E-Commerce

This is the latest opinion in the ongoing litigation arising out of a massive data breach suffered by Hannaford Bros. grocery stores. In re Hannaford Bros. Privacy Litigation, __F. Supp. 2d __, Case No. 2:08-MD-1954-DBH, 2013 WL 1182733 (D. Me. Mar. 20, 2013).

To address a perceived gap in regulatory treatment of increasingly popular virtual currencies, including Bitcoin, the U.S. Department of the Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) released new guidance on March 18, 2013.

A federal judge in the Northern District of California recently added to the growing list of cases rejecting attempts to recover damages resulting from data breaches.  In In re LinkedIn User Privacy Litigation, Case no. 5:12-CV-03088 EJD (March 6, 2013), the court dismissed a lawsuit brought by LinkedIn users who were upset over the June 2012 posting of 6.5 million stolen LinkedIn user passwords.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is charged with enabling and securing the Internet, has been hard at work on a significant expansion project.

The California Supreme Court recently issued a landmark ruling in Apple Inc. v. Superior Court (formerly Krescent v. Apple Inc. in trial court proceedings), a case with wide-reaching implications for consumer privacy in e-commerce. The issue before the Court was whether California’s Song-Beverly Credit Card Act (the Act), which generally prohibits retailers from collecting or requesting personal identification information (PII) as a condition of accepting credit card payments, should apply to online retailers.

As more countries join the Madrid Protocol System for the International Registration of Marks (Madrid System), trademark owners should be sure to take full advantage of this trademark registration option.  There are now 89 members of the Madrid System.  Significantly lower application and maintenance costs, as well as streamlined portfolio management options, are just a few of the reasons why the Madrid System is advantageous for trademark owners.