Morrison & Foerster LLP (LexBlog United Kingdom)

Companies contracting with consumers have to take care to ensure their agreement terms are enforceable. In one of the first post-Brexit decisions on issues in an online consumer contract, a UK court recently showed that principles of fairness and transparency remain vital in the terms and conditions of consumer digital contracts. In Europe, drafting digital...

Experts anticipate that the incoming Biden administration will be tough on tech. What does that mean for the future of §230 of the Communications Decency Act? The antitrust suit against Google? This NPR piece makes some predictions. Human rights activists are outraged over a proposed law in France that would makes it illegal to publish...

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the process of implementing Brexit continues. One of the key Brexit issues for the tech sector is the extent to which the UK will either align or diverge its digital regulations with the EU. Both the UK and EU have set out their intentions for their post-Brexit relationship in matters relating...

One of the next big items in Europe will be the expansion of “ePrivacy,” (which, among other things, regulates the use of cookies on websites). While the ePrivacy reform is still being worked on by EU lawmakers, one of the items the ePrivacy Regulation is expected to update is the use of “cookie walls.” Recently,...

Friday, February 23, 2018 Registration: 8:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Workshop: 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Risk.net Workshop One Moorgate Place Chartered Accountants Hall 1 Moorgate Pl London, United Kingdom EC2R 6EA The first few days of 2018 saw the implementation of two major pieces of EU legislation, MiFID II (comprising a new Markets in Financial...

2017 in the UK and the rest of Europe seems to have been primarily a year devoted to implementation – both of political decisions already made and of legislation that had already been enacted.  On the political front, Brexit continued to dominate many conversations around EU financial services.  Theories circulated that EU decisions on various...

2017 in the UK and the rest of Europe seems to have been primarily a year devoted to implementation – both of political decisions already made and of legislation that had already been enacted.  On the political front, Brexit continued to dominate many conversations around EU financial services.  Theories circulated that EU decisions on various...

After British police unsuccessfully tried to get the blogging platform WordPress.com to remove offensive and threatening posts, the deputy leader of the UK’s Labour Party vowed to urge changes that would make the country’s laws less tolerant of online abuse. As bipartisan U.S. legislation to prevent the appearance of foreign-entity-funded political ads on social media...

A defamation suit brought by one reality television star against another—and naming Discovery Communications as a defendant—could determine to what extent (if any) media companies may be held responsible for what their talent posts on social media. In a move characterized as setting legal precedent, UK lawyers served an injunction against “persons unknown” via an...

Social media is reportedly rife with influencers promoting or reviewing products or services without disclosing compensation or other consideration that they’ve received for such endorsements. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK’s consumer protection regulator, is stepping up efforts to combat such undisclosed endorsements. Following a ruling against an influencer marketing...

Snapchat is on track to rake in an enormous amount of ad revenue by 2017. Also, there’s mounting evidence that the company is working toward developing a Google Glass-like product. We have written previously about the scourge of revenge porn; it turns out the UK has a serious revenge porn problem, too. A new law...

The UK wants to use the blockchain to track the spending of welfare recipients. Some believe that a recent Ninth Circuit holding could turn sharing passwords into a federal crime under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. And another Ninth Circuit opinion sided with Facebook in a closely-watched case interpreting the same federal law, this...

Thursday, July 7, 2016 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. EDT On 23 June 2016, the UK electorate voted narrowly in favour of the UK leaving the European Union. The result of this vote will have broad and wide reaching economic and political consequences, and a major impact on businesses with operations in the UK/EU or...

With 1.65 billion users on Facebook, 332 million users on Twitter and 400 million on Instagram, it is unsurprising that many companies are seeking to increase brand awareness and customer engagement by running competitions via social media. If you want to avoid attracting the scrutiny of UK regulatory authorities, however, you will want to ensure...

The Great Instagram Logo Freakout of 2016. A UK council policy reportedly grants its members power to spy on residents by setting up fake Facebook profiles. Guess who spends more of their workday on social media, women or men? Lessons from one of YouTube’s first (and most successful) stars. Should sharing tragic images on social...

