Data Privacy Alert: FTC Authors Epic $500 million Settlement with Fortnite Game Company
The Federal Trade Commission has continued its campaign of stepped-up privacy enforcement with a $520 million settlement with Epic Games, the maker of popular online game Fortnite, over violations of children’s privacy and its use of dark patterns to charge consumers extra fees. Overview On December 19, 2022, the FTC announced in a press release that it had reached an agreement with Epic Games on a $520 million settlement for alleged privacy violations. While Fortnite is free to download and play, users often pay for in-game items including costumes (known as... Read More
In the world of privacy, things can move fast. US states and national governments pass new laws, and agencies translate the intents of the legislature into regulations. Where regulations are already in place, data protection authorities enforce the provisions of regulations on violators, ideally with the goal of changing organizations' behavior. But enforcement priorities change or enforcement itself becomes more rigorous--a trend we saw across jurisdictions in 2022. And of course data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other cybersecurity incidents all make news as well. That's why Exterro publishes a bi-weekly series of Data Privacy Alerts... 
More data is stored relating to litigation than ever before. In Mickelson et al v. PGA Tour, Inc. (N.D. Cal. Nov. 17, 2022), the court answers the question on how far the requirement to produce relevant data extends. Overview In this antitrust case about the PGA suspending golfers who joined a competing tour (LIV), the court reviewed whether nonparty custodians would be required to search and collect requested data for this case. A few plaintiffs who originally joined the claim against the defendant voluntarily exited the lawsuit, but the defendant still served... 
This article originally appeared in October 2022 on HR Review here. Post-pandemic, the employment market is in a state of flux as people seek to progress or change careers, but The Great Resignation is having an unprecedented impact on the HR function in some unexpected ways, argues Ray Pathak. It is not just resulting in higher job vacancies but is also impacting data privacy by potentially breaching data protection regulations and it is fuelling Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs).As employees leave, they can often take sensitive data with them such as customer... 
For the last couple of weeks, I've been reviewing some of our top educational resources from the past year here at Exterro. Today we're publishing our third and final list of resources, this time focusing on digital forensics and incident response (DFIR). (If you're curious about our other educational resources, you can check out the top resource lists for e-discovery and privacy on the blog too!) 2022 witnessed the continuation, if not acceleration, of a number of trends that are combining to increase business adoption of DFIR capabilities. Cyberthreats, from insiders to... 
Why This Announcement Is Important In November 2022, Google agreed to a record-setting $391.5 million settlement with a 40-state coalition of attorneys general over charges that it misled consumers by continuing to collect their location data when the users thought that they had turned them off. Overview On November 14, 2022, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh announced that, acting in concert with 39 other state attorneys general, he had reached a $391.5 million settlement with Google over its location tracking practices. Google had violated state consumer protection laws by misleading users...