A recent class action lawsuit is alleging that cell phone manufacturer Blu Products, Inc. (“Blu”) and firmware providers Shanghai Adups Technology Co., Ltd. and Adups USA LLC (“Adups”) violated several federal privacy laws by selling cell phones containing firmware that collected user’s sensitive personal information and transmitted that information to servers in China. This complaint

It’s not every day that one gets to observe a non-U.S. jurisdiction abandoning frustrating, idiosyncratic requirements on sweepstakes promotions, but – sacré bleu! – we’ve got one to report.

For several years, international marketers have listed France among the jurisdictions included in their international sweepstakes and chance-based promotional games by conforming to certain unique French

The power of user-generated content (“UGC”) as a promotional tool is ubiquitous and well understood; however, global marketers face challenges when trying to approach a campaign from an international perspective.  A recent development concerning UGC contests in Italy has caught the attention of global marketers.

A UGC contest usually involves a promotional prize event where

SodaStream is continuing its battle to get its "sustainability" TV ads on air. In November 2012, SodaStream was forced by Clearcast, the body that advises on and pre-clears UK TV ads, to pull this TV ad, which formed part of its £11m ‘SodaStream Effect’ global campaign, just hours before it was due to air. The

On Monday, the French Internet service provider, Free, reneged on its original decision to place a default ad-blocking filter on its customers’ routers after receiving pressure from advertisers and the French government. To learn more about this story, read the latest post on our Advertising Compliance blog, ReACTS.
Continue Reading French ISP Restores a “Free” Internet for Advertisers

On February, 27 2012, with the support of Europe’s largest mobile operators, the GSMA published a set of global Privacy Design Guidelines for Mobile Application Development. These guidelines come just days after the largest US based app providers, including Google, Apple and Amazon, agreed to legally enforceable privacy standards. 

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This post was written by Avv. Felix Hofer.

Multinational companies planning to target EU consumers with sophisticated marketing techniques may easily find themselves on a marshy ground, if they do not deserve sufficient attention to European privacy laws. Costumer profiling, monitoring and categorizing offers essential information for crucial business decisions, but have also to

This blog post is republished by permission of the Center for Democracy and Technology where it first appeared.

This post is part of “CDT Fellows Focus,” a series that presents the views of notable experts on tech policy issues. This month, CDT Fellow Omer Tene writes about the consultation launched by the European Commission to update the European Union Data Protection Directive. Posts featured in “CDT Fellows Focus” don’t necessarily reflect the views of CDT; the goal of the series is to present diverse, well-informed views on significant tech policy issues.

In a way, the process undertaken by the European Commission to review the current framework applicable to privacy and data protection is akin to speeding on a highway at 100 mph while looking at the rearview mirror. The consultation launched by the EC and comments filed by some of the main players (see, e.g., ec.europa.eu) are strongly anchored in the text of the EU Data Protection Directive (“EU DPD”), enacted in 1995, negotiated several years before then, and based on documents dating back to the late 1970s. That was the era of mainframe computers and punched cards; long before PCs, the Internet, and mobile, not to mention cloud services, ubiquitous computing, smart grid, genetics and biometrics.

Building on acquired knowledge and proceeding with care in small increments is firmly rooted in legal culture. Ours is a discipline based on precedent and cautious tweaking of existing texts. Torts, contracts, and even public law today are strikingly similar to those in Roman times or ancient Jewish law. Yet given the scope and pace of technological innovation over the past 40 years and its massive impact on the collection, storage and use of personal information, it seems that an innovative mindset is needed to overcome some of the shortcomings of the current framework.Continue Reading For Privacy, European Commission Must Be Innovative