year Mr. DeShazo created a press release announcing his social media monitoring service that quoted me without my cooperation. Did Mr. DeShazo ask for my permission to be quoted in a press release designed to sell his social media monitoring services? No. Why is Mr. DeShazo trying to associate my reputation with a practice that I along with lawyers and risk professionals from around the country believe may pose tremendous legal and financial risks to not only NCAA athletic departments, but also athletic directors and their employees?
If you perform due diligence on Mr. DeShazo you may find some issues that warrant further explanation. For example, according to his publicly available LinkedIn Profile from last year it states that before he started his social media monitoring firm he had no verifiable social media or NCAA compliance/advisory experience. Interestingly, according to his recent publicly available LinkedIn Profile it now claims that prior to starting his social media monitoring company he was working for a social media marketing firm. If Mr. DeShazo was actually working for a social media marketing company before he started his social media consulting firm why wasn't it listed previously? Also, why do some of Mr. DeShazo's listed company creation and/or employment dates not match with filings with the Oklahoma Secretary of State?
In 2001, George O'Leary, Notre Dame's head football coach resigned five days after being hired because of "inaccuracies" in his published biography. In other words, Mr. O'Leary was caught intentionally misleading NCAA athletic departments about his background. After George O'Leary, Jayson Blair was caught creating a web of lies and was terminated from the New York Times, and then James Frey, the author of "A Million Little Pieces" was caught lying to Oprah.
Anyone that approaches schools to sell services to track personal social media accounts is selling a legal liability time bomb. If a school hires a social media monitoring firm to track the personal digital content of their students or employees and it misses an indication that there may be a crime committed it may cost the school more than $100 million dollars. For proof, just review the Penn State emails regarding the Jerry Sandusky matter. Does a school want to be on the hook for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in legal liability because it was utilizing a social media monitoring service to track personal digital accounts?
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
At least 36 states along with Congress have introduced bills to protect schools and students from companies that are selling legal liability time bombs to NCAA schools. Some of these companies may claim they are a "leader" in social media monitoring services and/or in "educating" student-athletes. Common sense and due diligence prove otherwise.
Varsity Monitor, UDiligence, JumpForward, and Fieldhouse Media each sell social media monitoring services that schools in at least 11 states may not utilize to track the personal digital accounts of either their coaches and/or their student-athletes because of new laws. Schools deploying the social media monitoring services of these companies may be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars, and/or be sued for violating their student's first and/or fourth amendment rights, and/or lose millions of dollars in federal funding.
According to Deadspin, Varsity Monitor may have some troubling ethical and legal problems to address. According to Time Magazine, UDiligence was monetizing the personal photographs of the student-athletes it was monitoring to advertise their services. JumpForward has advertised that they utilize the usernames and passwords of student-athletes for their social media monitoring service.
The most troubling service may be Fieldhouse Media because it appears to be trying to differentiate itself as having less invasive tactics than the other companies. NCAA athletic departments should not be fooled. It appears that in order for Fieldhouse Media's social media monitoring service to properly work student-athletes need to verify their social media username(s). Arkansas, California, Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, and New Mexico have already generally banned schools from being able to ask a student to verify this information.
Fieldhouse Media's Kevin DeShazo's business practices appear to raise serious ethical questions. For example, last year Mr. DeShazo created a press release announcing his social media monitoring service that quoted me without my cooperation. Did Mr. DeShazo ask for my permission to be quoted in a press release designed to sell his social media monitoring services? No. Why is Mr. DeShazo trying to associate my reputation with a practice that I along with lawyers and risk professionals from around the country believe may pose tremendous legal and financial risks to not only NCAA athletic departments, but also athletic directors and their employees?
If you perform due diligence on Mr. DeShazo you may find some issues that warrant further explanation. For example, according to his publicly available LinkedIn Profile from last year it states that before he started his social media monitoring firm he had no verifiable social media or NCAA compliance/advisory experience. Interestingly, according to his recent publicly available LinkedIn Profile it now claims that prior to starting his social media monitoring company he was working for a social media marketing firm. If Mr. DeShazo was actually working for a social media marketing company before he started his social media consulting firm why wasn't it listed previously? Also, why do some of Mr. DeShazo's listed company creation and/or employment dates not match with filings with the Oklahoma Secretary of State?
