Blaze Waleski

Blaze's privacy and cybersecurity work includes counseling clients on:

• Corporate privacy and information security policies and procedures;
• Data collection, use and sharing practices, particularly in online and mobile environments;
• Privacy, information technology and IP strategizing and diligence in corporate transactions;
• Interest-based, behavioral and targeted advertising;
• Consumer-facing privacy notices, and data protection terms in commercial contracting;
• Internal and external privacy and security audits and assessments;
• Data security breach notification planning and action;
• Data use for artificial intelligence; and
• Privacy by design in digital technologies and mobile app and website development.

His intellectual property and technology work includes advising clients on patent, copyright and trademark licensing; software, content, data and financial index licensing; cloud-based solutions and SaaS/PaaS/IaaS arrangements and negotiating IT contracts; structuring equipment and hardware procurement; telecom agreements; and IT services, including networking, data centers, systems design and integration, contingency planning, and technology escrows. He also advises on the monetization of IP and technology assets, research and development projects (particularly in regard to data technologies and medical devices) and BPO/ITO/KPO outsourcing.

Blaze is a thought leader in the rapidly evolving privacy field. He is the author of Privacy Law, the first legal treatise on privacy, originally published in 2006. The treatise is published by Law Journal Press, a subsidiary of American Lawyer Media, and he updates it twice each year. He is active in various legal organizations in New York, contributing to committees on intellectual property, cyberspace law and technology transactions.

Before joining Crowell, Blaze served as in-house counsel at two major corporations. At The Nielsen Company (US), LLC, Blaze worked on issues in digital media, ad-tech, measurement, and data analytics at the global information research firm. At American International Group, Inc. (AIG), one of the world’s largest financial institutions, Blaze focused on information technology (IT) and commercial contracting, as well as data issues in the financial sector. Blaze has worked in private practice counseling numerous Fortune 500, middle market and multinational corporations, focusing on IP, technology, privacy and data protection in transactional, contracting and compliance matters.