Can Using Emojis Get You in Trouble?
You know what emojis mean. Otherwise, you wouldn't use them.
Right?
One recent University of Minnesota study found that there can be vast differences between what you and your recipient think that emoji means.Use the wrong emoji, and you may have some explaining to do. What you think is a smile on your iPhone could look more like a grimace on the recipient's end who is using a different device.
Cases in which courts must determine what emojis mean are few and far between, but they do appear from time to time. In one case, a University of Michigan law student accused a fellow student of stalking. The fellow student had texted the victim messages calling himself a "petty bastard" and saying that he wanted to make her "feel crappy". The fellow student attempted to argue that the "wry" emoticons he used negated the threatening and harassing nature of the other texts. The court disagreed and held that the emoticons did not change the meaning of the texts.
My guests today believe that while litigation involving emojis is sparse, uncertainty around what emojis mean could have important implications in legal proceedings down the road.
BiosJoe Sremack (LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joesremack) is the Owner of Boxer Analytics. Joe has over a decade of information technology and consulting experience. He develops and implements solutions to advise corporate and legal clients in matters involving complex technology issues. Mr. Sremack’s expertise is in IT assessments, electronic discovery, and complex data analytics involving transactional and disparate data.
A computer scientist by training, Mr. Sremack has conducted numerous matters involving system investigations, data analysis, and the evaluation of technology solutions. He has advised clients across the United States and internationally in matters such as class-action settlement distribution, intellectual property theft, bankruptcy, financial fraud, healthcare regulatory investigations, and antitrust disputes. He has worked with clients in industries including telecommunications, finance, healthcare, energy, government, retail, and insurance. He is a frequent publisher and speaker on issues related to electronic discovery and transactional data. He attended the College of Wooster where he majored in Computer Science and Philosophy, and North Carolina State University, where he earned his Masters in Computer Science.
Gabriella Ziccarelli (@IPwithGZ) is an Associate specializing in Intellectual Property at the law firm of Blank Rome. Ms. Ziccarelli has extensive experience advising and securing successes for her clients on a wide array of intellectual property matters. She provides full service intellectual property strategic guidance to her clients in a wide range of industries, including hardware and software, broadcast television, electrical power, and government contracting. Prior to joining private practice, Ms. Ziccarelli served as a volunteer law clerk to the Honorable Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal of the Northern District of California. She has also worked in-house at a variety of high-technology companies.
During law school, she was an active member of the intellectual property community where she helped forge important relationships between intellectual property students, academics, and practitioners through symposia, speaking engagements, and hiring events. She also served as the editor-in-chief of the nationally ranked Santa Clara Computer & High Technology Law Journal. Ms. Ziccarelli was recognized for her excellence in the field as a 2013 nominee for the prestigious American Intellectual Property Law Education Foundation Jan Jancin Award for excellence in Intellectual Property Law.
Before law school, Ms. Ziccarelli was an advocate for higher education initiatives and served as student body vice president to a more than 40,000-person constituency at the University of Arizona while working closely with the Arizona Board of Regents and Arizona Students’ Association. She co-founded the Junior Cats Youth Mentoring program for at-risk youth and was a volunteer for the Pima County Attorney’s Office Community Justice Board.
Ms. Ziccarelli is an engaged member of both the intellectual property and high-tech communities. Ms. Ziccarelli speaks on a variety of issues that pertain to women in the technology profession and women in the law. She is also a regular contributor to American Intellectual Property Law Association publications. Ms. Ziccarelli is an Inaugural Fellow of the Internet Law and Policy Foundry. She is also a graduate of the Leading Women in Technology Wilpower program for female leaders in the technology industry. Ms. Ziccarelli currently serves as an advisory board member for Seed Spot DC, a startup accelerator serving minority entrepreneurs.
Ms. Ziccarelli a graduate of the University of Arizona and the Santa Clara University School of Law. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Resources Websites BooksBossypants by Tina Fey
Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis
Truth in Comedy: The Manual for Improvisation by Charna Halpern
News RoundupCybercriminals executed another massive, worldwide ransomware cyberattack last week which primarily hit the Ukraine, but also reached Russia, India, the United States and several other countries. The so-called Petya virus again used an exploit that was developed by the National Security Agency. Even Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Pavlo Rozenko was hit. Andrew Roth and Ellen Nakashima report in the Washington Post. Many experts suspect Russia is responsible. Dustin Volz and Justin Menn report for Reuters that U.S. Senators are highly suspicious of Russia-based cybersecurity company Kaspersky Labs and they are seeking to ban the U.S. military from using Kaspersky.
The E.U. has fined Google $2.7 billion. The E.U.'s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said Google suppressed its competitors' shopping search results in favor of its own. According to a blog post by Google SVP and General Counsel Kent Walker, the company is considering an appeal. The implications for Google in the U.S. are unclear as, in recent weeks, President Trump has sought to engage Alphabet and Google in his effort to revamp government technology. Michael Birnbaum reports in the Washington Post.
Wireless and cable companies are trying to figure out how to consolidate in an increasingly saturated and competitive marketplace. Cable companies are concerned about cord-cutters. Wireless companies are worried about a saturated mobile market in which most customers are already spoken for. To address these challenges, Sprint is in talks to provide wireless service to Charter and Comcast, according to the Wall Street Journal. Comcast and Charter would invest in Sprint's network, and Sprint would give Comcast and Charter access to its wireless network. Shalini Ramachandran, Ryan Knutson and Dana Mattioli report this in the Wall Street Journal.
Julia Floretti at Reuters reports that major social networks are combining efforts to take down terrorist content. Facebook, Google's YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft have formed a working group dubbed The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. The group will share solutions for dealing with content posted by terrorist organizations and individuals. In a separate matter, German lawmakers have passed a measure which would fine social networks up to $57 million for failing to take down hate speech within a reasonable period of time. That's set to take effect on October 1st . Anton Troianovsky and Schechner report in the Wall Street Journal.
A federal court in Northern California is allowing the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust case against Qualcomm to proceed. The federal government is accusing Qualcomm of anticompetitive practices in the mobile device chip market in which Qualcomm has a near monopoly. Stephen Nellis has the story in Reuters.
Dan Primack at Axios reported last week that Uber is in the process of negotiating with the Securities and Exchange Commission a way to allow Uber to share equity with its drivers. Industry experts see such an arrangement as a way to slow down driver turnover rates.
Finally, a new GAO report has found significant fraud and abuse with the FCC's Lifeline program. The Lifeline program subsidizes broadband for low-income consumers. The GAO audit found that it couldn't verify whether some 36% of subsidy recipients were actually eligible. As much as $1.2 million went to recipients who didn't exist or who were dead. Mike Snider has the story in USA Today.
