Technology Insights

Analysis and practical guides on technology.

90 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.

TechnologyInformation Technology

POSIX and POSIX Standards: The Unsung Heroes of Operating System Harmony

POSIX (the Portable Operating System Interface, standardized as IEEE 1003 and ISO/IEC 9945) is the quiet bedrock that lets software move between operating systems. This article explains what POSIX is, how the IEEE, ISO, The Open Group, and the Austin Group maintain it, and how the Single UNIX Specification and the UNIX trademark fit together. It then turns to the legal questions a technology lawyer and a law firm should care about: whether the application programming interfaces a standard defines can be owned under copyright after Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., 593 U.S. 1 (2021); how standard-essential patents and FRAND commitments constrain patent enforcement; the antitrust exposure created by participating in standard-setting organizations; how open-source licenses interact with standardized interfaces; and how government procurement rules incorporate standards like POSIX. The goal is to make the legal connections explicit, accurate, and well-cited for both lawyers and curious technologists.

Casey Scott McKayMarch 18, 202645 min read

TechnologyProduct Security

Product Security Toolkit: SBOMs, Vulnerability Disclosure, and Recall Decisions

This toolkit collects the documents a product security function actually produces, from the disclosure policy researchers read to the recall decision memorandum that will be read most carefully if something goes wrong. It includes a triage worksheet with the product safety analysis built in, a plain-language decision aid for the reporting standard, a security advisory template written to be defensible, supplier security terms, a support period statement, an end-of-support notification sequence, a multi-jurisdiction reporting map, and a tabletop scenario. Each template is annotated with its purpose, its owner, and the failure it prevents. Each template carries drafting notes on what regulators and enterprise customers actually look for. Adapt everything to the product, the update architecture, and the markets served.

Casey Scott McKayMarch 8, 202613 min read

TechnologyProduct Security

Connected Device Compliance Checklist: A Practical Checklist

Connected device obligations come from five bodies of law that converge on a recognizable set of practices, and manufacturers fail on process rather than on doctrine. This checklist covers the whole program: establishing ownership with authority, publishing a disclosure policy researchers will use, running severity-based triage that includes the product safety analysis security teams reliably omit, maintaining a component inventory, committing to and disclosing a support period, and designing so remediation is possible at all. Separate sections cover supplier requirements, marketing claim review, the recall decision, multi-jurisdiction reporting, end of support, and program metrics. It covers design, supply chain, disclosure, update capability, and end-of-support commitments. Every item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.

Casey Scott McKayMarch 7, 20268 min read

TechnologyProduct Security

Building a Product Security Program for Connected Devices: A Practical Guide

A product security program is a set of processes, owners, and documents rather than a technology, and the ones that matter are the processes that convert a vulnerability report into a decision on a clock. This guide sets out how to build one: establishing ownership with authority to stop a shipment, publishing a disclosure policy that researchers will use, running severity-based triage, running the product safety analysis that security teams reliably forget, maintaining a component inventory, committing to a support period, and managing end of support. It includes a build sequence, a first-incident runbook, staffing and budget guidance, and the failures that recur across manufacturers. A worked scenario follows a reported vulnerability from intake through disclosure and patch. It also covers the recall decision and who owns it.

Casey Scott McKayMarch 6, 202627 min read

TechnologyProduct Security

Connected Device Security and Software Liability: Regulators, Standards, and the Duty to Patch

Connected products sit at the intersection of product safety law, consumer protection enforcement, and an emerging body of security-specific regulation, and the obligations are converging faster than most manufacturers realize. This article explains what actually binds a device maker today: the unfairness and deception authority regulators have used to build a body of security expectations, the product safety framework that treats a hazardous device as a hazardous product regardless of whether the hazard is a software defect, the labeling and procurement standards shaping the market, and the disclosure duties attaching to known vulnerabilities. It covers software bills of materials, support period commitments, coordinated disclosure, and how the duty to patch is being constructed out of ordinary tort and contract doctrine. It maps the overlapping regimes — FTC enforcement, sectoral regulators, state statutes, and international requirements — that now bear on a single connected product. It closes with what a defensible product security program actually contains.

Casey Scott McKayMarch 5, 202627 min read

TechnologyInteractive Entertainment

Interactive Entertainment Toolkit: EULAs, UGC Terms, Creator Agreements, and Monetization

This toolkit collects the documents a game studio actually produces, from the rights register that surfaces most launch problems through the shutdown notice nobody wants to draft under pressure. It includes end user license provisions for virtual items and termination, a user content license scoped to what a studio needs, modding and video policies, the music clearance language that prevents the most common launch crisis, a standalone digital replica consent, an item shop review sheet written from the regulator's perspective, and publishing agreement terms that determine who owns the asset. Each template is annotated with its purpose, its owner, and the failure it prevents. Each template carries drafting notes on what the provision does when a player, a creator, or a regulator reads it. Adapt everything to the platform, the monetization model, and the jurisdictions of the player base.

