Gus Hurwitz on LabMD case in The Hill
ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz explains the importance of the LabMD case in his article on The Hill:
Although few will ever know his name, Mike Daugherty is a hero. In 1996 he founded LabMD, a small Georgia-based medical testing lab. As one of the few labs at the time that specialized in testing for certain types of cancers, LabMD helped save many lives. But that is not why he is a hero.
He is a hero because he has spent the last decade fighting charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that LabMD had engaged in “unfair” business practices in 2008 when it was hacked by a security consulting firm trying to get him to buy their security services.
Since the early 2000s, the FTC has brought charges against over 150 companies alleging they had bad security or privacy practices. Privacy and security concerns are undoubtedly serious.
Companies urgently need to do a better job as stewards of customer and user data — and we legitimately need better laws that allow action against companies that fail in this regard.
But, as the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals told us on Wednesday — in a case that could dramatically limit the FTC’s ability to police bad privacy and security conduct by firms big and small — the FTC’s approach to developing security standards violates basic principles of due process.
Read the full article at thehill.com