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mHealth – Mobile Health Care

Last year, I was invited to participate in and present a paper at the “mHealth and the Law Workshop” in Washington, D.C. [See mHealth – The Future of Mobile Health Care].

Then last month, I was invited to participate in a panel at the Mobile FirstLook 2015 Conference in New York, and as a result of my participation, the editors of Mobile Marketer asked if they could republish (with attribution of course), the paper.

In case you missed it, you can view “Exploring legal challenges to fulfilling the potential of mHealth” online, or you can download the original from the Legal Bytes posting above.

As always, if you have questions, or need advice or guidance, just contact me, Joe Rosenbaum, or the lawyer with whom you regularly work at Rimon.

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Fraud in Digital Advertising – ANA Report Released

Yesterday (December 9), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) released a study, “The Bot Baseline: Fraud in Digital Advertising,” exposing the significant fraud present in media buying on the Internet. The losses to the industry for fraudulent, non-human web traffic are billions per year. Doug Wood, Joe Rosenbaum, Todd Mumford and Debra Dermody worked with the ANA on the project, including suggested language for future contracts that addresses non-human web traffic. You can read and download the entire study or the executive summary originally made available to ANA members, entitled “ANA/White Ops Bot Fraud Initiative, Preview for ANA Member Participants” or both.

As always, if you have questions, need help, want guidance or want to know more about Rimon’s advertising, technology and media practice and its resources, experience and capabilities, feel free to contact me, Joe Rosenbaum (joseph.rosenbaum@rimonlaw.com), any of the other lawyers who assisted in the preparation of the report or any lawyer with whom you regularly work at Rimon (rimonlaw.com).

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mHealth – The Future of Mobile Health Care

Last month, I had the privilege of being invited to attend and make a presentation at an mHealth and the Law Workshop in Washington, D.C., convened by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. As part my presentation (October 7), I was asked to prepare a brief corresponding paper prognosticating the future of mobile medicine and health care. With permission of the AAAS, I am happy to share that paper with readers of Legal Bytes, and you can read the paper or download a copy for your personal use, right here: mHealth: Looking Forward [PDF].

As always, if you have questions, or need advice or guidance, just contact me, Joe Rosenbaum, or the lawyer with whom you regularly work at Rimon.

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Operation Full Disclosure – The FTC Targets Advertising

Earlier today, the Federal Trade Commission issued a press release indicating that after a review of many national television and print advertisements, warning letters have been sent to a number of companies – including some of the largest advertisers in the United States – noting that they had failed to make adequate disclosures in at least some of their advertising. The initiative, entitled Operation Full Disclosure, is intended to enforce regulations that prohibit advertising that misleads consumers.

The FTC’s targets in this operation are disclosures in fine print, those that were hard to read – even though they contained important information for the consumer. The letters warned advertisers they need to make sure disclosures are clear and conspicuous, and reminded advertisers the disclosures should be close to the claims that are being made. They must not be obscure or disguised with font sizes or colors that make it difficult to read, and on television, they should appear for a long-enough period of time and in a manner that will allow them to actually be read and understood. Consumers should not have to search for them!

Included within each of the FTC letters was a request that each of the advertisers respond back to the FTC with specific actions they individually intended to take regarding their particular advertising, in order to remedy any deficiencies.

You can read the full FTC Press Release and, as always, if you have questions, need help, want guidance, or want to know how best to ensure your advertising and marketing is in compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, just contact me, Joe Rosenbaum, any lawyer in our Advertising, Technology & Media law practice group, or the lawyer with whom you regularly work at Rimon.

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Mobile Money, Mobile Risk – The Future of ePayment Systems

Earlier this week, the editorial staff of the UK-based publication e-Finance & Payments Law & Policy, interviewed Joseph I. Rosenbaum, New York-based partner and Chair of Rimon’s global Advertising Technology & Media law practice, in connection with its cover story for the January 2013 issue. The stimulus for the initial story was the release late last year of a report by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Company (FDIC) regarding the risks attendant to the growth and evolution of the mobile payment industry, and the use of mobile contactless payment technology by consumers and merchants in routine purchase transactions (e.g., NFC, Bluetooth, RFID, SMS, Wi-Fi, and WAP enabled devices generally.)