In 2001, George O'Leary, Notre Dame's head football coach resigned five days after being hired because of "inaccuracies" in his published biography. In other words, Mr. O'Leary was caught intentionally misleading NCAA athletic departments about his background. After George O'Leary, Jayson Blair was caught creating a web of lies and was terminated from the New York Times, and then James Frey, the author of "A Million Little Pieces" was caught lying to Oprah.
Anyone that approaches schools to sell services to track personal social media accounts is selling a legal liability time bomb. If a school hires a social media monitoring firm to track the personal digital content of their students or employees and it misses an indication that there may be a crime committed it may cost the school more than $100 million dollars. For proof, just review the Penn State emails regarding the Jerry Sandusky matter. Does a school want to be on the hook for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in legal liability because it was utilizing a social media monitoring service to track personal digital accounts?
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Is Google Enabling Illegal Ads That May Harm Children?
Advertisements
for counterfeit merchandise, illegal drugs, pornography, etc... have been on the
Internet for years. Unfortunately, it appears
some companies that have the ability to remove ads and/or links from their web
sites to illegal products and/or services may not be putting forth their best
effort to do so. Refusing to properly
address these issues may lead to major legal and financial consequences.
Recently,
Mississippi
Attorney General Jim Hood publicly asked Google to "address issues on
its web site that are allowing users to obtain illegal and counterfeit goods,
including dangerous drugs without a prescription." According to Mr. Hood, " “[o]n every
check we have made, Google’s search engine gave us easy access to illegal goods
including websites which offer dangerous drugs without a prescription,
counterfeit goods of every description, and infringing copies of movies, music,
software and games,”. Mr. Hood further stated, “[t]his behavior means that
Google is putting consumers at risk and facilitating wrongdoing, all while
profiting handsomely from illegal behavior.”
Google's
response to Mr. Hood's allegations that it is not doing enough to stop the
proliferation of ads for counterfeit goods has been called insufficient
and inadequate. According to the Associated
Press, Mr. Hood has stated that Google's previous response was also
"evasive" and "overly technical" and that its "lack of
meaningful action is unacceptable."
The
allegations against Google are extremely serious and very troubling. This is not the first time it has been
alleged that Google is profiting from illegal behavior. In 2006, a lawsuit was filed and later
withdrawn alleging that
Google profited from child pornography. In 2009, Rosetta Stone sued Google and
eventually reached a confidential
settlement regarding allegations that Google illegally sold Rosetta Stone
trademarks to third-party advertisers that linked to sites selling counterfeit
software.
Google
has a proven track record of turning a blind eye to illegal ads on its
platform. In August 2011, Google agreed
to "forfeit
$500 million for allowing online Canadian pharmacies to place
advertisements through its AdWords program targeting consumers in the United
States, resulting in the unlawful importation of controlled and non-controlled
prescription drugs into the United States." According to the Wall
Street Journal, Google's chief executive knew about the illicit conduct
that led to the record forfeiture. The U.S.
Attorney for Rhode Island stated, "[w]e simply know from the documents
we reviewed and witnesses we interviewed that Larry Page knew what was going
on".
Google's
alleged behavior of putting advertising profits ahead of its concern for users
was also recently criticized in the United Kingdom. According to The
Guardian, "thousands upon thousands of people are paying wholly
unnecessary fees to access basic services provided by the government". This appears to be occurring because Google is
not doing enough to police its AdWords system.
It took The Guardian's researchers, "milliseconds....to find a site
in breach of Google's rules." While
Google did remove one of the sites that The
Guardian reported was fleecing UK consumers, "the search engine
continues to promote copycat sites, happily taking the revenue that they
generate". The problem of illegal
content being easily accessible on Google's web sites is so serious that Prime
Minister David Cameron recently called out Google for not doing enough to
protect our children.
Facebook
recently announced that it blocks users in the Netherlands from seeing ads
for online gambling to comply with the Dutch Betting and Gaming Act. Last month, LinkedIn
updated its terms of service to ban the advertising of sexual services on its
platform. For more than ten years,
Google has been removing content from its French
and German indexes that may conflict with local laws. If Facebook and LinkedIn are able to implement
programs that block ads for services or products that are illegal in some parts
of the world why hasn't Google done more to protect its
users? Is it because 95%
of its revenues comes from advertising?
