theWHIR.com Blogs - David Snead

FTC publishes guidelines for social media

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:03:57 -0400

By David Snead In early October, the Federal Trade Commission released widely anticipated guidelines for bloggers and other social marketers. These guidelines, which, given the FTC's mandate, are actually requirements, govern how bloggers and social marketers disclose affiliations with companies they discuss and products they endorse. The guidelines amplify pre-existing FTC guidelines about the use of endorsements and testimonials in traditional advertising.

How to avoid the $38 million jury verdict

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:31:14 -0400

By David Snead The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California recently determined that an online music service, similar to YouTube, fell under the DMCA's safe harbor provisions. In this case, the copyright owner argued that Veoh should have known of the possible infringement because they uploaded digital content that is frequently pirated online and were provided with a list of artists whose music was being infringed on the service. The copyright owner felt that this fact was a "red flag" that was ignored by Veoh taking them out of the protection of the safe harbor. The court held that Veoh's DMCA compliance plan, in which Veoh processed the copyright holder's accurate DMCA notices quickly, was sufficient to qualify for safe harbor. Importantly, the court gave great weight to the fact that Veoh had implemented anti-piracy policies, terminated repeat infringers and had a designated agent to receive DMCA notices. All procedures required by the DMCA.

Free social media policies

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 21:31:23 -0400

By David Snead For those who didn't attend my presentation at HostingCon (with Derek Vaughn), or review my blog entries or tweets on social media policies, you'll know I'm not a big fan. I don't believe that more polices solve problems. In general, I recommend that tweaking your current confidentiality or public relations policies accomplish the same goal, without further bulking up your employee handbook. However, if you're a glutton for punishment, or aren't convinced by my arguments, here's an entire online database of social media policies.

I'm not a lawyer but I play one on TV

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:03:46 -0400

By David Snead One of the most frustrating issues for most professionals is to listen to misstatements about their profession. I often attend conference seminars where non-lawyers make broad pronouncements about what the law is that are either inaccurate, or way off the mark. I'm sure people have sat in presentations I've given and have the same reaction to my arm chair CEO conclusions. I recently had this experience at the Disaster Recovery presentation at this year's Hosting Transformation. There were two misstatements that touched on two issues that are hot buttons for me: data transfer to the U.S. and access to information by U.S. law enforcement entities. Here are my responses. "You cannot transfer personal data from the EU to the U.S." This is completely and unequivocally false. You absolutely can transfer personally identifiable data from the EU to the US. It is done all the time, it is easy and mechanisms exist to do this. Not only can you do this, but contrary to what I heard, you can set up disaster recovery procedures where your data in the U.S. is stored in the EU and vice versa. While it takes a bit of effort on a host's part it is relatively easy to do, does not take an inordinate amount of time, and is not extremely expensive. As an initial matter, U.S. companies need only qualify under the U.S. Safe Harbor principles. From there, you must do a bit of research to make sure that the EU member country from, or to which, you transfer data does not have country specific regulations that may affect your business. To be clear, companies do this all the time, and you can too.

Vuitton decision not a game changer

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:22:42 -0400

By David Snead I've waited a bit over a week to blog about the decision in Louis Vuitton v. Akanoc because of all the hand wringing over it. This decision has made for good copy with various industry publications referring to it as a "game changer" and "shot across the bow." Predictably, lawyers have been screaming about it. Nothing like a $32 million verdict to drive clients through the door. Here's why I don't think it's that big a deal: First, it's a jury verdict. That means that there's no discussion of copyright and trademark law in the decision. So it's very hard to use this decision for guidance. None of the coverage I've seen discusses the arguments made in court, nor much of the evidence that was presented by the parties. What we have to go on is the complaint, some emails that were entered into evidence and the jury verdict. It would be unwise to base an analysis of this case on a complaint which can be very one sided. It may be possible to take some guidance from the evidence, and I'll discuss that at the end of the post.

HostingCon: International Privacy Issues

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:16:03 -0400

By David Snead This morning's keynote covered an issue that every host needs to know about. Unfortunately, the 8:15 am timeslot seemed to have been a bit early after a night of parties, so the crowd was sparse. That's a pity, because understanding how to handle personal data from the EU is key to successfully marketing to Europeans. Simply put, if you don't comply with EU Directive 95/46 (EU Privacy Directive), Europeans *can't* send data to you. It doesn't matter that your servers are in the U.S., or even if you have the world's best written privacy policy. In general the EU Privacy Directive was drafted to ensure fairness and transparency when processing data that identifies an individual European. What the EU Privacy Directive covers is: information (about an individual, for example gender, religion, etc), access and rectification(the Directive requires that the holder of the data gives the individual the ability to access it, and make changes to it, an important point, since in the U.S. we generally believe that the entity possessing the data owns it), Objection to further processing and transfer, the ability to complain to an entity other than the holder or processor of the data, and judicial redress.

HostingCon: Let's Make a Deal

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:43:49 -0400

By David Snead HostingCon: Valuing and structuring acquisitions I attended the always fun Cheval "let's make a deal" acquisition panel. I love this seminar because it adds so much more color to the "how much is my company worth" discussion than almost any other presentation on similar topics. Some of the issues that add the most to the valuation discussion:

HostingCon - Metrics

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:30:34 -0400

By David Snead Yesterday's metrics panel was by far the best of the three that I've moderated over the years. The main reason was the amount of specific information given by the panel members. Key among these was: Out of the box metrics packages;

HostingCon - Dealing with Legal Threats

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:00:53 -0400

By David Snead My first presentation this HostingCon was on how to deal with legal threats in your business. Of all the presentations I've given on similar topics, this was the most well attended. I'm not sure why, but I'm glad that hosting providers are taking an interest in preventative lawyering. There were a number of follow up questions for Jeff and me, so I thought I'd answer some of them here: First, reviewing or revising your agreements is not as expensive as you think. It's certainly more expensive than cut and pasting them from a competitor, but only a bit more. What you gain by a custom set of agreements are agreements that actually reflect the individual risks confronting your business.

Employees and Social Media

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:45:53 -0400

By David Snead Facebook, Twitter and related social media provide significant opportunities for companies to build their brand, communicate with customers and expand their reach. Employees have embraced social media as readily, or even more readily, than Internet Infrastructure companies. Like other means of communication, social media outlets may be abused by both employers and employees alike. Do you need a social media policy?