Casey Scott McKayMarch 4, 202612 min read

TechnologyInteractive Entertainment

Game Launch Legal Checklist: A Practical Checklist

Games ship on a fixed date, and the legal problems that hurt are license scope issues nobody catalogued in time to fix. This checklist runs the clearance and launch work in the order it has to happen: building the rights register, closing the gaps it reveals, registering intellectual property, drafting terms for the actual product, reviewing the monetization flow the way a regulator would, standing up content infrastructure, and clearing platform certification. Separate sections cover minors, anti-cheat, the first ninety days after launch, the live-service calendar, and the diligence package an acquirer will request. It runs from IP clearance and engine licensing through platform certification, monetization review, and launch-day readiness. Every item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.

Casey Scott McKayMarch 3, 20268 min read

TechnologyInteractive Entertainment

Launching a Game: A Practical Legal Guide for Studios and Publishers

Shipping a game means closing dozens of legal questions on a schedule set by a launch date, and the ones that hurt are the license scope issues nobody catalogued. This guide runs the work in the order it has to happen: building the rights register, closing the gaps it reveals, drafting terms for the product actually shipping, reviewing the monetization flow the way a regulator would, standing up the content infrastructure a game hosting player creations needs, and preparing for the first ninety days after launch. It includes a twelve-week countdown, budget guidance, the failures that recur across studios, and what changes for a live-service title. A worked launch sequence shows what has to be finished twelve, six, and two months out. It also covers the post-launch obligations that begin the day the game ships.

Casey Scott McKayMarch 2, 202628 min read

TechnologyInteractive Entertainment

Video Game Law: Intellectual Property, Virtual Goods, User Content, and Player Protection

A video game is several legal objects at once: a copyrighted audiovisual work, a piece of licensed software, a service delivering purchasable items, a platform hosting user content, and increasingly a marketplace. This article separates those layers and explains what governs each. It covers what copyright protects in a game and what it does not, the licensing chain from engine to platform to player, the legal character of virtual goods and the consumer protection scrutiny of how they are sold, the user content and modding questions studios handle badly, the anti-cheat and account termination issues that generate the most player litigation, and the publicity and personality rights that attach to depicting real people. It explains why the legal questions in games are unusually layered, with copyright, trademark, contract, consumer protection, and gambling regulation all bearing on the same feature. It closes with the drafting and design decisions that determine exposure.

Casey Scott McKayMarch 1, 202628 min read

TechnologyPrivacy

Adtech Privacy Toolkit: Tag Inventories, Consent Records, and Litigation Defense

This toolkit collects the working documents of an adtech privacy practice: the capture protocol that produces a real inventory rather than a list, the per-tag record whose fields determine every legal analysis, a consent verification procedure that can be handed to an engineer, the vendor contract clauses that decide the party-exception argument, privacy policy language that describes actual practice, a residual risk memorandum with an acceptance line, and the preservation, discovery, and defense materials used when a demand letter arrives. Each template is annotated with its purpose, its owner, and the failure it prevents. Each template carries drafting notes on what the document proves and who will read it. Adapt everything to the site, the vendors, and the jurisdictions where users are located. The tag inventory in particular should be maintained continuously rather than reconstructed after a demand letter.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 28, 202611 min read

TechnologyPrivacy

Website Tracking Compliance Checklist: A Practical Checklist

Website tracking exposure is technical, and this checklist is built to be run by a lawyer and an engineer together. It covers capturing what the site actually transmits rather than accepting a list, reconciling against the tag manager, mapping transmitted fields, identifying sensitive-page leakage, verifying that consent gating works, reviewing vendor contracts for the permitted-use term that decides the party-exception analysis, and remediating in priority order. Separate sections cover mobile applications, design changes that prevent leakage, governance, and what to do when a demand letter arrives. It covers the inventory, the consent mechanics, the vendor terms, and the litigation-readiness record. Every item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 27, 20268 min read

TechnologyPrivacy

Auditing Your Website Tracking Stack: A Practical Guide

A tracking audit is a technical exercise with legal consequences, and it fails when lawyers ask for a list instead of watching what the site actually transmits. This guide sets out the audit as it should be run: capturing live network traffic across configurations, reconciling it against the tag manager, mapping every transmitted field, identifying sensitive-page exposure, verifying that consent gating actually works, and reviewing vendor contracts for the permission that decides the party-exception analysis. It then covers remediation in priority order, the governance program that prevents recurrence, and what to do when a demand letter arrives before the audit is finished. A worked audit follows one site from tag inventory through remediation and documentation. It also explains what the resulting record does in a wiretapping case.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 26, 202628 min read