People Should Be “Cheesed” At Kraft: It’s Just No Gouda
By Joel Thayer On February 6, ACT | The App Association filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on a patent venue case that pits TC Heartland, a company that produces liquid water enhancers and zero calorie sweetener products, against Kraft Foods, a household name for food and beverages. At first glance, it might seem odd that the App Association would be interested in a dispute between these two companies, but this case has [...]
Member Mondays: Computer Science Student Documents Startup Experience
For this edition of Member Mondays, our membership manager Nick Miller conducted an interview with Juliana Bain. Juliana is a freshman at Cornell University and is the daughter of ACT | The App Association member David Bain from TM Technologies. Juliana is a computer science major and epee fencer at Cornell and intern for DARPA contractor Deep Learning Analytics. Juliana is producer and narrator of the 2017 documentary Startup Challengers (www.startupchallengers.com). This documentary chronicles the Challenge Cup Global Impact competition at [...]
New Proposed European Union ePrivacy Regulation: What App Association Members Need to Know
App Association members increasingly need to be aware of (sometimes rapidly changing) legal and regulatory requirements and responsibilities as they look to expand to new markets to grow their customer base. As regulators around the globe continue to grapple with the growth of an internet-based economy powered by apps, data security and privacy have become more importance. New policies in this space can (and very often do) have a deep impact on app makers and their business models. Staying on [...]
1986 Called: It’s Disappointed We Haven’t Updated Privacy Laws
When Congress passed the Stored Communications Act (SCA) in 1986, storing e-mails on servers was very expensive. At that time, e-mail service providers generally deleted any stored content from their servers within 30 to 60 days to conserve storage space. As a result, Congress arguably viewed e-mails stored remotely for more than 180 days as essentially abandoned property.[1] In turn, the law generally treats abandoned property as being unprotected by a reasonable expectation of privacy as far as law enforcement [...]
Let Our Friends and Colleagues Back in: Standing Exceptions to the Immigration Ban are Necessary
Last Friday, President Trump issued an Executive Order (EO) that temporarily blocks the entry of nonimmigrants from certain countries, including those who have temporary work or student visas. The stated purpose of the EO is to protect the nation from terrorists, a goal the White House seeks to accomplish by targeting certain countries. Unfortunately, the EO has swept up our co-workers, family members, and neighbors, leaving scores of travelers stranded on foreign soil with uncertain prospects for recourse. The EO [...]
Addition by Subtraction: The FCC Privacy Rules Should Go
Last October, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reversed two decades of effective online privacy regulation when it finalized a new set of privacy rules. The rule was adopted by a 3-2 vote, with the two Republican commissioners dissenting strenuously. Both sides of this debate want the same thing: effective privacy enforcement. When we go online, we inevitably transmit data about ourselves to website hosts and our internet service providers (ISPs). We all agree that websites (edge providers) and ISPs alike [...]