According
to the Pew
Internet Project report, 93% of all U.S. teens between the ages of 12-17 go
online. In addition, 47% of parents are
“very concerned” about their child’s
exposure to inappropriate content through the Internet or cell phones. This month, the Digital
Citizens Alliance released A
Report on How Google and YouTube Stand to Benefit When Bad Actors Exploit the
Internet that appears to demonstrate that Google is not doing enough to
protect our children. The report
provides multiple recent examples where YouTube is exhibiting ads for illegal
goods and/or services next to videos that appear to be targeted to children and/or teens.
While
some regulators
appear to be weighing whether television advertising regulations should be
applied to online video platforms, it is apparent that more safeguards are needed
to protect children from illegal ads that appear on YouTube and other web sites. Google's less than stellar record in monitoring
its ecosystem for illegal ads may push regulators and/or lawmakers to
over-regulate the Internet and stifle innovation.
Unless
Google acts expeditiously to better police its digital properties, it would not
surprise me if a coalition of state attorney generals commences legal action to
protect our children from the significant number of illegal ads that appear on
Google's web sites. To avoid a costly
and drawn out legal quagmire that may not only affect its advertising business, but the entire digital advertising economy, it may be in Google's best interest to fully cooperate with the NAAG and
take meaningful action that protects users from ads for illegal products
and/or services.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Top Secret PRISM Program Enables U.S. Government to Access the Personal Digital Content of Internet Users
According to The Washington Post, the "National Security Agency (NSA) and the FBI are tapping directly into the
central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting
audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection
logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets." These new revelations came on the heels of a report late last night that the federal government is secretly collecting vast amounts of data from Verizon phone records.
The documents that the Washington Post has received allege that “[c]ollection (occurs) directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.” The court approved program is called PRISM.
The NSA and FBI were created to protect our country. I became homeless for a period of time because of the terrorist attacks in New York City on 9/11/2001. I will never forget the American heroism I witnessed from New York's Bravest and Finest that day.
I believe that our government should have the offensive capability to protect our citizens from future terrorist attacks. The alleged breadth and depth of our surveillance capabilities does not surprise me. It is possible that without these programs a dirty bomb may have already been detonated in the middle of a large American city and/or a similar large scale 9/11 style attack may have occurred.
As a society we need to determine how to properly balance the safety of our country with the personal privacy of our citizens because the decisions we make today will determine our future. Are the proper checks and balances in place to ensure that the government does not abuse its power? This question needs to be answered sooner rather than later.
I want future generations to experience life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness without losing their personal privacy.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
The documents that the Washington Post has received allege that “[c]ollection (occurs) directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.” The court approved program is called PRISM.
The NSA and FBI were created to protect our country. I became homeless for a period of time because of the terrorist attacks in New York City on 9/11/2001. I will never forget the American heroism I witnessed from New York's Bravest and Finest that day.
I believe that our government should have the offensive capability to protect our citizens from future terrorist attacks. The alleged breadth and depth of our surveillance capabilities does not surprise me. It is possible that without these programs a dirty bomb may have already been detonated in the middle of a large American city and/or a similar large scale 9/11 style attack may have occurred.
As a society we need to determine how to properly balance the safety of our country with the personal privacy of our citizens because the decisions we make today will determine our future. Are the proper checks and balances in place to ensure that the government does not abuse its power? This question needs to be answered sooner rather than later.
I want future generations to experience life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness without losing their personal privacy.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Louisiana bans Tweeting while driving
Yesterday, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed a bill that bans Tweeting while driving. SB 147 will become effective August 1, 2013, and violators may be fined up to $175 for the first offense and up to $500 for subsequent violations.
The new law bans not only Tweeting, but any other social media usage while driving. I believe it is important for drivers and auto manufacturers to become more aware of the distracted driving issues inherent with making one's car a mobile/apps interconnected hub. This new law is another example of the tremendous legal liability issues inherent with social media usage.
To learn how to properly handle social media liability issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
The new law bans not only Tweeting, but any other social media usage while driving. I believe it is important for drivers and auto manufacturers to become more aware of the distracted driving issues inherent with making one's car a mobile/apps interconnected hub. This new law is another example of the tremendous legal liability issues inherent with social media usage.
