Social Media Law in a Nutshell by Ryan Garcia & Thaddeus Hoffmeister

Author:Ryan Garcia & Thaddeus Hoffmeister [Garcia, Ryan & Hoffmeister, Thaddeus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781634593540
Google: Sl3JAQAACAAJ
Publisher: West Academic Publishing
Published: 2017-07-15T20:28:11.220252+00:00

A.STATUTES

In addition to the statutes that protect user information from social media providers, there are laws both on the federal and state level that limit third party access to user information. Although the federal laws were not initially created specifically to safeguard the privacy of social media users, they have nonetheless proved effective in that regard. The first federal statute to be examined is the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) which protects information in an individual’s credit file to include credit and employment history. Robins v. Spokeo illustrates 205

how users have invoked the FCRA in the context of social media.10

In Robins, the plaintiff filed a putative class action suit alleging that Spokeo, which bills itself as a “people search engine,” violated his rights under the FCRA by disclosing inaccurate information about him that harmed his employment prospects. Specifically, plaintiff claimed that his Spokeo profile contained numerous inaccuracies e.g., marital status, age, current employer, and educational background. Plaintiff further claimed that Spokeo was a consumer reporting agency that marketed to human resource professionals, law enforcement, and those in need of background checks.

In response to Robins’ Complaint, Spokeo moved to dismiss the lawsuit claiming that the plaintiff did not suffer any “injury-in-fact.” The trial court agreed with Spokeo and dismissed the lawsuit. However, on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the trial court was reversed. The Ninth Circuit found that a violation of a statutory right, in this case the FCRA, is usually sufficient injury to confer standing. The case then went to the United States Supreme Court. The high court remanded the case back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals so that it could consider both aspects of the injury in fact requirements—an injury in fact must be both concrete and particularized. Apparently, the Ninth Circuit focused only on particularization.

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Other federal laws relied upon by social media users to safeguard their privacy from third parties include the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which covers privacy rights and obligations related to personal financial information.11 This law requires financial institutions to provide consumers notice of privacy policies and the opportunity to opt out of having information shared with others. There is also the well-known Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) which protects “all individually identifiable health information held or transmitted by a covered entity or its business associate, in any form or media, whether electronic, paper or oral.”12 In addition, there is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) which protects student educational records.13 Finally, there is the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act which was previously discussed in Chapter 4.

On the state level, California has led the way with respect to social media privacy laws. The Privacy Rights for California Minors in the Digital World also known as the Online Eraser Law is arguably the most sweeping legislation in this area.14 This law, which applies to websites, online services or apps, protects California minors on the Internet in two ways. First, the law limits the ability of website operators to market certain products and services to 207

minors e.

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