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Snehal Desai

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Snehal Desai is an associate in the Intellectual Property Practice Group in the firm's San Francisco office. She is a member of the Privacy and Cybersecurity Team, the Advertising Team and the Technology Transactions Team.

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The Children’s Advertising Review Unit recently settled with KidGeni – a generative art platform intended for children- for allegedly violating both CARU’s guidelines and COPPA. According to CARU, which is a self-regulatory organization that audits the privacy practices of companies in the child space, KidGeni collected personal information without first getting parental consent. CARU began its investigation in the company’s functionality in August 2023. As part of its investigation, it reached out to the company to clarify how the site obtained prior parental consent for its children’s platform as required under both COPPA and CARU’s guidelines.Continue Reading CARU Settles With KidGeni AI Platform Over Alleged Privacy Violations 

New York’s governor recently signed the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act. Although signed, the law will not be effective until after the New York Attorney General creates implementing regulations. The law is aimed at protecting children under 18 from social media companies’ “addictive feeds.” Addictive feeds are defined to include platforms and services that recommend content based on information from the user’s activity or device. Among other things, the law will:Continue Reading New York Law Seeks to Regulate Addictive Social Media Feeds

Florida recently passed a new law and Utah recently repealed and replaced its previously enjoined law with two new bills (available here and here), which regulate minors’ access to social media platforms. The laws highlight states’ continued efforts to protect minors in the social media realm.Continue Reading Mother May I? Florida and Utah Recently Passed Regulations for Minor Use of Social Media Platforms

As more and more states enact laws that mirror aspects of GDPR, and as companies begin to get used to the EU’s new standard contractual clauses, now may be a good opportunity for a refresh on data sharing agreements. As most in the privacy space are well aware, the laws in many states -and countries- call for certain oversight in these situations. And many require specific content to be included in contracts. What might you want to include in your contract roadmap?Continue Reading DPA 101: Do You Know Where Your Data Is?

The CPPA, the California regulatory body charged with enforcing CCPA, recently released draft regulations for use of automated decisionmaking technology. The draft comes under the law’s requirements for the agency to issue regulations on the topic. Under the law, automated decisionmaking technology is discussed in relation to profiling. Profiling is defined as “any form of automated processing of personal information” to analyze or predict people’s work performance, health, personal preferences, and the like. However, what constitutes “automated decisionmaking technology” is not defined.Continue Reading California Releases Automated Decision Rules in Draft

The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) released new guidelines for interacting with children in the metaverse: Building Guardrails for Child-Directed Advertising & Privacy in the Metaverse. The guardrails are intended to be “realistic and actionable” ways for companies to comply with privacy laws and engage responsibly with children online.Continue Reading CARU Releases Metaverse Guidelines

Of the many worries on privacy compliance teams’ lists as we face the onslaught of state “general” privacy laws are the impacts they have on vendor contracts. Fortunately for those who have already had to deal with contracts with vendors (service providers, processors) in California or EU’s GDPR, the impact should be fairly minimal.Continue Reading The Comprehensive Privacy Law Deluge: Updating Vendor Contracts

The Utah legislature recently passed SB 152 and HB 311. While these two bills will primarily impact those who are “social media” entities under the law, they may have broader impact when the majority of their requirements take effect, on March 1, 2024.Continue Reading The Beehive State Joins the Buzz Around Minors and Social Media

The California AG announced an investigative sweep of mobile apps, as we reported in our sister blog. The investigative focus is on companies in the retail, travel and food service industries who may not be complying with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). As we have written previously, the California law requires entities to provide individuals with a myriad of rights, including as it relates to “sale” of personal information.Continue Reading Mobile Apps Beware!: California AG’s Current Privacy Sweep

The Children’s Advertising Review Unit recently found that Tilting Point Media violated COPPA and CARU’s Self-Regulatory Guidelines for Advertising and for Children’s Online Privacy. Tilting Point is the operator of the SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off app. The case arose as part of CARU’s routine monitoring of child directed content.Continue Reading CARU Strikes Again: Another Mixed-audience App Settles Over COPPA Allegations