Initially, I will state for the record the apologies of your
friendly, neighborhood Indiana Technology Lawyer for not posting a
blog in a while. I know that you, my loyal readers, have been
waiting with bated breath in the hope that I would again grace
cyberspace with my knowledge and wit. And, alas, I have
failed to deliver. In my defense, this little technology law
firm has been experiencing exponential growth and prosperity, which
has dictated more work for yours truly. But, that is...
Read More »
The first caveat is that I'm sorry I haven't posted anything
recently. Work here at Alerding Castor Hewitt has been going
like gangbusters and yours truly has been up to his distinguished
eyeballs in work. Trust me, however, I'm now dutifully
committing myself to continue providing insight and humor as your
Indiana Internet Litigation guru.
Second caveat is that this post actually has nothing to do with
privacy litigation, software litigation or really any other
technology law issues. ...
Read More »
Your friendly neighborhood litigation attorney at Alerding Castor
Hewitt, LLP with a final post for the year to all of our business,
Indiana internet litigation, and technology law
clients. Saturday, December
25th will no doubt be a date of celebration in many
homes. As you spend time with your
family, remember how special the day is and all of the changes that
have taken place in the last 20 years.
Some of you might wonder what I mean exactly. I’m not referring to Christmas. And for those...
Read More »
I can read your mind. You are thinking, "oh, great and
insightful technology legal counsel, what do you mean by a 'legal
landscape' and what does that have to do with blogging?" My
initial response is that, (a) you've asked two questions and (b) if
you plan to use blogging as a component of your business model, you
need to know what potential pitfalls exist. That is the legal
landscape of blogging. It is made up of the hills and valleys
that must be overcome or avoided to reach blogging...
Read More »
Thanks to the wonderful folks over at Compendium Blogware, I
presented a fun webinar last week on the Legal Landscape of
Corporate Blogging. Don't fret, dear reader; I intend
to put together several posts over the weekend that hit the
highlights of my presentation. Overall, I discussed topics
like privacy litigation, copyright, defamation, Section 230
protections, etc. The fun stuff of blogging.
One area that I discussed and have had several questions about is
Creative Commons. For those of...
Read More »

I know that you are expecting witty and poignant analysis
of some new and exciting aspect of technology and / or privacy
litigation, but that's not really the point of this
post. Rather, the impetus of this concoction of literary
excellence is a realization that I had regarding social
media. In the last two weeks I have experienced the following
(all on a large social media site that shall remain nameless but
that has a movie): (1) received birthday announcements and
pictures of my niece in...
Read More »
Ok, I'll admit it. I was in a rut. Although I found
numerous interesting tidbits through-out cyberspace, I could not
find anything that piqued my interest enough to put aside the
billable hours of a technology legal counsel for a few moments to
blog about it. But, lo and behold, a college student with a
sense of panache, an aspiration for humor, decent journaling
skills, and access to PowerPoint and the Internet has become my
muse.
For those of you that don't know, 2010 Duke graduate...
Read More »
Here is one of those convergence points where business law and
privacy law intersect and effectuate additional administrative
duties on the business holder. In a rather interesting
bulletin, the Connecticut Department of Insurance issued a
directive on August 18, 2010, requiring "that all licensees and
registrants of the Department notify the Department of any
information security incident which affects any Connecticut
residents as soon as the incident is identified, but no later than
five (5)...
Read More »

