Technology Insights
Analysis and practical guides on technology.
150 articles, checklists, and guides on technology law, written by the attorneys at MC Law. Every piece is general information, not legal advice—for a specific matter, contact the firm.
Website Terms of Service Review Checklist: A Practical Checklist
The enforceability of a terms of service document is decided almost entirely by the screen that presents it, not by the words inside it. This checklist reviews both. It starts with formation, walking the interface features courts actually examine, and with the evidentiary record that lets a company prove what a particular user saw on a particular day. It then reviews the substantive provisions in the order they generate disputes: dispute resolution and the mass arbitration problem, unilateral modification, acceptable use and automated access, the user content license, limitations of liability, and auto-renewal and cancellation. Later phases cover accessibility of the assent flow, minors, and the jurisdiction-specific supplements that a single global document cannot replace.
Responding to a Data Breach: The First Seventy-Two Hours
The first three days of a security incident set the terms for everything that follows. They determine whether the forensic investigation is privileged, whether the evidence needed to scope the incident still exists, whether the insurer will pay, and whether the notification clocks that run from discovery can be met. Most of these decisions must be made before anyone knows what happened, which is why they should be made in advance and written down. This guide runs the response hour by hour through the first seventy-two hours and the two weeks that follow, covering the sequencing of containment against preservation, the engagement structure that protects the forensic report, the ransom and law enforcement decisions, the scoping work that drives every notification obligation, and the communications that will be read by regulators and plaintiffs' counsel.
Age Verification and Minors Online After Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton: What States Can Require of Websites and Apps
Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton upheld age checks for sites heavy with material obscene to minors, and the courts have spent the time since arguing about how far that reasoning travels. This article reads the opinion closely, then traces the fight over social media parental-consent laws through the Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits, where the same statutes have drawn strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, and commercial speech review. It explains why Moody v. NetChoice has become the most useful case states have, and why a list of statutory exemptions can decide the level of scrutiny. It covers design codes, addictive-feed laws, app store acts, the 2025 COPPA amendments, and Section 230 product-design claims. It also explains what document upload, face estimation, and device signals actually do, what they collect, and which biometric and privacy statutes they trigger. Readers get a working map of who is covered, who enforces, and what remains unsettled.
John Doe Litigation Toolkit: Early Discovery Motions, Platform Subpoenas, and Motions to Quash
This toolkit collects the papers that John Doe identification litigation runs on, each introduced by its purpose, its owner, and when to use it, and each followed by drafting commentary tied to the governing authority. The plaintiff's templates cover a triage memo, a capture log and declaration, a preservation request, Doe complaint paragraphs, a motion for leave to serve subpoenas before the Rule 26(f) conference, falsity and harm declarations, a proposed order with notice and Cable Act provisions, and subpoena riders for platforms and internet providers. Further templates supply a court-directed notice to the account holder, a DMCA 512(h) subpoena package, and a verification memo with a motion to substitute a named defendant. The speaker's template is a motion to quash with a motion to proceed anonymously and an anonymous declaration, and the platform's are a user notice and an objection letter. A protective order rider for identity information, a deadline tracker, an FAQ, and practical takeaways close the toolkit.
Regulation of Drones
This is a plain-English but rigorous guide to how drones are regulated in the United States, anchored in the Federal Aviation Administration's framework and tied to its statutory and regulatory sources. It explains the two main paths an operator can fly under—the recreational exception in 49 U.S.C. § 44809 (with its free TRUST knowledge test) and the commercial small-UAS rule in 14 C.F.R. Part 107—plus registration, the Remote ID "digital license plate," airspace classes and authorization through LAANC, the security-sensitive airspace that is off-limits to everyone, and the slow march toward routine beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) flight and drone delivery. It then turns to the harder questions the FAA does not fully answer: where federal preemption ends and state trespass, nuisance, and "Peeping-Tom" laws begin; why there is no comprehensive federal drone-privacy statute, only a patchwork (illustrated with Florida's statutes); how the Fourth Amendment's aerial-surveillance cases bear on government drones; the surprising gap in consumer product-safety oversight; and why shooting a drone out of the sky is a federal crime, not a property right. Worked hypotheticals, a FAQ, and a map of penalties make the rules usable for hobbyists, businesses, lawyers, and judges alike.
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Claim Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist turns a civil Computer Fraud and Abuse Act evaluation into phased tasks, with one track for the party considering a claim and one for the party facing it. It begins with shared triage on the clock, the forum's law, and the type of access at issue. The claimant's phases test each element, from the gate and its revocation through intent, loss, timing, and parallel claims, and then prepare the filing. The respondent's phases cover containment, preservation, the motion sequence, and the attack on loss. Each item names its authority, with notes and red flags drawn from decisions through 2026.
Website Terms of Service and Online Contract Formation: Clickwrap, Browsewrap, and Enforceable Arbitration
Almost every consumer relationship online is governed by a contract nobody read, and whether that contract exists at all turns on interface design rather than on legal drafting. This article explains how courts decide whether a website or app user agreed to terms: the spectrum from clickwrap through sign-in wrap to browsewrap, the reasonable notice and manifestation of assent standards applied in Specht, Nguyen, Meyer, Berman, and Oberstein, and the specific design features that decide cases, including button proximity, hyperlink contrast, font size, scroll position, and the wording of the assent notice. It then covers what those terms can and cannot accomplish: arbitration clauses and class waivers under the Federal Arbitration Act, delegation clauses and who decides arbitrability, the mass arbitration problem that has made these clauses double-edged, forum selection and choice of law, limitations of liability, unilateral modification and the illusory promise problem, and the consumer protection overlay for auto-renewal and cancellation. It closes with an interface and drafting checklist, a worked example, an FAQ, and related reading.