To learn how to properly handle social media liability issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Facebook losing advertising revenues due to hate speech
Facebook is the most popular social network in the world. However, being the most popular social media platform may also create unforeseen challenges because some people and/or entities may post inappropriate and/or illegal content onto your platform. According to the New York Times and Financial Times, multiple advertisers have stopped placing ads on Facebook because some of them have appeared next to allegedly offensive content.
Several advocacy groups have privately and publicly complained to Facebook about the content posted on its platform. While Facebook may have initially inadvertently missed these complaints, they have caught the attention of some advertisers. This matter may demonstrate the need for Facebook to either create a better algorithm that scans uploaded content and/or hire more people to respond to consumer complaints.
While many advertisers rely on targeted/behavioral advertising, this situation appears to demonstrate one of the downsides of this type of advertising if the proper safeguards are not implemented. Due to the viral nature of social media, companies must better understand the platforms they utilize as advertising partners.
To learn how to properly handle social media advertising issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Several advocacy groups have privately and publicly complained to Facebook about the content posted on its platform. While Facebook may have initially inadvertently missed these complaints, they have caught the attention of some advertisers. This matter may demonstrate the need for Facebook to either create a better algorithm that scans uploaded content and/or hire more people to respond to consumer complaints.
While many advertisers rely on targeted/behavioral advertising, this situation appears to demonstrate one of the downsides of this type of advertising if the proper safeguards are not implemented. Due to the viral nature of social media, companies must better understand the platforms they utilize as advertising partners.
To learn how to properly handle social media advertising issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Washington State Bans NCAA Schools From Using Social Media Monitoring Services on Coaches
Washington State has banned employers from generally requiring employees to turn over their personal social media credentials. Earlier this week, Washington Governor Inslee signed SB 521 that will protect Washington state employers from becoming required to hire social media monitoring companies to review the personal digital accounts of their employees.
This law may save Washington employers tens of millions of dollars in potential costs associated with social media monitoring the personal digital accounts of employees and it will protect the personal privacy of employees. This includes the costs associated with hiring social media monitoring companies, increased cyber liability insurance costs, and legal fees and judgements inherent with negligent social media monitoring. The law was enacted because some companies are contacting employers, in particular colleges, to sell them social media monitoring services that are legal liability time bombs.
If an employer is monitoring the personal digital accounts of their employees and misses an issue that may indicate an employee may be violating the law and the employer does not report this information to the proper authorities in a timely manner the employer may have tremendous legal liability. A handful of emails from more than 10 years ago appears to be the main evidence that several high level administrators at Penn State knew that Jerry Sandusky was molesting young boys on its campus. Absent the digital evidence, it would have been much more difficult to prove that some Penn State employees allegedly knew about Jerry Sandusky's illegal activities. The email evidence so far appears to have cost Penn State almost $50 million dollars in fines, legal and investigatory fees, and other related costs.
The only way for an employer to know whether a particular personal digital account belongs to an employee is if it verifies that the account belongs to the person whom it claims to represent. In other words, for a social media monitoring service to properly work an employee must at a minimum authentic his personal social media user name. In general, verifying a personal social media user name violates Washington's SB 521 along with laws in approximately ten other states. Therefore, Washington employers, including schools may not utilize social media monitoring companies to track their employees' personal digital accounts.
To learn how to properly handle social media issues in your company or school you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
This law may save Washington employers tens of millions of dollars in potential costs associated with social media monitoring the personal digital accounts of employees and it will protect the personal privacy of employees. This includes the costs associated with hiring social media monitoring companies, increased cyber liability insurance costs, and legal fees and judgements inherent with negligent social media monitoring. The law was enacted because some companies are contacting employers, in particular colleges, to sell them social media monitoring services that are legal liability time bombs.
If an employer is monitoring the personal digital accounts of their employees and misses an issue that may indicate an employee may be violating the law and the employer does not report this information to the proper authorities in a timely manner the employer may have tremendous legal liability. A handful of emails from more than 10 years ago appears to be the main evidence that several high level administrators at Penn State knew that Jerry Sandusky was molesting young boys on its campus. Absent the digital evidence, it would have been much more difficult to prove that some Penn State employees allegedly knew about Jerry Sandusky's illegal activities. The email evidence so far appears to have cost Penn State almost $50 million dollars in fines, legal and investigatory fees, and other related costs.
