February 2019

Former FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to Lead New INCOMPAS Initiative

INCOMPAS CEO Chip Pickering announced that former FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn would be leading a new campaign on behalf of the trade association to focus on boosting technology innovation and inclusion in America’s heartland. 

A Federal Data Privacy Framework?

The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing a federal data privacy law -- and displayed the same political divide that appeared in a House hearing earlier in the week. Republicans and industry witnesses warned against a "patchwork" of potentially conflicting state privacy regimes, perhaps most notably the California privacy law that takes effect in 2020. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) and various witnesses from the telecommunications and computer industries talked throughout about needing strong federal regulation, addressing concern that stronger state regulations

Sponsor 

Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

Harvard University

Date 
Tue, 03/05/2019 - 18:15 to 19:15

Every day, Internet users interact with technologies designed to undermine their privacy. And the law says this is okay because it is mainly up to users to protect themselves—even when the odds are deliberately stacked against them. In this talk, Professor Hartzog will argue that the law should require software and hardware makers to respect privacy in the design of their products. Current legal doctrine treats technology as though it is value-neutral: only the user decides whether it functions for good or ill. But this is not so.



Largest FTC COPPA settlement requires Musical.ly to change its tune

The operators of the video social networking app Musical.ly, now known as TikTok, have agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that the company illegally collected personal information from children. This is the largest civil penalty ever obtained by the Commission in a children’s privacy case. The Musical.ly app allowed users to create short videos lip-syncing to music and share those videos with other users.