Another
post that doesn't quite fit neatly into Indiana Internet litigation
or privacy law, but that intrigues me. BusinessWeek, passing
along a Tim Greene article from NetworkWorld (found here:
www.networkworld.com/nwlookup.jsp),
is reporting that the U.S. military has issued an essay in which it
urges its expertise in defense be put to use in protecting civilian
networked infrastructure, such as power grids, financial
institutions, etc. The essay from Foreign Affairs sets out
the concept...
Read More »
I don't often blanket repost other blogs that I see, however, in
this instance, I think it is appropriate. Venkat, writing for
Professor Goldman's blog, writes an excellent analysis of the
recent ruling in the
In re: Easysaver Rewards Litigation(S.D. Cal. August 13, 2010). This is a very interesting case
in that it covers several different, more traditional causes of
action and analysis. I'm interested to see what ramification
this case is going to have on SaaS law and privacy
litigation....
Read More »
Back in October, 2009, I posted about the new endorsement /
testimonial rules set out by the Federal Trad Commission (
blog.alerdingcastor.com/blog/alerding-castor/0/0/ftc-makes-changes-to-blog-law).
There has been some development since that time, but mostly
everyone is still watching and waiting. The FTC did
threaten to pursue Ann Taylor back in April, but otherwise, it has
been relatively silent.
That is, however, until now. On August 26, 2010, the FTC
reached a settlement with Reverb...
Read More »
The ACH litigation team had its first ever (as far as I'm aware)
litigation retreat this weekend, and as I reminisce on our time, I
am struck by the realization that to be a successful business, you
have to allow your team to envision and strive for excellence with
you. This weekend we had some great discussion and
"vision-casting" on the areas of privacy litigation, Indiana
probate litigation, business law, Internet litigation, banking law,
SaaS litigation, and several other areas where we are...
Read More »
Gather 'round kids, this one is interesting. The decision
actually came out in May, 2010, and I regret that I haven't had a
chance to blog on it until now, but it is still a very interesting
order that should have implications to privacy litigation, and
litigation in general. In EEOC v. Simply Storage Management,
LLC, Docket No. 09-CV-01223, the Southern District of Indiana was
faced with the issue of discovery of social networking profiles of
two individuals that claimed sexual harrassment by...
Read More »
Your friendly Indianapolis attorney and Partner In Success at
Alerding Castor Hewitt, LLP here with another post, this time for
both business entities and lawyers who find themselves in the
trenches of business law, SaaS law, internet laws, and privacy
litigation and probate litigation.
Partner and fellow blogger Dave Castor sort of beat me to the bunch
by pointing out a great blog post by Michael P. Alerding (ACH’s
Mike Alerding’s father) at Alerding & Co., LLC, which Dave
re-posted below. I...
Read More »
This is one of those great posts that gets to combine cloud
computing law with privacy law with political intrigue.
Before I get too far in, I want to set out my own caveat. In
my opinion, there is a data war brewing between the United
States, EU, and China and everyone if vying for the top dog
spot. The basis of this is the fact that each faction views
the protection of data very differently and they each want to be
the best. To just give you a surface level scratch of the
differences I'll...
Read More »
Your friendly neighborhood technology counsel here: A couple
of recent state court decisions are going to start personal injury
attorneys frothing at the mouth, and might render some sleepless
nights for defense attorneys. Both Ohio and Florida recently
issued opinions in which they applied their state's respective
long-arm statutes to garner personal jurisdiction over an
out-of-state resident for tortious conduct that transpired over the
Internet.
First, you need to know what a long-arm...
Read More »

Be
prepared: I'm going to get on a bit of a soapbox. I
read a recent article at WSJ.com entitled "Using Social Networking
as Legal Tool" (
Linked Below). There is
nothing wrong with this article. It very succinctly and
pleasantly explains how certain law firms are using social
networking and the Web to find clients for high-value plaintiff
cases. And I don't disagree with that approach. As an
attorney posting on a blog, I too hope to use social networking to
get business, and would be...
Read More »
Every once in awhile, I have the inkling to make a blog post
that is not about developments in privacy litigation or technology
litigation or cloud computing law or foreclosures or any of the
other endless stream of ideas and legal thoughts that pass across
my desk. This is one of those times. Because, while I
think it is important for our readers to know that Mexico passed a
new data privacy law or that litigation related to CAN SPAM is
likely a rising field, I think it is equally important...
Read More »
Your friendly neighborhood technology counsel here: So,
Mexico recently passed a new data protection law. On April
27, 2010, Mexico passed the Federal Law for the Protection of
Personal data, which is likely to be signed into law by the
President in the near future. This law not only allows for a
mind-boggling $1.5 million penalty for violation, but it also
applies to the private sector. Private and public entities will
need to protect themselves from privacy litigation.
This law is much akin...
Read More »
I must take a moment to open with a caveat. The study of
privacy and hence privacy law or privacy litigation is an analysis
that spans centuries. In fact, while it seems like privacy
issues have only recently come to the forefront with the advent of
technology, they have, in fact, been prevalent in ever major level
of recorded history. I put this point out there to help you
recognize that there are books and books addressing the issues of
privacy and my little foray into the issue is but a...
Read More »