While recent proposals from President Barack Obama detailing more stringent privacy regulation could offer a framework for protecting personal identifiable information, for now the companies that help us connect and converse on the Internet are in the driver's seat when it comes to privacy and data protection. At the Legaltech New York 2015 opening keynote, many of those industry leaders discussed what they're doing to protect users as well as what they're seeing within the global privacy ecosystem.

The Feb. 3 panel, “Cybersecurity, Privacy and Data Protection Legal Challenges in the Digital Age” brought together Edward Palmieri, director and associate general counsel of privacy and regulatory, at Facebook; Laura Pirri, legal director of products at Twitter; Ari Shahdadi, general counsel of Tumblr; Eran Feigenbaum, director of security of Google Apps; and Jon Palmer, assistant general counsel of litigation and antitrust legal and corporate affairs at Microsoft Corporation. The group discussed not only the privacy trends and issues on the tops of their minds but also what they're doing to build solutions that address the concerns of customers.

For example, in terms of how Facebook is developing its privacy strategies, Palmieri explained: “We pull together experts across the company, and find who's best to understand changes and updates to those products. You have to find ways to bring resources together with nimble structures so you don't become bureaucratic; we have found that bringing together these groups is a great way to do that.”