News Items Topics Internet Law Update

GDPR Fines: Dutch Regulator Fines Website for Lack of EU Representative; Norway Fines American AdTech Company for Unlawful Processing

The Dutch Data Protection Authority has imposed a first-of-its-kind fine for a violation of the GDPR’s requirement to appoint a GDPR representative in the EU, which applies to organizations established outside the EU. The €525,000 fine was imposed on the operator of the website locatefamily.com which publishes the contact information of data subjects, often without their knowledge, to allow others ...

E.U. A Step Closer to Recognizing UK and South Korea as Adequate for Cross-Border Data Transfers

Following Britain’s Brexit from the European Union, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) recently published its opinion about the EU Commission’s forthcoming plan to recognize the United Kingdom as an adequate jurisdiction for data transfers from the EU. Classifying the UK as GDPR Adequate State may authorize data transferring from other EU states to the UK.

The EDPB’s opinion is ...

Use of Artificial Intelligence Attracts Legislative and Regulatory Attention in the E.U., U.S., and Israel

The European Commission is proposing new legislative rules aimed to promote excellence and trust in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The new proposal of EU regulation lays down: (a) harmonized rules for the use of artificial intelligence systems in the EU; (b) prohibitions of certain particularly harmful AI practices; (c) specific requirements for high-risk AI systems and obligations for ...

Copyright Trial of the Century Ends with Google’s Victory over Oracle

The Supreme Court of the United States has handed Google an unequivocal triumph in what has been dubbed ‘the copyright case of the century’. A majority opinion of the Court held that Google’s copying parts of Oracle’s Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for the Java programming language is permissible as “fair use” under the Copyright Act.

The dispute between Oracle and ...

U.S. Supreme Court Decision Paves the Way for Unsolicited Commercial Text Messages

The Supreme Court of the United States has resolved a circuit split between federal courts of appeal regarding the interpretation of a key phrase in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). That key phrase determines, among other issues, whether or not companies need to secure a cellphone subscriber’s written consent to send them text messages, including commercial marketing text messages. ...

Australian Federal Court Finds Google Liable for Misleading Users Regarding its Processing of Geolocation Data

A federal court in Australia has found Google liable for misleading Android users nearly two years into thinking that with their Location History setting “off” Google would not obtain and use personal data about a user’s location. However, Google continued to obtain and use location data so long as the Web & App Activity was “on”.

Similarly, when users during ...

Israeli Supreme Court Authorizes the Self-Regulatory Content Takedown Arrangement between the Gov’t and Online Platforms

The Israeli Supreme Court has scrutinized and authorized the unofficial arrangement for the removal of harmful content published on online platforms. The arrangement was voluntarily established between the Israeli Ministry of Justice’s Cyber Unit and platforms such as Facebook but is not based on any statutory authority.

The Court’s judgment was delivered on a petition filed by the Association for ...

Israeli Privacy Protection Authority Issues Draft Policy on Data Minimization

The Israeli Privacy Protection Authority (Israel’s privacy regulator) published a draft policy paper on data minimization under Israeli law for public comments. The draft paper highlights that data handlers must ensure that the personal data they collect is relevant and necessary for the purposes of the database in which the data is maintained.

Data handlers are expected to integrate the ...

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