The current Federal estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax exemption amounts are projected to increase in 2014. Here are he projected adjustment, compared to 2012 and 2013. Read more.
October 1, 2013
Facebook introduced significant changes to its terms of service yesterday in an effort to make it easier for businesses to administer sweepstakes, contests and other promotions on its site. Read more.
August 28, 2013
In separate settlements with the FTC, three mattress manufacturers recently agreed to stop making alleged unsupported green claims, including that their mattresses do not contain harmful volatile organic compounds. Read more.
August 8, 2013
Increasingly, lawyers are faced with questions about whether they should advise clients about the use of social media. While news reports and ethics opinions have focused primarily on lawyers' social media use, the issue of client counseling has received less attention. Now, a new ethics Opinion by the New York County Lawyers Association concludes that lawyers may ethically counsel clients about their use of social media, including, in some circumstances, advising them to "take down" social media content. Read more.
July 29, 2013
As you probably know, two recent Supreme Court cases have altered the estate planning landscape. Here's a summary of what happened with the Defense of Marriage Act - and suggestions for how to proceed. Read more.
July 17, 2013
For some companies, summer interns aren't just bringing coffee this year. They're also bringing legal trouble. In an important decision on the subject of unpaid interns, a New York federal court ruled in June that Fox Searchlight Pictures Inc. should have classified certain interns as "employees" and paid them pursuant to state and federal wage and hour laws. Here's a summary of what you need to know to help ensure your intern program is on the right side of the law. Read more.
July 10, 2013
As part of its ongoing effort to provide guidance to digital advertisers (including the recent release of the updated digital advertising guidance, staff at the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection recently sent a letter to search engine companies, including Google, Bing, Yahoo! and various shopping, travel and local business search engines. Read more.
July 1, 2013
A big change in a small state may have made your skill contests easier: Vermont has amended its Contests and Sweepstakes law to permit marketers to require a purchase as part of a contest. Read more.
May 20, 2013
In an effort to provide clarity on it its revised Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule ("Rules"), the FTC recently published a list of Frequently Asked Questions ("FAQs") with information on how to comply. Read more.
May 16, 2013
The Federal Trade Commission issued a report this week proposing to modernize the "Mail or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule". The rule, originally issued in 1975 and known by many as the"30 Day Rule", requires merchants selling products by mail or phone to have a reasonable basis to expect that they can ship products within the advertised time frame, or, if no time frame is specified, within 30 days. Read more.
May 8, 2013
E-mail can be powerful evidence in a dispute, and whether employers and criminal investigators may use employee e-mail in litigation proceedings is a hot topic. A recent New York federal court decision outlined the current law in this area. Read more.
April 25, 2013
According to a recent settlement, in addition to images of the world's roads and buildings, Google's special Street View vehicles may have also collected personal information from users on unencrypted business and personal wireless networks. Read more.
April 18, 2013
In February 2013, HTC, one of America's biggest sellers of mobile devices based on the Android, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone operating systems, settled FTC charges that millions of its smartphones and tablets had security holes that allowed malicious applications to send text messages, record audio, and even install additional malware onto a consumer's HTC device, without users' knowledge or permission. Read more.
April 12, 2013
The Joint Policy Committee and SAG-AFTRA reached a tentative deal on a new Commercials Contract. If approved, the deal will then be presented to SAG-AFTRA's full membership for ratification. Read more.
April 11, 2013
Beginning June 11, 2013, a new New York City law aims to prohibit employers from basing hiring decisions on an applicant's unemployment status. The new law, which amends the New York City Human Rights Law, also bars job advertisements that require applicants to be employed. New York City employers should note the change in the law and take steps to ensure their hiring policies and procedures are in compliance. Here's a summary. Read more.
April 8, 2013
On March 8, 2013, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published a revised Form I-9 for use in verifying employment eligibility. Read more.
April 3, 2013
Recent changes in available domain names may open up new possibilities for trademark infringement. Read more.
March 18, 2013
Yesterday, the staff of the Federal Trade Commission issued new guidance to advertisers about how to make effective disclosures in digital advertising. Updating the 2000 "Dot Com Disclosures" guidance, the new guidance, ".com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising," addresses technological developments over the last 10+ years, including the increased use of smart phones for advertising and social media marketing. Read more.
March 13, 2013
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) establishes minimum wage and overtime pay standards for employees. How you classify employees under the FLSA is critical: there's a lot of money involved, and a mistake can lead to audits, class action lawsuits, and unnecessary expense. Two recent cases have focused on an especially difficult area of classification law - the so-called "creative professional exemption." It's an area of particular import for owners and managers in creative industries. Read more.
March 12, 2013
One of the disturbing trends for advertisers over the last few years has been the class action bar's interest in NAD decisions and its review of such decisions to provide fodder for consumer fraud cases. As a result, advertisers and challengers have had to consider the risk of a class action pile-on when engaging in cases at NAD. A recent court decision, however, may help to dampen the class action bar's interest in using the self-regulatory forum's decisions as a weapon. Read more.
March 8, 2013
Plaintiffs alleging sex discrimination in cases of same-sex harassment often have a more difficult row to hoe than plaintiffs complaining of opposite-gender harassment. For example, employers have sometimes been able to dismiss same-sex sexual harassment claims by arguing the offending words or actions did not express actual sexual desire or arise from perceived sexual orientation. But these arguments do not always work, as a New York employer learned this week. Read more.
March 4, 2013
When an employment situation deteriorates, one high-stakes question is whether an employer will have to make a contractually guaranteed severance payment. Severance payments can be substantial. But an employer who takes the position an employee resigned and is not entitled to severance may find itself in an expensive litigation. Read more.
February 20, 2013
The Federal Trade Commission issued a staff report on Friday recommending ways for participants in the mobile ecosystem to improve their mobile privacy disclosures. The report includes guidance tailored for key commercial players involved in the mobile area, including platforms (such as Apple's iOS and Google's Android), app developers, certain third parties (such as ad networks and analytics companies), and trade associations. Read more.
February 8, 2013
In December, an FTC order barred Epic Marketplace, Inc. from continuing a practice known as history sniffing. The technology employed by the company allowed them to track sensitive information including certain medical and financial information for millions of consumers. Read more.
February 6, 2013
In early 2012, Zappos, a division of Amazon, was the victim of an enormous customer data breach affecting 24 million records. Class action attorneys filed cases against the online shoe retailer citing multiple breaches of contract and privacy violations. Zappos' Terms of Use contained an arbitration provision, which may have saved the company from the plague of the class action bar, but it didn't. Read more.
January 17, 2013
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