Bumps in the Night: Cybsersecurity Legal Requirements, Government Enforcement, and Litigation

Linda Holleran Kopp is an attorney for the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection and the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission.

Esther Chavez is Senior Assistant Attorney General in the Consumer Protection Division of the Office of Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton.

Ms. Chavez’ professional activities include service on the Texas State Bar’s Consumer and Commercial Law Section council where she has served as chair and as director of the section’s continuing legal education programs and annual consumer law student writing competition. Previously she has served as Vice Chair of the Texas State Bar’s Hispanic Concerns Section and as Vice Chair of its Legal Services to the Poor in Civil Matters Committee.

Ms. Chavez is a frequent speaker on consumer protection topics and in the last several years has been a speaker at continuing legal education seminars including the 2015 Texas State Bar’s Advanced Consumer & Commercial Law Course, the National Association of Attorneys General Fall 2014 Consumer Protection Conference, the Practising Law Institute’s Annual Privacy Symposium, the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau’s Annual Advertising Law Review and the American Bar Association’s 61st and 62nd Antitrust Law Spring Meetings.

Thomas Smedinghoff focuses his practice on the new legal issues relating to the developing field of information law and electronic business activities. Named as one of the National Law Journal’s"Top 50 Intellectual Property Trailblazers & Pioneers" in 2014, Tom is internationally recognized for his leadership in addressing emerging legal issues regarding electronic transactions, identity management, privacy, information security, and online authentication issues from both a transactional and public policy perspective. He has been retained to structure and implement first-of-their-kind e-commerce initiatives, electronic transactions, and identity management and information security legal infrastructures for the federal government, and national and international businesses including banks, insurance companies, investment companies, and certification authorities. He has also been actively involved in developing legislation and public policy in the area of electronic business at the state, national, and international levels.

Ian Ballon is a Litigation Shareholder at Greenberg Traurig, LLP. He represents internet, technology, and entertainment companies in copyright, intellectual property and internet litigation, including the defense of privacy and behavioral advertising class action suits. In addition, he is the author of The Complete CAN-SPAM Act Handbook (West 2008) and The Complete State Security Breach Notification Compliance Handbook (West 2009) and serve as Executive Director of Stanford Law School’s Center for ECommerce.

Mr. Ballon, who practices in both Silicon Valley and LA, has brought or defended novel suits involving computer software, user-generated content, rights in the cloud and in social media, links, frames, sponsored links, privacy and security, database protection, screen scraping and content aggregation, digital music, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, rights of privacy and publicity, the enforceability of Internet Terms of Use and Privacy Policies and preemption under the CDA. A list of recent cases may be found at www.GTLaw.com/People/IanCBallon.

Mr. Ballon was named the Lawyer of the Year for Information Technology Law in the 2013 edition of Best Lawyers in America. In addition, he was the 2010 recipient of the State Bar of California IP Section’s Vanguard Award and named new media lawyer of the year in 2012 by the Century City Bar Association. He is listed in Legal 500 U.S., The Best Lawyers in America (in the areas of information technology and intellectual property) and Chambers and Partners USA Guide in the areas of privacy and data security and information technology. He also has been recognized by The Daily Journal as one of the Top 75 IP litigators and Top 100 lawyers in California and is consistently listed as a top Northern California and Southern California litigator.

Mr. Ballon also holds the CIPP certificate for the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).