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FTC Staff Proposal Raises the Bar for Behavioral Advertising
The release of these Principles followed a two-day Town Hall meeting the FTC held late last year on behavioral advertising, which itself followed the FTC's Tech-Ade Workshop in 2006. The FTC staff's Principles include specific recommendations and questions for industry regarding:
- Transparency and consumer control (including notice and choice);
- Data security;
- Data retention;
- Changes to privacy policies (including a proposed opt-in for the retroactive application of material changes to privacy policies); and
- Questions regarding how sensitive data should be treated.
Comments on the proposed Principles were initially due by Feb. 22, but the deadline was extended to April 11. Comments are likely to range from the very specific ' some trade associations may propose entirely new or modified self-regulatory principles for their members ' to the general, with other trade associations and coalitions offering arguments, and perhaps even econometric and other statistical evidence supporting arguments opposed to the staff's proposals.
While the FTC document recognizes that behavioral advertising provides a number of benefits to consumers, it is important to understand that the staff's proposed Principles are based on the premises that:
- Consumers are unaware of behavioral-advertising practices or cannot discern when such practices are used;
- Transparency and consumer autonomy are critical to consumer trust and to the online marketplace; and
- Data collected for behavioral advertising may fall into the wrong hands or be used for unanticipated purposes.
Broad Definition of Behavioral Advertising
The proposed Principles, describ-ed in detail below, would impose a heavy self-regulatory burden on the online behavioral-advertising industry. The Principles would extend well beyond the principles of the Net-work Advertising Initiative ('NAI') for Online Preference Marketing (see, www.networkadvertising.org/pdfs/NAI_principles.pdf.), approved by the FTC in 2000 (see, Online Profiling, A Report to Congress Part 2: Recommendations (July 2000), available at www.ftc.gov/os/2000/07/onlineprofiling.htm). They would also apply to a very wide array of online activity.
Major Differences In UK, U.S. Copyright Laws
This article highlights how copyright law in the United Kingdom differs from U.S. copyright law, and points out differences that may be crucial to entertainment and media businesses familiar with U.S law that are interested in operating in the United Kingdom or under UK law. The article also briefly addresses contrasts in UK and U.S. trademark law.
Strategy vs. Tactics: Two Sides of a Difficult Coin
With each successive large-scale cyber attack, it is slowly becoming clear that ransomware attacks are targeting the critical infrastructure of the most powerful country on the planet. Understanding the strategy, and tactics of our opponents, as well as the strategy and the tactics we implement as a response are vital to victory.
The Article 8 Opt In
The Article 8 opt-in election adds an additional layer of complexity to the already labyrinthine rules governing perfection of security interests under the UCC. A lender that is unaware of the nuances created by the opt in (may find its security interest vulnerable to being primed by another party that has taken steps to perfect in a superior manner under the circumstances.
Removing Restrictive Covenants In New York
In Rockwell v. Despart, the New York Supreme Court, Third Department, recently revisited a recurring question: When may a landowner seek judicial removal of a covenant restricting use of her land?