Skip to main content

Greenberg Traurig’s Ian Ballon to Chair and Robert Herrington to Present on 'Defending Data Privacy, Behavioral Advertising and Security Breach Class Action Suits'

EAST PALO ALTO, Calif. – Jan. 23, 2015 – Ian C. Ballon, Intellectual Property & Technology litigation shareholder in the Silicon Valley and Los Angeles offices of international law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP, will chair and speak at the Practicing Law Institute’s annual conference “Defending Data Privacy, Behavioral Advertising  and Security Breach Class Action Suits 2015: What Every Litigator and In-House Lawyer Needs to Know.” The presentation will be held at the PLI California Center in San Francisco Jan. 23, 2015.

Ballon will present, “Defending Data Privacy, Behavioral Advertising, TCPA, and Security Breach Class Action Suits - the Law, Trends and Strategy,” and will moderate the “In-House Counsel Panel:  Litigation Strategies and Perspectives.” Robert J. Herrington, co-chair of Greenberg Traurig’s Products Liability and Mass Torts Practice and shareholder based in the firm’s Los Angeles and San Francisco offices, will co-present on “Class Certification and Settlement in Data Privacy, Behavioral Advertising and Security Breach Class Actions.”

According to the PLI website, the presentation will address how to avoid the explosion of new lawsuits focused on the alleged disclosure of personal information in connection with the use of mobile phones and tablets, social networks, social gaming, apps and other technologies in connection with behavioral advertising and the use of pixels, beacons, cookies and other persistent identifiers and geolocation tools. Like patent troll suits and stock drop cases, lawsuits concerning perceived data privacy violations are increasingly becoming a cost of doing business in the digital economy.

An intellectual property and Internet/mobile litigator, Ballon has served as lead counsel to clients in many cutting edge Internet cases, including the defense of data privacy, behavioral advertising and TCPA putative class action suits. View a list of his selected recent cases. Ballon is the author of West’s best selling four-volume legal treatise, E-Commerce and Internet Law: Treatise With Forms 2d Edition (Thomson West 2015 Cum. Supp., www.IanBallon.net) and the earlier first edition, which has been cited in state and federal court opinions. He is also the author of The Complete CAN-SPAM Act Handbook (West 2008) and The Complete State Security Breach Notification Compliance Handbook (West 2009). Ballon serves as executive director of Stanford University Law School's Center for E-Commerce. Ballon, who holds the CIPP/US certification from the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), is listed by Chambers in the areas of data privacy. He has also been recognized as one of the Top 100 lawyers in California and Top 75 IP litigators by The San Francisco and Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Herrington’s practice focuses on defending companies facing significant class action and products liability lawsuits in the areas of advertising, unfair competition, consumer products, consumer electronics, privacy, food and beverage, financial services and insurance. Herrington is the author of the best-selling book, Verdict for the Defense (Sutton Hart Press 2011), which provides a blueprint for business leaders to defend their companies against the growing risk of mass action and class action liability, and is co-author of The Class Action Fairness Act: Law and Strategy (ABA Publishing 2013). In 2013 and 2014, he was named in Law360's list of "Top Attorneys Under 40" for Class Actions.

For more information on the conference, visit: PLI Seminar “Defending Data Privacy, Behavioral Advertising and Security Breach Class Action Suits 2015: What Every Litigator and In-House Lawyer Needs to Know.”

Greenberg Traurig’s Privacy & Data Security Practice is comprised of a multidisciplinary group of attorneys and professionals dedicated to developing strategies to address privacy, data security, and information management issues including privacy audits, policies and procedures, data security and PCI compliance, employee privacy, record retention/electronic discovery, international/cross-border data transfer, data breach readiness and response and litigation and dispute resolution, as well as the defense of data privacy, security breach and TCPA class action suits.

Greenberg Traurig’s class action attorneys are at the forefront of class litigation in federal and state courts throughout the United States, at both the trial and appellate levels. The group’s experience includes serving as national coordinating counsel for some of the world’s largest companies in defending class actions in approximately 15 jurisdictions. The firm’s Class Action Litigation Practice brings together more than 70 trial lawyers from across the country with class action experience spanning a wide variety of substantive areas and industries.