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Trending on LXBN this Week: Election 2012, Eagle v. Edcomm, Google, Robocalling and "Blue Ivy"

By Colin O’Keefe
October 25, 2012

This week’s trending topics on LXBN draw insight from some of the LexBlog Network’s strongest areas. It’s no surprise that the election has garnered the level of conversation it has with the important date drawing ever closer. Meanwhile, we see another huge case at the intersection of social media and employment law, Google is once again in trouble for its privacy practices, robocallers draw the ire of the FTC and the “Blue Ivy” trademark dispute is still alive.

  • Election 2012 has consistently been one of the most popular topics of discussion on the LexBlog Network for more than a month. As posts previously discussed the issues at stake, many employment lawyers have now chimed in to offer thoughts on what the election means for the workplace. In this area, the employment lawyers have offered guidance for employers on allowing employees to vote, provided advice on how to deal with political arguments in the workplace and weighed in on whether or not employers can influence how their employees vote.
  • Eagle v. Edcomm is a subject covered by both the LexBlog Network and by LXBN itself as we had both the LXBN Roundtable and an LXBN TV discuss the case. This is an interesting one involving a departing CEO having her LinkedIn account taken over by her employee. You’d think this would be foul play but a federal judge ruled, under the hacker-intended Computer Fraud and Abuse Act—that this is perfectly lawful.
  • Our Google section also saw an uptick in activity as the search giant faced scrutiny from European data authorities, with the French CNIL leading the way in the investigation. The authorities claim Google does not give users enough control over what data is collected from their internet-searches and YouTube video preferences. This all stems from a change in Google’s privacy policy, in which Google consolidates user data collected from each of its products.
  • While it isn’t the juiciest of subjects, it is something just about everyone has to deal with: Robocalling. The FCC is taking a close look at the practice as it creates a do-not call-registry for numbers used for public safety, posts a bounty for illegal robocallers and sets an effective date for new rules surrounding the practice, ones that include obtaining consent from consumers before hitting wireless numbers and including an automated opt-out feature in all robocalls.
  • This section has only seen a couple of new posts but I expect a few more as the Blue Ivy Carter Trademark Dispute is back in the news. For those of you who don’t know, Blue Ivy is the daughter of entertainers Jay-Z and Beyonce. It was initially thought that the pair had lost out on the opportunity to trademark the phrase “Blue Ivy” as an event company was granted rights to it. However, it turns out now that trademark registration only covers a specific set of services.
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