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ashley-madison-300x200On December 14, 2016, operators of online extramarital dating and social networking website AshleyMadison.com came to an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission, and several States, to settle FTC and related state charges that the website deceived consumers and failed to protect 36 million users’ account and profile information. As we discussed immediately following the July 2015 breach (and in several later posts) the data of some 36 million AshleyMadison.com accounts was posted online. It was reported by KrebsOnSecurity that the breach included the theft of user databases, financial records (including salary information), and other records from AshleyMadison, Cougar Life, and Established Men, three social networking web sites operated by the Toronto, Canada-based firm Avid Life Media, now known as Ruby Corp.

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The U.S. Copyright Office issued a final rule effective December 1, 2016, addressing one of the requirements for social media operators and other companies that allow users to post content online to qualify for the DMCA safe harbor. In “DMCA Safe Harbor: Registration Time,” colleagues Michael Heuga and Cydney Tune discuss what companies with a DMCA designated agent need to do to satisfy the new registration requirement under the updated rule.

 

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FriendFinder Networks is a company in the adult entertainment, social networking, and online dating space. Several databases from FriendFinder Networks web sites with more than 412 million accounts, including usernames, e-mails, and passwords, have been breached and leaked.

Friend-finderNovember reports of this data breach on The Verge, LeakedSource and TechCrunch, to name a few, describe it as of one of the largest security breaches of 2016, and possibly the largest breach to date, surpassing the breach of approximately 360 million Myspace usernames, passwords and e-mail addresses reported earlier this year.

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firehose data streamFollowing up on our earlier post regarding the Era of Hashtag Surveillance, the FBI has published documents indicating that it intends to enter into a deal with a Twitter data miner, appropriately named Dataminr (and partially owned by Twitter), for access to its monitoring technology. Techcrunch reports that the FBI disclosed its intent to enter into a licensing agreement with Dataminr for access to Twitter’s “firehose” data stream. As opposed to the normal data streams that Twitter makes available to the public which only provide access to a fraction of the posts made to the site, the “firehose” stream contains all public posts made on Twitter and would essentially allow a user to search, in almost real-time, every post made to the service.

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It seems like managing data breaches has become a part of doing business these days. From the October denial of service attack on Dyn (a company that provides core internet services to companies like Twitter, Spotify and Netflix) to the recent hacks of the Clinton campaign’s emails, data breaches are increasing in frequency, scope and cost. The average cost of a data breach increased to $4 million in 2015, and the 2016 Cost of Data Breach Study: Global Analysis published by IBM and the Ponemon Institute places the likelihood of a company having a material data breach involving 10,000 lost or stolen records in the next 24 months at 26 percent.

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Earlier this month, the ACLU published a report alleging that it had obtained public records showing that social media user data such as location tracking, photos and hashtag usage may have been used by law enforcement to monitor activists and protests. ACLU claims that records show that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram provided user data access to Geofeedia, a developer of a social media monitoring program that is marketed to law enforcement agencies as a tool for such tracking. According to the report, law enforcement used the monitoring program to track protests in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri.

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Well before Pokémon Go burst onto the mobile gaming scene in July, we had written about some of the pitfalls associated with AR gaming. When the game netted some 45 million daily users in just a few weeks, we talked about Pokémon Go some more (potential liabilities and clickwrap enforcement challenges). But while the game’s popularity has begun to wane, the enthusiasm for augmented reality has likely just begun.

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Bird-singingTweet nicely to the Twitter bot, “LnH: The Band”—a newcomer in artificial intelligence music generation—and the bot will automatically compose melodies for you. The AI-based band is “currently working on their first album,” according to LnH Music, but who will own the rights and royalties to the album? Or what about Mubert, which is touted by its creators as the world’s first online music composer, and which “continuously produces music in real-time … based on the laws of musical theory, mathematics and creative experience?” In other words, if a computer program generates a creative work—be it a song, book or other creation—is there a copyright to be owned? If so, who owns and gets to collect on the copyright?

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In this political season, much has been made about late-night Twitter rants targeting women and other social media attacks on individuals and celebrities. Although these harsh online critiques create a more hostile cyber community, more imminent danger may arise from the safety risks that accompany online activity in general. Law-enforcement officials have long warned users against disclosing travel plans on social media to would-be thieves by, for example, posting pictures of a boarding pass from that long-awaited trip to Barcelona. But what about apps and services like Find My Friends, where users can share their location with up to 50 friends, or Snapchat, which shows a user’s location when posting an image or video? With a culture focused on sharing and instant access to information via social media feeds, it bears considering if location-revealing apps engender some inherent danger, whether the app developers disclose potential risks, and what steps can be taken to protect personal safety.

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Political campaigns have increasingly turned to social media as a channel to reach voters. Social media not only has the power to reach audiences numbering in the billions, but it also has the power to change the behavior of its users. This far-reaching influence is nothing new—advertisers pay lots of money to use these channels to sell and market their products to targeted audiences. But, could this power be used to sway voters, and is there anything that prevents social media companies from getting into the game of politics?

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