Lege Meet Legal Trend: Hacking Laws. Define Data Ownership Like This.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is wrangling over wording in an anti-hacking statute.

What legislative craft became legal fodder? Whether a law that prevents hacking can be applied against a business.

Why does this matter to your clients? Businesses want to protect the data they retain and the data their customers have on their websites and computers. But, who owns that data?

Why does this matter in Texas? Data storage facilities in Texas, like the large Facebook data storage open Texas legal system to the issue. And state laws on the issue matter too. Are there tech companies in Texas? Yes. Are your clients storing data there? Yes, probably so.

This is confusing, give me an example. Hypothetically, there’s a website where people post every detail about their life. If the postings are targeted by a marketing company, the data accessed, does this hypoethical site with its walls of information have the right to stop it or do the people posting the info have privacy rights in their data?

What have courts done? In California, lower courts have sided with the business that stores the data, and not recognized personal privacy of the individual.

The Recorder | Hacking Law Gets Workout in Facebook Case