The only way for an employer to know whether a particular personal digital account belongs to an employee is if it verifies that the account belongs to the person whom it claims to represent. In other words, for a social media monitoring service to properly work an employee must at a minimum authentic his personal social media user name. In general, verifying a personal social media user name violates Washington's SB 521 along with laws in approximately ten other states. Therefore, Washington employers, including schools may not utilize social media monitoring companies to track their employees' personal digital accounts.
To learn how to properly handle social media issues in your company or school you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Will Anthony Weiner's "Weiner" Tweets Derail His Candidacy For Mayor of New York City?
New York City is the greatest city in the world. I lived in the City (NYC'ers call it the City) before and after 9/11. It is the city that is full of come back stories. As Frank Sinatra sang in New York New York, "if I can make it there I can make it anywhere". Almost two years ago, former Congressman Anthony Weiner resigned from Congress because of inappropriate Tweets he sent that contained photos of his private parts. However, he has recently announced his candidacy for Mayor of New York City.
In 2011, Weiner first claimed that his Twitter account was hacked after he was asked about some troubling Tweets being sent from his account. However, when he declined to ask that the proper authorities investigate the matter I knew he was not being completely honest about the situation. When I appeared on MSNBC to discuss the crisis I didn't want to accuse a member of Congress of lying so I only alluded to the troubling nature of the alleged claims by Weiner.
Until Weiner's social media usage became news, his political star was extremely bright. Since leaving Congress, he has worked to rehabilitate his personal life and career. While he may have learned some hard (no pun intended) lessons about social media, it appears that his staff needs some education on how to properly post video online to ensure it doesn't become a news story.
In general, politicians seem to be able to rebound from sex scandals and handsome profitably. Time will tell if Weiner is added to the list. Regardless of the outcome of the election, it will be interesting to see how Weiner handles all of the questions related to his past social media endeavors.
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
In 2011, Weiner first claimed that his Twitter account was hacked after he was asked about some troubling Tweets being sent from his account. However, when he declined to ask that the proper authorities investigate the matter I knew he was not being completely honest about the situation. When I appeared on MSNBC to discuss the crisis I didn't want to accuse a member of Congress of lying so I only alluded to the troubling nature of the alleged claims by Weiner.
Until Weiner's social media usage became news, his political star was extremely bright. Since leaving Congress, he has worked to rehabilitate his personal life and career. While he may have learned some hard (no pun intended) lessons about social media, it appears that his staff needs some education on how to properly post video online to ensure it doesn't become a news story.
In general, politicians seem to be able to rebound from sex scandals and handsome profitably. Time will tell if Weiner is added to the list. Regardless of the outcome of the election, it will be interesting to see how Weiner handles all of the questions related to his past social media endeavors.
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
FTC Complaint Filed Against Snapchat
Consumer privacy advocate EPIC has recently filed an FTC complaint against Snapchat because it believes the service is misleading consumers regarding its ability to delete the content being sent across its platform. According to multiple published reports, Snapchat may not be permanently deleting the content being sent through its service despite its claims.
Snapchat's promise that content would "self-destruct" after it is viewed may remind some people of Mission Impossible's self-destruct messaging system. Self destruct messages are ideal for some content that is sent online. Due to the constant barrage of media coverage regarding sexting scandals, an app that actually deletes content once it is viewed may be very profitable for a company.
Unless Snapchat is able to quickly fix its alleged inability to permanently delete the content it claims it is able to delete it may have significant legal liability. It may only be a matter of time before a user is damaged because content it thought was deleted was not.
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Snapchat's promise that content would "self-destruct" after it is viewed may remind some people of Mission Impossible's self-destruct messaging system. Self destruct messages are ideal for some content that is sent online. Due to the constant barrage of media coverage regarding sexting scandals, an app that actually deletes content once it is viewed may be very profitable for a company.
Unless Snapchat is able to quickly fix its alleged inability to permanently delete the content it claims it is able to delete it may have significant legal liability. It may only be a matter of time before a user is damaged because content it thought was deleted was not.
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Friday, May 10, 2013
The Application Privacy, Protection and Security Act of 2013
Congress has recently introduced the Application Privacy, Protection and Security Act of 2013 (HR1913). This legislation would require mobile application developers to disclose what data they
collect and how they utilize, share, and archive the data they capture.
