Compliance Stuff

A recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling could have broad implications for internet privacy, and employers should take note. The state’s high court ruled in December that individuals do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their internet search activity for purposes of the Fourth Amendment and similar state constitutional protections. Although the case centered on a state police search in a criminal investigation, the decision will likely influence how courts applying Pennsylvania law analyze privacy expectations across a wide range of contexts, including matters concerning employment and the workplace. This Insight will discuss  Commonwealth v. Kurtz  and how this decision could impact private employers. Background on  Commonwealth v. Kurtz In an investigation into a violent crime, state police obtained a “reverse keyword search warrant” that instructed Google to identify anyone who searched the victim’s name or home address in the week before the assa...

Google has agreed to spend $500 million over the next decade to overhaul its compliance operations, including a new board-level committee dedicated to regulatory compliance and multiple new compliance teams embedded across the 184,000-person enterprise. Google  made that sweeping promise to settle a lawsuit from unhappy shareholders , who had sued the company for its numerous alleged antitrust violations over the years. The two sides reached a proposed settlement on Friday, although the federal district court judge presiding over the case still needs to give the deal her final blessing.  The lawsuit was filed by a Michigan pension fund in 2021, which basically said that because Google and its board had exercised poor oversight of antitrust issues, the company lurched into widespread anti-competitive behaviors and ensuing regulatory probes, which have ended up costing Google a fortune.  Those investors have a point; Google  has  endured one migraine after anothe...

Six Simple Steps to Avoid Sanctions for Failure to Preserve Electronic Evidence I’m not a lawyer, and far be it for me to give legal advice, but I’ve lived and worked around lawyers for all of my professional legal career, so I’m at least qualified to comment on the importance of executing sound legal hold and preservation processes. Google Has Monopolized the Search Market Recently, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a decision in United States of America et al., vs. Google LLC, Case No. 1:20-cv-03010-APM (08/05/24). This case was brought against Google by the federal and state governments alleging that Google practices related to their dominance of the search market violated the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act, which are U.S. laws designed to protect against antitrust, monopolistic, and unfair and anti-competitive business practices. Commenced in 2020 and proceeding through discovery and eventually a trial in 2023, the case largely flew under the ra...