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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will categorically ban devices over national security concerns for the first time in history. Per a new order, the FCC will prohibit the import and sale of devices produced by Huawei and ZTE, and restrict the use of several other Chinese-produced devices for government and critical infrastructure purposes. Huawei…

How will a Biden-Harris presidency affect the U.S. privacy landscape? Let’s take a look.

Federal Privacy Legislation

On both sides of the political aisle there have been draft proposals in the last 18 months on federal privacy legislation. In September, movement actually happened on federal privacy legislation with the U.S. Setting an American Framework to…

Lead plaintiff, John Herrick, in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class action lawsuit against GoDaddy.com LLC (GoDaddy.com) opposed an Arizona federal judge’s May 2018 decision to grant summary judgment in favor of GoDaddy.com. The court granted summary judgment on the grounds that the platform used to send the text messages did not qualify as…

Recently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed a $2.8 million fine against HobbyKing for allegedly marketing to amateur drone operators non-compliant models of devices used to relay video feed from the drones. Specifically, HobbyKing, a Hong Kong-based drone distributor, allegedly markets drones that transmit video in unauthorized radio frequency bands, and operate at excessive transmission…

The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) potential reversal of the Obama Administration’s ‘Net Neutrality’ rules have been a constant headline lately. Most media coverage goes to the core principals of net neutrality, including blocking, throttling and pay for priority of internet content; however, privacy is also a factor.

Primarily, the FCC issued broadband privacy rules in 2016 after its 2015 net neutrality rules. The broadband privacy rules amongst other things, required websites and internet service providers (ISPs) to use an opt-in system to share or sell customer’s personal information like web history data, app usage data, etc. The FCC’s ability to enforce such rules hinged on a major component of the net neutrality rules which designated ISPs as common carriers and allowed the FCC to apply Title II of the Communications Act to ISPs. …
Continue Reading The Reversal of Net Neutrality on Privacy 101

While unmanned aerial systems (UAS or drones) are banned from flying over military bases, there isn’t much legally that the military can do to stop a drone intruder. However, if they were given the authority to stop these intruders, surely the market for anti-drone technology and tools would explode. Market research firm, Frost & Sullivan,…

Over the past decade, since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) first permitted the use of drones for commercial and hobbyist purposes, after the 2012 directive of Congress for the FAA to come up with a “comprehensive plan” for integrating drones into the National Airspace, drone use has grown substantially. However, with that growth has come…

This week (May 8-12, 2017) is Privacy Awareness Week—an annual initiative of the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities Forum (APPA) that concentrates on sharing information about privacy practices and rules.

The APPA is an interesting group made up of privacy regulators from Australia, British Columbia, Canada, Colombia, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Macao, Mexico, New South Wales,…

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) privacy rules required providers such as Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. to get subscribers’ permission before collecting and sharing their personal data. On April 4, 2017, President Donald Trump signed a congressional resolution rescinding those rules and sparking major concern both in the U.S. and Europe.

Indeed, according to a…