In January, 2013, the California Attorney General's office issued a privacy report on the mobile apps ecosystem. Subsequently, on February 1, 2013, an FTC report recommended ways for mobile app developers to improve privacy disclosures. At that time, the FTC stated that app developers should:
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
In January, 2013, the California Attorney General's office issued a privacy report on the mobile apps ecosystem. Subsequently, on February 1, 2013, an FTC report recommended ways for mobile app developers to improve privacy disclosures. At that time, the FTC stated that app developers should:
- Have a privacy policy and make sure it is easily accessible through the app stores;
- Provide just-in-time disclosures and obtain affirmative express consent before collecting and sharing sensitive information (to the extent the platforms have not already provided such disclosures and obtained such consent);
- Improve coordination and communication with ad networks and other third parties that provide services for apps, such as analytics companies, so the app developers can better understand the software they are using and, in turn, provide accurate disclosures to consumers.
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
New Mexico Bans NCAA Student-Athlete Social Media Monitoring Firms
New Mexico recently joined Delaware, California, New Jersey, Michigan, Arkansas, and Utah in protecting their schools, school employees, students, and taxpayers from the potential costs and legal liability issues associated with social media monitoring students. Under New Mexico SB 422, it is unlawful "to demand access in any manner to a student's, applicant's or potential applicant's account or profile on a social networking web site."
The enactment of SB 422 will greatly benefit schools, school employees, students, and taxpayers because collectively post-secondary schools in New Mexico may save millions of dollars in potential compliance costs and tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in potential costs associated with social media related lawsuits. SB 422 along with similar laws around the country appear to negatively affect the following companies that offer social media monitoring services: UDiligence, Varsity Monitor, Fieldhouse Media, and Jump Forward.
It appears that the only way for the above mentioned social media monitoring services to properly function is if a student either downloads an application onto his personal account(s), provides a username(s) and/or password(s) to his personal account(s), or if a student authenticates his social media account(s). These services may claim that all they need to properly work is a student's name or alias to search for a public social media account. However, performing an Internet search and guessing that an account belongs to a particular student just because it is on the Internet may put you in the same position as one of the people portrayed in this hilarious State Farm Commercial. According to CNN, as of last August, Facebook may have at least 83 million fake accounts and according to PRWeek, Twitter may have as many as 20 million fake accounts.
Any company that approaches schools to sell social media monitoring services to track students' personal digital accounts is selling a legal liability time bomb. If a school is monitoring the personal social media content of their students and misses an indication that there may be a crime committed it may cost the school more than $100 million dollars. For proof, just review the Penn State emails regarding the Jerry Sandusky matter. Does a school want to be on the hook for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in legal liability because it was utilizing a social media monitoring service to track their students personal digital accounts?
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
The enactment of SB 422 will greatly benefit schools, school employees, students, and taxpayers because collectively post-secondary schools in New Mexico may save millions of dollars in potential compliance costs and tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in potential costs associated with social media related lawsuits. SB 422 along with similar laws around the country appear to negatively affect the following companies that offer social media monitoring services: UDiligence, Varsity Monitor, Fieldhouse Media, and Jump Forward.
It appears that the only way for the above mentioned social media monitoring services to properly function is if a student either downloads an application onto his personal account(s), provides a username(s) and/or password(s) to his personal account(s), or if a student authenticates his social media account(s). These services may claim that all they need to properly work is a student's name or alias to search for a public social media account. However, performing an Internet search and guessing that an account belongs to a particular student just because it is on the Internet may put you in the same position as one of the people portrayed in this hilarious State Farm Commercial. According to CNN, as of last August, Facebook may have at least 83 million fake accounts and according to PRWeek, Twitter may have as many as 20 million fake accounts.
Any company that approaches schools to sell social media monitoring services to track students' personal digital accounts is selling a legal liability time bomb. If a school is monitoring the personal social media content of their students and misses an indication that there may be a crime committed it may cost the school more than $100 million dollars. For proof, just review the Penn State emails regarding the Jerry Sandusky matter. Does a school want to be on the hook for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in legal liability because it was utilizing a social media monitoring service to track their students personal digital accounts?