While the cover story is still in the process of being edited for publication, the editorial staff felt that publishing the full interview separately was itself newsworthy. So follow this link and you can read the full text of the e-Finance & Payments Law & Policy interview with Joseph I. Rosenbaum, partner at Rimon LLP.

You can also read the FDIC report, issued in its Supervisory Insights – Winter 2012 release, right here: Mobile Payments: An Evolving Landscape.

Of course, if you need help or more information, contact Joseph I. Rosenbaum (joseph.rosenbaum@rimonlaw.com), who also leads the ATM Mobile Marketing initiative, or feel free to call upon any of the Rimon lawyers with whom you regularly work. We are happy to help.

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Airlines May be Mobile But Delta Apps Irk California Regulators

In a civil action filed in California (People v. Delta Air Lines Inc., California Superior Court, San Francisco, 12-526741), the California State Attorney General’s office alleges that Delta Air Lines was distributing a mobile application without a privacy policy, in violation of the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 (COPPA), which became effective July 1, 2004. The California statute provides a penalty of up to $2,500 for every violation.

Among other things, the Delta ‘app’ allows customers to check in, and display and make reservations; and, according to the lawsuit, Delta has been allowing customers to download and use the ‘Fly Delta’ app without a privacy policy, since at least 2010.

Of course, Delta is not the only company with user-friendly mobile apps for on-the-go busy travelers, and I’m guessing that company lawyers are now scrambling to determine if their apps are in compliance and whether changes need to be made and, just as importantly, how to make those changes to ensure compliance with the law and still maintain the customer friendliness mobile users are accustomed to and demand.

Our Advertising, Technology & Media law practice can help you navigate the challenges of compliance – preventive law as well as representing clients when the regulators come calling . . . and we have a group dedicated to legal support when your needs, defensive or as a defendant, turn to privacy, data protection and identity theft. So if you need help or more information, contact me, Joseph I. Rosenbaum (joseph.rosenbaum@rimonlaw.com), or any of the Rimon lawyers with whom you regularly work.

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German Court Requires Facebook to About Face

This post was written by Katharina Weimer.

A German Court thinks it may be time to de-friend Facebook. On 6 March 2012, the Regional Court in Berlin took a rare opportunity to rule on several features available on the social media platform Facebook, and not surprisingly opined that Facebook needs to provide more transparency and ask for consent when using users’ information. Worded in the form of consents, the German Court held:

  • Consent No. 1: Facebook may no longer make available one of its most used features, the “friend finder,” without proper information of the user and consent of the user’s contacts who are invited to join Facebook via email
  • Consent No. 2: The exploitation of user content that is protected by intellectual property rights requires affirmative and specific user consent. The language purporting to grant Facebook a comprehensive, worldwide, royalty-free license that is incorporated into Facebook’s existing terms of use is not sufficient.
  • Consent No. 3: Facebook needs to reword its consent regarding the use of personal data for advertising purposes

Although the judgment is technically not legally binding as yet, Facebook announced it will carefully review the consequences and consider legal remedies once the judgment is available in full length. This decision may lead the way to more transparency and user control over social media and the use of information in Germany. Having a world of information at your fingertips and incorporating user content in Web 2.0 services is a great tool for user interaction and learning more about them, but the court’s ruling suggests that Facebook not forget for whom their service was created – the users, not the advertisers. As Facebook edges closer to an IPO and looks to monetize its services and features, the German Court’s view is that Facebook needs to continue to give its users control over their content and information. Stay tuned to Legal Bytes for more details as the court proceedings continue.

Vielen dank (many thanks) to Katharina Weimer for the insights and the update. If you need legal or regulatory counsel, contact Katharina directly, or you can always contact me, Joseph I. (“Joe”) Rosenbaum, or the Rimon lawyer with whom you regularly work.