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The California Medical Board is targeting doctors who provide services to patients via the Internet without the benefit of an in-person consultation. Many patients obtain a wide range of prescriptions in this manner, and according to this Sacramento Bee article, the state has levied fines totaling $48 million against six out-of-state doctors. The fines will …
In a post on January 6, 2003 I noted a proposed rule from DOJ that would subject transportation manifests to electronic monitoring. On February 3, EPIC filed comments on the privacy implications of this rule with the INS. For the first time, data would be collected electronically on all U.S. and non-U.S. residents.
In April 2002, the FTC obtained a judgment and permanent injunction in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennyslvania barring cybersquatter John Zuccarini from continuing an extensive cyberscam. It involved diverting individuals from their intended website destinations to the more than 5,300 sites he owned, through the use of commonly occuring misspellings …
The European Commission on Data Protection Working Party issued a new directive on January 29 addressing the protection of personal online data and the enforcement of IP rights. The Working Document, On-line Authentication Services, is here.
The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against the Educational Research Center of America, Inc. stating the company had “collected personal information from high school and middle and junior high school students through surveys,” and used this data “to create lists of students that it sells to commercial entities for use in marketing.” A copy …
Verizon is appealing the district court’s decision compelling the ISP to release customer data to RIAA in a copyright dispute concerning music downloading. According to Verizon’s deputy general counsel, “If this ruling stands, consumers will be caught in a digital dragnet – not only from record companies alleging infringement of their copyright monopolies – but …
The UCLA Center for Communication Policy today released the third installment of their report, Surveying the Digital Future. The report addresses topics that include the following; Internet Users – Who is Online, Who is Not; Media Use and Trust; Consumer Behavior, Communications Patterns, Social Effects of the Internet (on family, children, friends, politics); the Internet …
On January 13, the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, denied Search King’s motion for preliminary injunction against Google for tortious interference with contractual relations. See also this Slate article, Google-Opoly: The Game No One but Google Can Play.
Judge John D. Bates, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, has ruled in favor of RIAA in their high profile case against Verizon to compel the ISP to provide personal data on customers’ use and online distribution of music obtained using P2P downloading applications. See Recording Industry of America v. Verizon Internet …
For the past two years, an ABA task force of the Section of Dispute Resolution has studied the issue of consumer disputes as they apply to e-commerce transactions. A draft of their final report, that included recommendations and proposed guidelines, was released in April 2002. This ABA press release indicates that there is now a …
This Business Week article provides perspective on Google’s growing pains, as the high profile, successful company (fielding an amazing 75% of all search engine queries) increasingly becomes the target of rivals in the advertising and e-commerce arenas. See also this Business Week review of Google’s beta web shopping network search engine, Froogle.
eMarketer has published an article, Personal Information: The Push-Pull Between Companies & Consumers, that incorporates survey data collected by a number of organizations including, Harris Interactive, ConsumerWebWatch, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. E-privacy and ID theft concerns dominate consumer perspectives when conducting online transactions. In a related article, MSNBC reports on extensive credit card fraud complaints involving PayPal, …
