From the monthly archives:

May 2008

California law requires Web sites to "conspicuously" display a privacy-policy link

May 30, 2008

Saul Hansell at the NY Times concludes that Google is in violation of the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 because it doesn’t "conspicuously" display a link to its privacy policy.  Excerpt: "… a 2004 analysis by law firm Cooley Godward Kronish doesn’t list any other option for conspicuous notice other than placing the [...]

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Lawyers’ outsourcing of client data may jeopardize attorney-client privilege

May 24, 2008

Some lawyers are concerned that if they outsource legal work to non-U.S. firms, they could be jeopardizing the attorney-client privilege because of the U.S. Government’s position that it is free to monitor communications with foreigners.  See this Legal Times article about a lawyer suing for a ruling on that point.  (Pedro Ruz Gutierrez, Law Firm [...]

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Autodesk court case: Can shrinkwrapped software now be legally reverse-engineered?

May 23, 2008

If you’re a software vendor, you need to know about this recent Autodesk case, holding that typical software "license" transactions are in fact sales of copies, which the purchaser is free to re-sell under the First Sale Doctrine in copyright law.  If the court’s reasoning is upheld on appeal, software vendors might find themselves legally [...]

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Protect your laptop’s sensitive information before entering the U.S. – a customs agent might decide to peruse it

May 16, 2008

Security consultant Bruce Schneier writes in the [UK] Guardian with suggestions for setting up your laptop computer so that U.S. customs inspectors won’t be able to peruse your sensitive business information (or, if you’re a lawyer, attorney-client privileged information). This is something to think about, because a U.S. court has ruled that customs inspectors have [...]

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Contracts should explain their terms as necessary

May 2, 2008

I couldn’t disagree more strongly with my friend Ken Adams’s comment that, apart from the opening recitals, “in a contract you don’t reason or explain. You just state rules.” That’s way too categorical a statement for my taste. Contracts are read and followed by people, not by computers, and people sometimes need to be persuaded [...]

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