Privacy & Cybersecurity Law Blog

Hunton & Williams LLP is pleased to announce that several privacy attorneys were named to the New York Metro Super Lawyers list for 2012. For the seventh consecutive year, Lisa J. Sotto, partner and head of the Global Privacy and Data Security practice at Hunton & Williams LLP, was selected as a New York Super Lawyer. In addition, partner Aaron P. Simpson was included as a Rising Star for the second year in a row, and associate Melinda L. McLellan debuted in the Rising Stars category. As members of the firm’s Privacy and Data Security team, their practices focus on complex privacy and ...

Over the past several weeks, online tracking practices involving the use of Flash cookies and ETags have been the subject of new research studies, class action lawsuits and significant media attention.

As reported in BNA’s Privacy Law Watch, on April 1, 2011, a New York law went in effect requiring manufacturers of certain electronic equipment, including devices that have hard drives capable of storing personal information or other confidential data, to register with the Department of Environmental Conservation and maintain an electronic waste acceptance program.  The program must include convenient methods for consumers to return electronic waste to the manufacturer and instructions on how consumers can destroy data on the devices before recycling or disposing of them.  Retailers of covered electronic equipment will be required to provide consumers with information at the point of sale about opportunities offered by manufacturers for the return of electronic waste, to the extent they have been provided such information by the manufacturer.

On September 15, 2010, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced a $100,000 settlement with EchoMetrix, a developer of parental control software that monitors children’s online activity.  The settlement comes one year after the Electronic Privacy Information Center (“EPIC”) alleged in a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission that EcoMetrix was deceptively collecting and marketing children’s information.