On June 3, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that significantly limits the “exceeds authorized access” clause of the Federal anti-hacking statute called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (CFAA). Here is a copy of the opinion (Van Buren v U.S.)
Without proper planning, this ruling
A Federal Judge recently blocked LinkedIn from restricting another company from using data from LinkedIn’s website. The suit involves Linkedin and hiQ Labs, Inc. The suit also has significant ramifications for job-seekers and employers. See LinkedIn Profiles Used to Alert Employers Which Employees are Job-Hunting.
hiQ
Using Linked for your job searches? Your employer may also be monitoring your LinkedIn profile to find out the same in order to take preemptive action. If this sounds like an HR remake of the sci-fi movie Minority Report, you wouldn’t be too far off.
In that movie, Tom Cruise played a detective in
A former employee’s accessing a Google Drive he set up for his employer may result in a violation of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). This case also serves as a reminder to carefully evaluate how your company uses any third-party services like Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.
While it is far from settled, the trend under the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act continues towards narrowing the application of the CFAA in the context of the employer/employee relationship.
Specifically, a federal district court in Colorado concluded that the federal computer fraud statute was not violated by departing employees and contractors who, during
One of the more noteworthy employer/employee trade-secret misappropriation and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) cases came to an end earlier this week. Specifically, Mr. David Nosal wa sentenced on January 8, 2014 to one year and one day in prison. He was convicted for misappropriating his former employer’s trade secrets and improperly accessing the
The California based law firm Littler Mendelson’s Unfair Competition and Trade Secrets Practice Group discussed a recent dismissal of a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim brought by a company against its former employee.
The case, Ajuba International, L.L.C. v. Saharia (PDF), involved the U.S. federal court for the Eastern District of Michigan rejecting
Previously this blog outlined the various approaches Courts have taken to applying the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”), 18 U.S.C. 1030, to workplace misuse of employer provided computer resources.
A recent opinion from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, seriously limits the applicability of the CFAA to the employer/employee relationship and challenges other
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Ensnared (Gary Fields and John Emshwiller), details the increasing number of federal criminal statutes and federal prosecutions – a threefold increase over the last 30 years. The article attributes – in part – this upward spiral to the criminalization of issues generally
A Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Claim (CFAA) against a former employee based on “excessive Internet usage,” including visiting Facebook was recently dismissed by a Federal District Court in Florida.
Specifically, in Lee v. PMSI, Inc., the former employer claimed Wendi Lee, engaged in “excessive Internet usage” and visited “personal websites such as Facebook” and