You’ve seen it all over the news in 2018: Facebook. With scandals like data security breaches, fake news, and Senate hearings, Facebook has not escaped bad publicity this year. This blog post will first address the steps Facebook has taken and will have to take to avoid similar scandals in the future. It will then…
Year: 2019
Keeping Secrets: How Magicians Protect Their Ideas
Magicians and their ideas have come to occupy an area known as IP’s “negative space,” an area where certain creative endeavors lack access to traditional IP protections.1 Scholars have identified other elements that operate in this space including furniture designs, tattoos, computer databases, and hairstyles, among others.2 Legal scholars can gain valuable insights from the…
Potential Consequences of Lowering Current Medicare Drug Prices
On October 25, 2018, President Trump unveiled a new plan that would completely change how Medicare pays for certain pricey drugs.1 It is an unorthodox move for Republicans, but Trump is pushing ahead with his bold plan to lower drug prices.2 As one of the promises of his presidency, Trump has set out to lower…
California Consumer Privacy Act Highlights Need for Federal Data Privacy Regulations
The increasing scale of the digital economy has led to major concerns over consumers’ online privacy. As the quantity of personal data on the internet has ballooned, governments and regulators have struggled to keep up with the fast-moving technology industry. There have been concerns over both inappropriate data usage and corporate data breaches.1 Responding to…
Crackdown on Airbnb Highlights Diverse Municipal Approaches to Regulation
Over the past few years, there has been a surge in the size and importance of the digital sharing economy. The short-term home rental ecosystem in particular has seen explosive growth.1 A leader in the space, Airbnb has rapidly grown to be one of the most successful of the new sharing economy companies. Founded just…
Is the Patent System to Blame for the Rise and Fall of Theranos?
Elizabeth Holmes wrote her first patent application after her freshman year of college at Stanford University. Her invention was an arm patch that would diagnose and treat medical conditions at the same time.1 The patch was an attempt to pursue her dream of putting her mark on the world by furthering the greater good.2 Holmes…
Another Bankruptcy: Sears-ly
What is the store you go to for everything – your “everything store”?1 It used to be Sears. Sears Holdings Corporation’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing has reignited the question of how to keep a company afloat in the modern world of retailing.2 After seven straight years of losses, hedge-fund manager and former Sears CEO Edward…
Corporate Social Media Policies: Elon Musk & The Risk of Failure
It should come as no great shock that platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram offer organizations low-cost avenues to reach customers. The advertising upside of reaching the 2.9 billion active users of Facebook and 1 billion active users of Instagram is obvious.1 Unsurprisingly, major businesses have caught on to this fact as at least…
Confidential Compliance: Herbalife, the FTC, and the Freedom of Information Act
The Herbalife Saga On October 30th, Herbalife Nutrition Ltd., a global nutrition company,1 will release its third quarter financial results for 2018 with the hope that the multi-level marketing company will continue its positive trend of strong market performance.2 Herbalife has beat earnings estimates for three straight quarters, and the company’s stock price has increased…
Leave No Flag Undetected: The Impact of the Cyber-Security Failure of Voya Financial Advisors, Inc. upon the Cyber-Security Endeavors of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Section I. Introduction The importance of the preservation of sensitive personal information cannot be overstated. What used to be stored securely in safes, physical archives, and one’s own memory has increasingly become the subject of compulsory data collection from an expanding list of companies and institutions. As more of these businesses turn to electronic technology…