Vloggers have become the reality stars of our times. For an increasing number of social media users, what was once a hobby is now a lucrative career. You may be surprised to learn that Felix Kjellberg (aka “PewDiePie”), a 25-year-old Swedish comedian and the world’s most popular YouTube star, is reported to have earned $8.5...

Earlier this month the UK’s financial services regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), issued its final guidance on financial promotions made via social media channels. As we reported last year, the FCA issued long-awaited draft guidance in August 2014 on the use of social media in financial promotions by regulated financial institutions. Following the publication...

Earlier this month the UK’s financial services regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), issued its final guidance on financial promotions made via social media channels. As we reported last year in our alert, “UK’s Financial Services Regulator Issues Draft Guidance on Social Media – Should we Favourite* or #Fail?”, in August 2014 the FCA issued...

Chevy Kelly, a partner in the UK-based Social Media Leadership Forum, recently sat down with Socially Aware’s own Sue McLean, a Social Media Leadership Forum member, to discuss the legal implications of UK companies’ use of social media as part of their marketing strategies. Chevy Kelly: In your opinion, what are the top three legal risks...

Advergames are online video games that are created in order to promote a brand, product or organization by immersing a marketing message within the game. They are typically accessed via an organization’s website or app, or via a social media platform. Advergames are not particularly new. The concept of advertising via gaming has been around...

Introduction In June of this year, we sent out an alert about the anticipated new UK copyright infringement exceptions. These exceptions were to be introduced based on the recommendations of the Hargreaves Review. Surprisingly, some of the exceptions had been dramatically pulled from the legislative slate at the last minute. However, the UK government has...

On August 6, 2014, the UK’s financial services regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), issued long-awaited draft guidance on the use of social media in financial promotions by regulated financial institutions. But if financial services firms operating in the UK were hoping that this guidance would provide them with a clear framework to help jump-start...

The latest issue of our Socially Aware newsletter is now available here. In this issue of Socially Aware, our Burton Award-winning guide to the law and business of social media, we examine the use of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to combat web scraping; we explore the launch of Google Glass in the UK...

INTRODUCTION This year, as the world celebrates the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web, the Web’s founder, Tim Berners-Lee, has called for a fundamental reappraisal of copyright law.  By coincidence, this year we also anticipate a rash of UK and European legislative developments and court decisions centring on copyright and its application to the...

Following our post on U.S. lawsuits concerning the ownership of LinkedIn and Twitter accounts, we report on a recent United Kingdom High Court ruling that considered who was entitled to operate four LinkedIn Groups, and other UK cases that have addressed related issues. Before we describe the High Court’s ruling, it is important to provide...

Today’s consumers want to engage in a new way with the companies from which they buy goods and services.  Although some UK financial services organisations are leading the way in terms of their use of social media, on the whole, engagement in social media by UK financial services firms is still relatively limited. This is...

Businesses are increasingly using social networks and online forums for marketing, recruiting, customer service, branding and PR purposes. The UK privacy regulator, the Information Commissioner (ICO), has recently published new guidance on the use of social networking and online forums. This replaces its 2007 guidance on the subject and is a helpful reminder to companies...

On April 12, 2013, the UK’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the UK regulator for consumer affairs and competition, announced that it was launching an investigation into children’s web- and app-based games. In particular, the OFT is looking into whether such games comply with the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (“Regulations”), and are...

Following concerns raised by bloggers, the UK government has clarified that small blogs will be exempt from the scope of the new UK press watchdog which is to be introduced as a result of the findings of the Leveson Inquiry. In 2007, Clive Goodman, then-editor of UK newspaper News of the World, and private investigator...

In our May 30, 2012 post on the Socially Aware blog—“Should We All Be Getting the Twitter “Jitters”? Be Careful What You Say Online (Particularly in the United Kingdom)”—we considered a variety of UK laws being used to regulate the content of tweets and other online messages. Since that post, there has been a series...