Newly appointed Federal Trade Commission Chair Ms. Edith Ramirez indicated today in a Q&A discussion that the priorities for the FTC under her watch will be enforcement of the COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) law; regulating the mobile application world, due to its tremendous footprint amongst the American consumer; and a new initiative centered […]
Breaches of an organizations critical infrastructure, specifically its cyber-infrastructure, have become a daily recurring problem for businesses and governments worldwide. Allegations of the Chinese military hacking into IT networks of American businesses and organized criminal enterprises setting up lucrative black market schemes permeate the mainstream media market. When a breach of mission-critical data occurs, should the […]
A group of Washington State Senator’s are sponsoring a proposed state law that would prohibit businesses from requiring potential and current employees disclose the passwords of their social media sites. Under proposed Senate Bill 5211, businesses would be prohibited “as a condition of employment or continued employment, from requiring an employee or prospective employee to […]
Advance Persistent Threats, or “APTs” as they are known to cyber-security experts, occur when individuals or groups gain unauthorized access to a computer network with the intent to cause a persistent catastrophic interruption of mission-critical functions. For quite some time, governments from around the world have taken a “hands-off” approach to regulating how organizations secure their mission-critical information. […]
Happy Data Privacy Day 2013! To data privacy professionals and advocates, January 28th is an opportunity to create awareness and underscore the importance of how mission-critical data can affect our daily routine. In two separately released reports by “data” giants Google, Inc. and Twitter, Inc., both companies conclude that the U.S. government rarely establishes probable cause […]
As reported in The New York Times today, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) expanded the types of companies required to obtain parental permission before knowingly collecting personally identifiable information of children. At issue was the fact that the Children’s Online Protection Privacy Act of 1998 (or “COPPA”) had not identified mobile app developers as a […]
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) recently released a staff report entitled, Mobile Apps for Kids: Disclosures Still Not Making the Grade, where the regulatory agency cites a lack of progress in the Mobile App industry for failing to adequately inform parents and guardians about how their child-derived information is collected, shared, and accessed. FTC Chairman, Mr. Jon Leibowitz, stated […]
When launching a business venture, the person in charge of setting up the charters of the organization is called an Incorporator. Among the many duties of an Incorporator, is to file the Articles of Incorporation with the state in which the organization is going to have a substantial footprint. Other duties include, selection of board members […]
Sunday after the Thanksgiving Holiday, I was perusing through my Facebook account, and noticed a friend had posted something on her Wall regarding copyrighted material. Early the next day, I received a phone call/e-mail from another friend asking me what I thought about the Facebook copyright notice, and whether he should copy/paste it to his Wall. After […]
The U.S. government’s top information technology provider, Lockheed Martin, Corp., cited on Monday the dramatic increase in cyber-attacks against its IT infrastructure. A majority of the “advanced persistent threats” (APTs) were either generated from organized groups or state-sponsored actors, but Lockheed failed to name any specific countries or groups. According to Lockheed, the cyber-attacks are targeting the defense […]