Regulation

  • Ninth Circuit CFAA Case May Draw High Court Review

    In United States v. Nosal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, en banc, held that the prohibition against "exceed[ing] authorized access" to a computer under the CFAA does not apply when an employee has been granted access to the company computer infrastructure but uses that access, against company policy and the obvious interests of the company, to copy valuable, confidential information in order to take business from the company. For various reasons, articulated well in the dissent by Judge Barry Silverman (joined by only one other judge), the Ninth Circuit is wrong.

    May 31, 2012Leonard Deutchman

  • Taxing Online Sales ' The 2012 Update

    As an update to our article in the June 2011 issue, this article highlights important case developments and new legal trends that have emerged with respect to the collection of state sales taxes by online retailers, as well as a general overview of online sales taxes and the constitutionality of click-through affiliate relationships.

    May 31, 2012Marcelo Halpern, Amanda Weare and Lauren Matecki

  • Applying Technology To the Business of Health Care

    Advocates for online health services have long argued that the health care-services and health care-products industries could significantly enhance its ability to deliver quality products and services to consumers by using e-commerce to improve access to, and the timeliness and accuracy of, information, delivery and purchasing pertaining to the health care-sector supply chain.

    May 29, 2012Jonathan Bick

  • Asking Prospective Employees for Social Media Login Data

    A recent trend in the human resources community is to ask prospective employees for usernames and passwords to social media sites to allow the hiring employer access to otherwise private information about an employment candidate's "online identity." e-Commerce companies, even though they are based on and operate through online activities, sometimes through social media, should carefully consider what principals and hiring parties in the firms may view as a natural inclination to examine an applicant's or an employee's social media postings and persona by demanding access to the sites.

    May 29, 2012Steven W. Suflas and Mary Cate Gordon

  • Update: The IRS Whistleblower Program

    This article continues last month's discusssion with a look at the IRS whislteblower program's success to date, as well as proposed improvements to the program.

    May 27, 2012Sharon L. McCarthy

  • ERISA Class Certification in The Wake of Dukes And Amara

    The U.S. Supreme Court issued two starkly different decisions in 2011 that together will shape (and, indeed, have already shaped) the analysis that courts must employ in determining whether to certify ERISA class actions.

    April 29, 2012Darren E. Nadel and Allison R. Cohn

  • Courts in Australia And the U.S. Address Google's AdWords Program

    Appellate courts in both the United States and Australia recently addressed whether Google, Inc. violated the country's respective trademark laws through the use of third-party trademarks as keywords in Google's AdWords advertising program. Google suffered legal losses in both countries.

    April 27, 2012Catherine Malia Ting

  • Second Circuit Revives Copyright Case Against Google, YouTube

    Viacom International got a second shot at proving that Google's YouTube massively infringed its copyrights by hosting clips from shows like The Daily Show and Family Guy without its permission. And whether Viacom and its lawyers succeed or not, they've already managed to shape the developing case law over copyrighted content that users illegally upload to the Internet.

    April 27, 2012Nate Raymond and Mark Hamblett