Data Breach Response and Notification: The Fifty-State Patchwork, Regulators, and Litigation
A data breach is an operational crisis with a legal deadline attached, and the deadline usually arrives before the facts do. Every state has a notification statute, they define covered information and trigger notification differently, and a single incident affecting customers nationwide requires satisfying all of them simultaneously along with any sector-specific federal regime that applies. The decisions that determine both regulatory exposure and litigation outcome are made in the first week: how the forensic investigation is structured and whether it is privileged, whether to pay a ransom, what the notification says, and what the company tells regulators and the market. This article covers the first seventy-two hours, the notification analysis across state and federal regimes, the litigation that follows, and the preparation that makes all of it survivable.
Cloud and SaaS Agreements: Service Levels, Data Rights, Security, and Exit
A software-as-a-service agreement is not a software license with a different delivery method. The customer never possesses the software, its data lives on the vendor's infrastructure, the vendor can change the product unilaterally, and switching costs are usually far higher than either side admits during negotiation. This article explains what actually matters in cloud contracts and where the leverage is. It covers the grant of access rights and the difference between a license and a subscription, service level agreements and why the service credit remedy is usually worth less than it appears, availability definitions and how exclusions swallow the commitment, and the escalation and termination rights that give an SLA teeth. It then turns to data: who owns customer data, what the vendor may do with it including the increasingly contested question of training machine learning models, the data processing addendum and subprocessor controls, and cross-border transfer obligations. Sections on security representations and audit rights, incident notification, business continuity, intellectual property and feedback clauses, liability allocation, suspension, and the exit provisions that determine whether you can ever leave follow. It closes with a negotiation playbook, a worked example, an FAQ, and related reading.
Computer Access Dispute Toolkit: Access Revocation Letters, Loss Worksheets, and Pleading Outlines
This toolkit collects the working papers of a computer access dispute under 18 U.S.C. § 1030 and its neighbors, each introduced by purpose, owner, and timing. It includes revocation letters for departing workers and automated actors, a departing-user shutdown runbook, an authorization matrix, a loss worksheet with coding rules, forensic preservation instructions, and a chain-of-custody log. For litigation it provides a complaint outline, a Rule 12 outline, a jury instruction starting point, and a response to an allegation letter. Drafting notes tie each template to the governing cases, including Van Buren, Eddings, NRA Group, Moxie, and Power Ventures. Everything is written with brackets for adaptation to the facts and forum.
Cybersecurity Compliance Toolkit: Written Information Security Programs, Risk Assessments, and Incident Disclosure Memos
This toolkit supplies the working documents of a cybersecurity compliance program and of the disclosure decisions that follow an incident. It provides an applicability memo, a written information security program skeleton with model clauses, a Qualified Individual designation, a risk assessment method with a risk register and a risk acceptance form, a control crosswalk keyed to the FTC Safeguards Rule, NYDFS Part 500, the HIPAA Security Rule, and the Massachusetts regulation, and a set of vendor security clauses. For governance it adds a board report outline with model minutes and an NYDFS certification support file; for incidents it supplies a timestamped determination log, counsel-directed forensic engagement terms, regulator notice outlines, a materiality memo for Form 8-K Item 1.05, model Item 1.05 and Item 8.01 language, an Item 106 drafting worksheet, and a tabletop exercise script. Each template states its purpose, owner, and timing and is followed by drafting notes tied to the governing rules and to the leading cases, including Wyndham, LabMD, Premera, Basic, and the Delaware oversight decisions. A closing section shows how examiners, plaintiffs, acquirers, and defense counsel use the same documents from the other side. The toolkit reflects the law as of February 2025, when the proposed HIPAA Security Rule overhaul was open for comment and the SEC's SolarWinds case was still pending.
Cybersecurity Regulation for Businesses: The FTC Safeguards Rule, NYDFS Part 500, SEC Cyber Disclosure, and State Laws
Almost every American business is under a legal duty to secure the data it holds, but no single statute says so; the duty is assembled from the FTC Act, sector rules, securities disclosure law, state statutes, and the common law. This article maps that duty: the FTC's unfairness and deception authority as tested in Wyndham and LabMD, the amended GLBA Safeguards Rule and its thirty-day FTC notice requirement, NYDFS Part 500 as amended in November 2023, and the SEC's 2023 incident and governance disclosure rules together with the SolarWinds litigation. It then covers the state security statutes in Massachusetts, New York, and California, the sector regimes for health data, telecommunications, defense contractors, insurers, and critical infrastructure, and the way regulators and courts actually measure "reasonable security" against frameworks such as NIST CSF 2.0 and the CIS Controls. It explains the board's oversight duty under Caremark as applied to cyber risk in the Marriott and SolarWinds cases, and the sanctions risk in paying a ransom. Two worked examples follow, a regional auto dealer group under the Safeguards Rule and a public SaaS company deciding whether a ransomware attack is material, along with common mistakes, an FAQ, and practical takeaways for companies, boards, and the lawyers on both sides.