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
Friday, April 26, 2013
California's Right to Know Act
California recently introduced "AB-1291 Privacy: Right to Know Act of 2013: disclosure of a customer’s personal information." If enacted, the bill would update California's 2003 "Shine the Light" law (Civil Code Section 1798.80-1798.84) to account for the new data mining technologies and information sharing practices that have proliferated over the past ten years. According to the bill's sponsor Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal, "AB 1291 expands the definition of personal information to include sensitive data, such as location, buying habits, and sexual orientation. By modernizing the requirements, consumers have a right to know not just how their basic information may have been used for junk mail, but also how it's collected and shared with data brokers, advertisers, and others."
The
2003 "Shine the Light" law enabled California residents to find out
how businesses utilize their personal information.
In general, the law requires most companies (except federal financial
institutions and those with less than 20 employees) that do business with
California residents to either disclose how personal information is being
shared for direct marketing purposes or allow customers to opt out of
information sharing. The law provides Californians
the right once a calendar year to obtain free of charge the type of personal
data that a business has disclosed to third parties for direct marketing
activities and the names and contact information of all third parties that
received the personal data.
Since
2003, data mining and behavioral advertising has proliferated beyond what many
may have envisioned when the "Shine the Light" law was enacted. To reign in some of these practices,
a
coalition of privacy organizations are advocating updating the law to
account for new technologies. According
the Wall
Street Journal, there has been significant industry backlash against
updating the 2003 law.
The
Right To Know Act's general principles appear to follow the European
Union's philosophy that its citizens have a right to require companies
doing business with them to provide them with the type of information that is
being collected about them. Europe's
privacy laws generally provide its citizens more control than the U.S. over how
personal data may be utilized. This was
demonstrated when six EU
data protection authorities recently
initiated coordinated enforcement measures against Google for failing to fix alleged
flaws in its 2012 privacy policy update.
Google's privacy policy change along with Austrian
law student Max Schrems experience with Facebook may have sparked the
decision to introduce the Right to Know Act.
Earlier
this year, NBC
News reported that Equifax has a database that contains almost 200 million
employment and salary records that covers more than a third of all U.S. adults. Some of these records may include week by
week pay stub information. While it may
be troubling that Equifax has acquired this detailed information, at least under
the Fair Credit Reporting Act consumers are able to obtain a report once a year
about the data that is being collected about them.
Personal
privacy may be further damaged by the new new partnership between Facebook and data brokers Acxiom, Epsilon, and Datalogic that is designed to better
monetize the content of their users. The FTC is so concerned
about some of the practices of data brokers that late last year it announced
that it is studying how the industry collects and utilizes consumer data. In what might be an effort to ward off
potential future regulation, Axciom
recently announced it was planning a service to allow consumers to obtain their
personal files.
Should
advertisers be able to analyze your personal emails and/or your personal files in the cloud and utilize the information to behavioral advertise and/or combine
this information with other digital and/or real world data across multiple
platforms to create personal user profiles that may be accessed not only by marketers
but also by insurance companies, banks, law enforcement, etc...? What if due to the types of ads that are
processed on a particular email account a company is able to make an inference
about one's sexual orientation, race, religion, etc.. and this inference is
utilized for discriminatory purposes?
The intentions of the law are noble; however, due to the way the bill is currently drafted it may lead to some unintended compliance costs for businesses. Therefore, I believe the California state legislature should work to find common ground between supporters and opponents of the bill that would increase transparency for consumers without creating an economic hardship on the business community.
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
AP Twitter Account Hack Causes Dow Jones to Plunge
As social media becomes a bigger part of our everyday lives, the legal issues surrounding social media increase greatly. One of the verified Associated Press Twitter accounts was hacked earlier today and the hacker tweeted, "Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured". Within minutes the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 140 points.
Hacking into the AP's Twitter account may violate multiple federal and state laws. Was this hack done to intentionally create chaos and/or harm our financial makets? Was the hacker testing how the U.S. financial markets, and/or the media, and/or the government would react to the hack? What was the motive behind the hack? Was this just a big joke done for personal pleasure? Do those who lost money in the stock market because of the hack have a cause of action against the hacker?
These are some of the many questions that may be answered in the near future.
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
Hacking into the AP's Twitter account may violate multiple federal and state laws. Was this hack done to intentionally create chaos and/or harm our financial makets? Was the hacker testing how the U.S. financial markets, and/or the media, and/or the government would react to the hack? What was the motive behind the hack? Was this just a big joke done for personal pleasure? Do those who lost money in the stock market because of the hack have a cause of action against the hacker?
These are some of the many questions that may be answered in the near future.
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
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