Friend Hudak Harris

It’s a virtual certainty that your business possesses personally-identifiable information of individual residents of different states – whether customers, employees, or third parties – that could be compromised if your business suffers a data breach.

All 50 states have now enacted some form of legislation requiring private or governmental entities to notify individuals in such states of security breaches involving their personally identifiable information. Consequently, if your company finds itself as the victim of a data breach, a swift response will likely be required – including a quick assessment of your obligations under the data breach laws of various jurisdictions.

The start of a new year provides a time to reflect on past successes and lessons learned. It’s also a time to chart the course ahead to achieve your goals. One important goal for any business is to protect the uniqueness and “brand identity” that distinguishes it from others. And, there is no more valuable asset of brand identity than a company’s trademarks and service marks.

“Additional terms and conditions apply” is a phrase we have all heard from a voice-over on a late-night infomercial hawking vegetable juicers or subscriptions to a knife-of-the-month club. But just what are “terms and conditions” and how are they different from a normal contract? How can you make sure that your business’s “terms and conditions” are binding and enforceable? What if you want to change your “terms and conditions” from time to time?

Does your company use form service agreements, purchase contracts, or online terms to conduct its business with customers? If so, you should review those documents immediately to make sure you are compliant with the new Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016 (CRFA), which makes it unlawful in many cases to use your “standard terms” to control what your customer says about you, your products, or services.

If you are running a technology business that deals with content provided by users or other third parties—or even if your business simply has an interactive web presence that allows users to post their own comments or photos or contains links to other websites—there are important changes you need to know about to limit your liability for copyright infringement caused by your users and other third parties. Here’s what you need to know.