Trailblazing Email Privacy Bill Proposed in Texas
Mary Grinman – Edited by Natalie Kim

On May 27, 2013, the Texas State Senate and House signed H.B. 2268. The legislation requires state law enforcement agents to secure a warrant before accessing emails and other “electronic customer data.” H.B. 2268 at 3–4. It also permits warrants on out-of-state service providers that do business with a Texas resident in certain circumstances. Id. at 9. The bill closes the loophole of the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which allows warrantless access to emails opened or older than 180 days.

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Hernandez v. Path, Inc. By Kathleen McGuinness – Edited by Charlie Stiernberg Hernandez v. Path, Inc., No. 12-CV-01515 YGR (N.D. Cal. Oct. 17, 2012) Slip opinion In a class-action privacy lawsuit over a photo sharing app’s alleged unauthorized access of user data, the District Court for the Northern District of California held that the plaintiff has Article III standing, but dismissed six of the ten claims. The court held that neither a slight loss of phone battery life nor hypothetical ... Read More...

By Charlie Stiernberg Proposed SHIELD Act Would Require Non-Practicing Entities to Pay Legal Costs The Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes Act of 2012 (“SHIELD Act”) aims to deter non-practicing entities (“NPEs”)—patent holders that do not make, use, or sell their claimed invention—from filing lawsuits by requiring such plaintiffs to pay successful defendants’ attorney fees, if a court determines that the suit did not have a reasonable likelihood of succeeding. Congressman Peter Defazio (D-OR) introduced H.R. 6245 on August ... Read More...

By Brittany Horth Oracle v. Google Trial Begins The Oracle v. Google trial began on Monday, April 16, 2012 in the Northern District Court of California in San Francisco by swearing in twelve jurors for what is expected to be eight weeks of testimony, reports Ars Technica. According to an overview by All Things D, Oracle alleges that Google’s Android mobile operating system violates both copyright and patents on Java, which Oracle acquired from SunMicrosystems in 2010. The New York ... Read More...

New Information about Carrier IQ Software Sparks Concerns that Wireless Carriers Have Violated Federal Anti-Wiretapping Laws By Abby Lauer – Edited by Michael Hoven Last month, a security researcher from Connecticut published information about a software program installed on some mobile smartphones that may be surreptitiously collecting data about how the phones are used. The software, called Carrier IQ and manufactured by a company of the same name, has been described as hard to detect, hard to remove, and programmed ... Read More...