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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tracking Pixels, Session Replay, and the Wiretapping Lawsuits Reshaping Adtech
A wave of litigation has repurposed statutes written for telephone wiretapping and video rental records to attack the ordinary instrumentation of commercial websites. This article explains how that happened: what a pixel actually does, why plaintiffs frame data collection as interception of communications, and how the party exception and its two-party-consent variations decide most cases. It covers the Video Privacy Protection Act's revival and the disclosure element that determines outcomes, the special treatment of health and financial contexts, and the statutory damages arithmetic that makes these cases valuable regardless of harm. It closes with what actually reduces exposure, which is tag governance rather than policy language.
Platform Liability Toolkit: Terms of Service, Notice Procedures, and Litigation Defenses
This toolkit collects the operating documents a content platform needs, from the terms of service provisions that determine whether the platform creates its own liability through the copyright infrastructure the Section 230 intellectual property carve-out makes mandatory. It includes notice and counter-notice procedures, a repeat infringer policy with the tracking that makes it real, moderation decision logging, a subpoena response protocol, a transparency report structure, a design review form addressing the product-defect claims, and a Section 230 motion outline. Each template is annotated with its purpose, its owner, and the failure it prevents. Each template carries drafting notes on how the provision performs in a motion to dismiss. Adapt everything to the service, the user base, and the content types involved.
Platform Content Moderation Checklist: A Practical Checklist
Platform liability almost always traces to the platform's own conduct rather than to user content, and this checklist is organized around that fact. It covers the terms that must match the process actually run, the copyright infrastructure the Section 230 intellectual property carve-out makes mandatory, notice-and-action workflows for every other complaint category, subpoena handling, transparency instrumentation, and the product design review that addresses the defect claims now driving platform litigation. Separate sections cover the hard complaint categories, minors, marketplaces, the annual review, and the diligence package an acquirer will request. It separates the policy layer, the operational layer, and the evidence layer. Every item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.