As we have discussed on our blog, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has continued a campaign of enforcement actions against employers who, according to the NLRB, have unlawfully terminated employees for discussing working conditions on social media. As we reported, in the first of such "Facebook" enforcement actions to come before an NLRB administrative judge, the employer was ordered to reinstate five employees and to pay back their wages.On September 28, 2011, in the second "Facebook" case to reach an NLRB administrative judge, an employer was found to have been justified in terminating an employee car salesman for Facebook postings that mocked the employer and did not concern working conditions
It is being reported that Moscow prosecutors conducted an investigation into whether several websites that were involved in data breaches earlier this year violated the country's data protection law. As a result of the breaches, names, contact information and order histories of Internet magazine subscribers (including adult-themed publications) became available on Internet search engines, including Russian-language Yandex. Without naming the websites, the report states that the prosecutors have filed administrative charges against two Internet magazines as a result of the investigation.
We previously reported on our blog that a Connecticut ambulance company settled the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB's) allegations that the company violated an employee's federal rights by firing her for criticizing a manager on Facebook. The NLRB continues its enforcement blitz with another Facebook firing complaint.
On May 3, 2011, the Federal Trade Commission announced that Ceridian Corporation and Lookout Services, Inc. agreed to settle the FTC's allegations that the companies failed to safeguard their business customers' employee personal information. Ceridian's services include payroll processing, payroll-related tax filing, benefits administration and other human resource services for business customers. Lookout provides a web-based computer product that is designed to help employers comply with their obligations under federal law to complete and maintain a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Form I-9 about each employee in order to verify that the employee is eligible to work in the United States.
Yesterday we wrote on our blog about the NLRB's Facebook firing settlement. I was interviewed on Fox Live this morning about the case, its implications for employees and businesses, and other developments in workplace privacy. You can view the clip at http://video.foxnews.com/v/4531424/facebook-firing-case-settlement/?playlist_id=87937
Last week, the U.S. Senate adopted by unanimous consent a bill (S. 3987) that would limit the scope of the Federal Trade Commission's Red Flags Rule by amending the Fair Credit Reporting Act's (FCRA's) definition of "creditor." The Senate bill is identical to the bipartisan House proposal we covered in detail in our blog on November 22, 2010.Both bills have been referred to the House Committee on Financial Services. Given that the House and Senate are now on the same page with respect to the Red Flags Rule, there is a good chance that this proposal will become law before the FTC begins enforcing the Rule on December 31, 2010. The bills seek to largely limit the applicability of the Red Flags Rule to entities commonly understood to be "creditors". They would generally exclude from the Rule's scope organizations whose "credit" activities are limited to providing a product or service and allowing customers to pay for the product or service at a later time.
As reported by Dan Or-Hof, Manager of the Information Technology, Internet and Copyright group at the Israeli law firm of Pearl Cohen Zedek & Latzer, in a first of its kind decision, the Tel-Aviv district court ruled on November 30, 2010 that a subscriber of cellular services does not have a general right to have his phone records deleted.
On November 30, 2010, the Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with EchoMetrix, Inc. with respect to charges that the company failed to adequately disclose its privacy practices. EchoMetrix sells software that allows parents to monitor their children's online activities. The FTC alleged that the company engaged in a deceptive act or practice in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act by failing to inform parents that the information the software collected about their children would be disclosed to third parties for marketing purposes.
The Federal Trade Commission's latest delay in enforcing the Identity Theft Red Flags Rule is slated to expire on December 31, 2010. This fifth delay, which the FTC announced on May 28, 2010, was requested by members of Congress, who had been working to respond to the outcry over the FTC's broad interpretation of the Rule. In the latest legislative initiative, on November 17, 2010, representatives Adler (D-NJ), Broun (R-GA) and Simpson (R-IN) advanced a bill (HR 6420) that seeks to limit the scope of the FTC's Red Flags Rule by amending the Fair Credit Reporting Act's (FRCA's) definition of "creditor."