HHR New Media, Entertainment and Technology Group

Recent activities out of Washington have again turned the spotlight on the complexity of protecting privacy in an era of targeted advertising and what role, if any, the federal government might take to implement regulations on the collection and use of data related to consumers’ digital habits.

This week the chair of the House Caucus on Privacy, Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, criticized responses received by the Caucus from several large Web publishers admitting that keeping track of data collection on their sites is technically difficult, if not impossible.  Markey said that while the publishers detail their own privacy policies and opt-out procedures, these are often too complicated for the average consumer to follow.  He also pointed out that a single website may have dozens of firms collecting data through ads on the site and consumers would need to consult the policies of each of those firms to determine precisely what information was being collected and how it was being used.  (We recently wrote about this issue in a previous Digitalhhr post in connection with location-based advertising and Apple’s iPhone app policy.)  Continue Reading »

Over the last year, we’ve been following the recent trends in Europe regarding “three strikes” legislation, where end-users may be subject to sanction by their ISPs for repeated acts of copyright infringement.  Following passage of the first such law in France last fall, the United Kingdom followed suit in early 2010 with passage of the Digital Economy Act.  While it is too early to say with certainty whether the laws will achieve their stated goal of deterring and ultimately reducing infringement, the debate surrounding these laws and early experience under their enforcement schemes provides insight into whether or not “deputizing” ISPs to police piracy will become more prevalent or whether yet another approach will need to be devised to protect content owners. Continue Reading »

In a previous post, we discussed “The Secure Federal File Sharing Act” (H.R. 4098), a bill introduced in the House that was aimed to improve security in federal computing by barring federal employees and contractors from downloading, installing, or using peer-to-peer (P2P) software absent prior official approval.  The House ultimately passed this bill on March 24, 2010.  On June 14, 2010, Senators Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Robert F. Bennett (R-UT) introduced a companion bill under the same name in the Senate (S. 3484).  This bill has been referred to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.  Continue Reading »

Since our last post on net neutrality, the debate has focused on the administrative questions as to who will set the guidelines for internet regulations and how those regulations will be implemented.  Since the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC did not have the authority to regulate Comcast’s network management practices under Title I of the Communications Act, as predicted, the Commission has sought alternative ways to reclassify broadband services in order to extend regulatory authority over ISPs under the Act.   Last week, by a 3-2 vote, the FCC moved one step closer to reclassifying broadband to reestablish authority over ISPs.  In its meeting, the FCC released a Notice of Inquiry to seek comment on the proposed changes for broadband regulation.  Continue Reading »

Earlier this month, the DC Court of Appeals dealt a blow to the FCC’s “net neutrality” initiatives when it held that the Commission did not have the authority to sanction Comcast for employing network management practices that targeted users of P2P applications.  However, by basing its reasoning on a straightforward (and not surprising) interpretation of the Communications Act of 1934, the Court’s decision cannot be called a knock-out and it is likely that we will see a tactical shift in the FCC’s efforts to implement net neutrality regulations. Continue Reading »