A press release from EFF: California Governor Jerry Brown has signed the Reader Privacy Act, updating reader privacy law to cover new technologies like electronic books and online book services as well as local bookstores. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) were sponsors of the bill, authored by California…
Category: Featured News
Private Conversations and the Disclosure of Private Facts Tort
Eugene Volokh has a commentary on The Volokh Conspiracy that will likely surprise some people and inform: Occasionally, I see assertions that disclosing certain private information about someone — for instance, details of their sex lives, medical history, or financial affairs — would be tortious, even if the disclosure is in a private conversation. (See,…
Online Safety, an Ongoing Education
Clarinette, a lawyer and fervent privacy advocate, has a thoughtful post about keeping parents abreast of online safety issues for kids. Over on Fly a Kite, she describes her experience at a school meeting for parents about online privacy. The turnout was disappointing, the materials outdated, and Clarinette writes: Do we know everything? Surely not….
Privacy legal fights should focus on intrusion, not hurt feelings
Jessica Martin writes: Privacy lawsuits in the United States usually seek damages for revealing embarrassing but true facts by the media— the so-called “disclosure tort” — but this is a “poor vehicle for grappling with the problems of privacy and reputation in the digital age,” says Neil M. Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor…