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June 30, 2009
Roommates.com Infects the Tenth Circuit--FTC v. Accusearch
By Eric Goldman
F.T.C. v. Accusearch Inc., 2009 WL 1846344 (10th Cir. June 29, 2009). My blog post on the district court opinion.
Introduction
June has been an active month for 230 jurisprudence. Cases this month include Doe IX v. MySpace (actually a May opinion but I blogged it in June), Gibson v. Craigslist, the Barnes v. Yahoo amendment, and Zango v. Kaspersky--all defense-favorable outcomes. As I mentioned in my post on the Doe IX case, the Ninth Circuit Roommates.com en banc decision has not cast a long shadow on 230 jurisprudence; it has been cited less than 10 times in the past year, and prior to yesterday, only once in favor of the plaintiff. Unfortunately, those good times may be over. The Tenth Circuit has largely adopted the rule and reasoning of Roommates.com in FTC v. Accusearch, effectively making Roommates.com the governing law west of the Rockies.
The FTC's Enforcement Action Against Accusearch
This is a prime example of bad facts making bad law. Accusearch runs Abika.com, a website that tried to style itself as a matchmaker between customers seeking, and vendors selling, private/personal records about people. The specific records at issue here contain "customer proprietary network information" (CPNI), the metadata about telephone calls. CPNI resales were probably illegal at the relevant time periods; following the Hewlett-Packard pretexting scandals, Congress cleared up any confusion and criminalized the resale of CPNI via the Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act of 2006, 18 U.S.C. §1039.
If Abika.com was structured as a pure advertising site to facilitate off-site transactions, like Craigslist or eBay, perhaps Abika.com would have a stronger case for qualifying for 47 USC 230 protection for the sale and delivery of CPNI reports from Abika's vendors to their customers. However, Abika.com apparently was structured as a classic retailer in that it advertised the third party reports, processed customer payments, and delivered the subsequent reports to customers as if the reports were its own (Abika.com even stripped out the third party vendor's identifying information). So the veneer of Abika.com simply being a passive intermediary between customers and vendors may have been overwhelmed by Abika's active and overwhelming presence in the transaction.
The FTC went after Accusearch claiming that Abika.com was engaged in "unfair" trade practices under the FTC Act. (Note: the FTC has the power to pursue unfair commercial practices, even when they are not deceptive. However, the standards for "unfair" are amorphous, making such enforcements potentially problematic and controversial. Fortunately, the FTC generally wields this power sparingly). Accusearch's principal defense was 47 USC 230 on the theory that Accusearch procures the CPNI reports from third party vendors and merely republishes the third party reports to Accusearch's customers.
It's really hard to defend CPNI resales, and the court says that Accusearch had the requisite scienter that such resales were illegal/impermissible. With the combination of scienter, illegal transactions, active intermediation and the FTC as a plaintiff, it really seemed to me that Accusearch had no chance of winning this case. But this combination also tempted the judges to use loose reasoning to reach that unavoidable result.
The Opinion’s Discussion of 47 USC 230
A defendant must establish three elements of a successful 230 defense, and the majority opinion muddles the discussion on all of them:
1) "provider or user of an interactive computer service." Based on the funky definition of ICS, the FTC argued that websites qualify for 230 protection only when they enable user-to-user communications. The majority declines to accept this argument but doesn't reject it outright either, basing its decision on another prong. Although the statute could be clearer (like, for example, saying that websites qualify for 230 protection), the caselaw is extremely thick that every website qualifies for 230 protection. Unfortunately, with the majority's pathetic response, I wouldn't be surprised if plaintiffs unnecessarily put this issue into play in future 10th circuit cases.
2) "publisher or speaker of content" The concurring judge argues for a speech/conduct distinction and argues that the FTC is pursuing Accusearch for its conduct, not its speech. The speech/conduct distinction is almost meaningless in this case given that Accusearch was reselling information, which means that Accusearch was electronically republishing that information. The majority disagrees with the speech/conduct distinction but otherwise doesn't discuss this prong.
3) "created or developed by another information content provider." Adopting the arguments from the Roommates.com case, the majority says that Accusearch didn't "create" the reports but it was "responsible" for "developing" the reports. To reach this conclusion, the majority defines "responsible" and "develop":
* citing old French, "develop" means to "unwrap." Huh? Thus, "when confidential telephone information was exposed to public view through Abika.com, that information was 'developed.'" Does this definition make "develop" a synonym for "publish"?
* the majority initially says when "responsible" doesn't mean: "to be 'responsible' for the development of offensive content, one must be more than a neutral conduit for that content." This reference to "neutral conduit" parallels the Roommates.com case, which used the term "neutral tools" five times but never defined the term once.
The majority then says "a service provider is 'responsible' for the development of offensive content only if it in some way specifically encourages development of what is offensive about the content." This phrasing allows the court to distinguish the old 10th Circuit Ben Ezra precedent, which absolved AOL of liability for republishing inaccurate stock quotes. There, AOL didn't ask its vendors to give it false reports; here, the majority says that Accusearch asked its vendors to get information it knew was illegal to obtain:
Accusearch solicited requests for such confidential information and then paid researchers to obtain it. It knowingly sought to transform virtually unknown information into a publicly available commodity. And as the district court found and the record shows, Accusearch knew that its researchers were obtaining the information through fraud or other illegality.
Implications
I doubt the literal holding of this case is all that troubling to most folks. If you're in the business of reselling illicit phone records and the FTC comes calling, 230 isn't likely to help you.
However, this opinion could be problematic for any online retailers who thought they could use 230 to insulate themselves. It's never been clear how much 230 protects online retailers when they are making sales for their own account (as opposed to advertising services like eBay or Craigslist), and this opinion raises the specter that 230 won't apply even when "retailing" involves republishing third party content. Indeed, the loose language means the case could be a major carveback of 230's coverage in the Tenth Circuit. As the concurrence points out, the majority's reading is "an unnecessary extension of the CDA’s terms 'responsible' and 'development,' thereby widening the scope of what constitutes an 'information content provider' with respect to particular information under the Act."
Then again, between its role as a retailer and the illicit nature of its goods, Accusearch was always at the periphery of 230's coverage. Today, 230 would be irrelevant if a federal government agency pursued a CPNI reseller under the new criminal provisions in 18 U.S.C. § 1039. So I think a better interpretation of this case is that where an online provider is dabbling too close to third party illegal activity, judges simply will ignore 230 as a bailout. Framed that way, this ruling is akin to Roommates.com, which was a largely a normative judgment by the Ninth Circuit that the Fair Housing Act should trump 230 regardless of 230’s precise statutory contours.
I'll conclude with a few more thoughts about the concurrence. Although the concurrence's proposal to distinguish between speech and conduct wasn’t a good one, there was a useful nugget embedded in it. To bypass 230, perhaps the case could have focused on first party content published by Accusearch--namely, copy written by Accusearch advertising the availability of CPNI records, including any express or implied statements that it was reselling legitimate records. I've repeatedly blogged on the challenges of first-party/third-party content distinctions in 230 (see, e.g., my recent discussion about 230 and consumer protection), but in this case, I think focusing on Accusearch's own representations may have led to a cleaner doctrinal result than the one we got.
Finally, in the concurrence's FN5, Judge Tymkovich says:
If Accusearch had run a traditional business out of a physical location and offered similar services, it would seem the FTC would have the same unfair business practices complaint. Nothing would immunize Accusearch’s conduct had it chosen to deliver the confidential telephone records to requesters through hard copy print-outs either in person or through the mail. Accusearch’s duty to refrain from engaging in the solicitation and distribution of unlawfully-obtained confidential telephone records should not depend on the medium within which it chooses to operate.
Uh, NO. As with some other bright judges dealing with 230 cases, Judge Tymkovich has fallen into the mental trap that smart common law judges applying their powers of reasoning can simply intuit what the law should be. Congress has made it abundantly clear that it did exactly what Judge Tymkovich rejects; via 230, Congress created medium-specific rules that make some activities online permissible even if their offline analogue would not be. As challenging as it may be, judges should resist the temptation to make these kinds of normative assumptions in the face of clear Congressional intent.
Posted by Eric at 10:28 AM | Derivative Liability , E-Commerce , Privacy/Security | TrackBack
June 29, 2009
Sixth Lawsuit Filed Over Google AdWords, Plus an Assault on Google's Organic Search Results--Ascentive v. Google
By Eric Goldman
Ascentive, LLC v. Google, Inc., 2:09-cv-02871-JS (E.D. Pa. complaint filed June 25, 2009)
Guess who got sued again? Google now has 6 pending lawsuits challenging its AdWords service. The previous five are:
* Rescuecom v. Google
* FPX v. Google
* John Beck Amazing Profits v. Google
* Stratton Faxon v. Google (this wasn't a trademark case last I checked)
* Soaring Helmet v. Bill Me
The latest lawsuit has a different spin than the others. Ascentive makes software that it claims will improve the speed of its users' computers and combat spyware. Earlier this year, Ascentive had a run-in with StopBadware, which initially labeled Ascentive as a scamware-like offering that hyped the threats on users' computers to induce them to pay to upgrade their Ascentive software. (See the initial StopBadware alerts 1, 2). StopBadware has since reached a compromise with Ascentive and repealed its warning, a move that appears to have been fairly unpopular in some segments of the security community. (This post gives a sense of the sentiments towards Ascentive and StopBadware).
Around the same time, the Ascentive-Google relationship deteriorated, which Ascentive speculated was due to StopBadware's classification (Google's correspondence just cryptically cited "multiple policy disapprovals"). After Ascentive had spent over $645k as an AdWords customer in 2008, Google kicked Ascentive out of the AdWords program. A week later, Google completely dropped Ascentive's website from its search index. As a result, Ascentive was frozen out of both Google's organic search results and sponsored links, and not surprisingly, Ascentive suffered a "severe drop in online sales" from this double-whammy. Ascentive's entreaties to Google were rebuffed.
Ascentive makes two broad legal attacks on Google. First, as has become typical, Ascentive alleges that Google commits trademark infringement and related torts by selling competitive ads keyed to its trademark and by suggesting that advertisers buy Ascentive's trademarks in Google's keyword suggestion tool. Among other specific issues, Ascentive complains that Google didn't respond to its trademark appearing as a third-level domain in a competitor's ad copy or the inclusion of "Finally Fast" in ad copy (Ascentive's applicable trademark is "FinallyFast.com"). Overall, these complaints don't break much new ground compared to prior allegations against Google's AdWords program.
Second, Ascentive alleges a variety of legal violations because Google kicked Ascentive out of its organic search results index. This is a bit like KinderStart redux. The allegation that really caught my attention starts in Para. 83, which reads "Google's refusal to list Ascentive's website in its natural search result listings violates the Lanham Act" as a false designation of origin. Whoa! The complaint doesn't explain this allegation thoroughly, but the theory seems to be that consumers expect to see the trademark owner in organic search results for the trademark and therefore consumers will be actionably confused if the trademark owner doesn't appear there.
Framed that way, of course we know such a claim is DOA. Indeed, as exciting as it would be to see some meaty discussion on the topic of Google's liability (or lack thereof) for deciding who gets into its search index, I'm guessing Google will beat this prong of the complaint quickly and completely. One way Google could get there is through 47 USC 230(c)(2) (which I just blogged about last week), which completely protects Google's ranking decisions as a subspecies of filtering choices generally. However, to get there, a court will have to conclude that a false designation of origin claim isn't an "IP claim" which is excluded from 230's coverage. If it doesn't want to reach that doctrinal issue, the court has a wide smörgåsbord of other doctrinal choices to squash this claim.
Posted by Eric at 07:32 AM | Derivative Liability , Search Engines , Trademark | TrackBack
June 26, 2009
Anti-Spyware Company Protected by 47 USC 230(c)(2)--Zango v. Kaspersky
By Eric Goldman
Zango, Inc. v. Kaspersky Lab, Inc., 2009 WL 1796746 (9th Cir. June 25, 2009)
The case involves Kaspersky, an anti-spyware software vendor, and Zango, the former purveyor of adware (I say "former" because Zango shut down a few months ago). Kaspersky classified Zango's software as adware and did some other things that allegedly interfered with Kaspersky users' ability to download and enjoy Zango software. Zango sued Kaspersky, and Kaspersky defended on 230(c)(2) grounds.
Note: 47 USC 230(c)(2) is the underlitigated/under-discussed sibling of 230(c)(1), which provides nearly absolute immunity for third party online content and actions.
In my opinion, 230(c)(2) fairly clearly protects all types of online filtering decisions, and this panel confirms that it protects anti-spyware classifications. As the court concludes:
a provider of access tools that filter, screen, allow, or disallow content that the provider or user considers obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable is protected from liability by 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(2)(B) for any action taken to make available to others the technical means to restrict access to that material.
While I think this is the right result, both normatively and descriptively, 230(c)(2) is not exactly the best-drafted statute, and this panel (being the first appellate court to work through the language) appeared to struggle with some of its frayed edges.
For example, to become eligible for 230 protection, the defendant must be a provider or user of a service that "provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server." [In this case, Kaspersky didn’t claim it was a user.] How does this language apply to an anti-spyware software provider? Typically, anti-spyware software phones home for new spyware definitions, but if a phone-home capability qualifies for 230 protection, then many/most software vendors should qualify (so long as they offer some filtering capability). I’m personally OK with that result, but I suspect it takes the statute beyond the drafters’ initial intent.
The panel also sidestepped some other drafting problems in 230(c)(2), including:
* does it immunize decisions to filter other software, as opposed to filtering content? The drafting clearly meant to immunize filters of porn and similar kid-unfriendly content, but the language doesn’t apply as clearly to software filtering.
* must the filtering provider make its categorizations in good faith? The court ducks this question. However, Judge Fisher’s concurrence expresses concern that 230(c)(2) might literally protect a vendor’s anti-competitive or capricious blocking. He gives an example of “a web browser configured by its provider to filter third-party search engine results so they would never yield websites critical of the browser company or favorable to its competitors. Such covert, anticompetitive blocking arguably fits into the statutory category of immune actions.” I agree with this, although I’m also confident that any such browser provider would lose its customer base if such biases were ever publicly exposed. Therefore, legal liability may not be necessary to discourage this behavior.
Ultimately, this ruling may not affect the litigants very much, as Zango has already gone belly-up, making this effectively an advisory opinion. However, I think this ruling is important for everyone else for two reasons:
First, the Ninth Circuit's last two 230 opinions (Roommates.com and Barnes) have exhibited some hostility to expansive 230 readings. In refreshing contrast, this opinion gives a robust interpretation to 230’s immunizations.
Second, this opinion is terrific news for vendors of anti-spam/anti-spyware/anti-virus services. Although we have long suspected that they would be protected under 230(c)(2), this opinion codifies their immunization as Ninth Circuit law. As a result, these vendors should continue to have a high degree of freedom to make judgments about how to best serve their customers. On the flip side, this opinion confirms that anyone blacklisted by these software vendors can’t use judicial proceedings to change the classification. Fortunately, most reputable vendors offer an extra-judicial mechanism to correct their misclassification errors.
It remains less clear if this opinion protects search engines for their ranking determinations. The statutory words interpreted in this opinion aren’t germane to search engines. Even so, the panel’s broad reading of 230(c)(2) can’t be bad news for the search engines.
The case library:
* Ninth Circuit oral arguments
* Zango's reply brief [warning: 3+ MB file]
* Amicus brief by CDT in favor of Kaspersky
* Kaspersky's answering brief [warning: 5MB file]
* National Business Coalition on E-Commerce and Privacy amicus brief in favor of Zango
* Zango's appeal brief [warning: 2.1MB file]
* The district court's dismissal and my commentary
* TRO Denial and my commentary
* Kaspersky's Response to TRO Motion
* Zango's TRO motion
Posted by Eric at 01:13 PM | Adware/Spyware , Derivative Liability | TrackBack
June 24, 2009
47 USC 230 and Consumer Protection Talk Notes
By Eric Goldman
Last week I made a very short presentation on 47 USC 230 and consumer protection at the ABA Antitrust Section’s Consumer Protection Conference. (I was scheduled for 6 minutes, but I think I took about 8). My talk notes:
47 USC 230 tries to divide online content into first party content and third party content. In its simplest form, 230 says that online actors can’t be liable for third party content unless (1) ECPA, (2) federal criminal enforcement, or (3) IP claims.
230 is the flagship example of cyberspace exceptionalism. As a result, its outcomes can challenge our traditional notions of tort law. This befuddles bright lawyers.
Despite 230, websites always remain liable for first party content.
* Ex 1: if they post their own content, they are liable
* Ex 2: if they make marketing representations, they are liable under standard doctrines like contract and false advertising law. Even so, some courts have been giving websites a pass for marketing representations which are rendered untrue by third party actions.
* Ex 3: Barnes v. Yahoo: website can by liable under promissory estoppel theory if it promises to remove third party content
Plaintiffs often try to argue that third party content becomes first party content.
* Ex 1: website contract may take ownership of user-supplied content
* Ex 2: SEC says that issuers endorse/adopt content that they link to
However, these arguments generally fail under 230. If content starts out as third party content, there is almost nothing the website can do that will convert the content into first party content. As a result, agency civil enforcement actions can unexpectedly run afoul of 230 when they collapse the distinctions between first party and third party content.
However, there is a possible workaround. In the Roommates.com case, the Ninth Circuit said that websites can lose their 230 protection in civil cases if they “encourage illegal content” or “require users to input illegal content.” The FTC is relying on this language in its recent Pricewert/3FN enforcement action against an Internet access provider who facilitated customers allegedly engaged in illegal activities. From my perspective, the Pricewert enforcement action could make sense in the following postures:
* if the FTC is bringing a criminal enforcement action, 230 is irrelevant
* if the FTC’s civil enforcement action is premised on Pricewert’s actual illegal behavior, 230 is irrelevant
* otherwise, if the civil enforcement action is premised on the illegal behavior of Pricewert’s customers, then this might fit into the Roommates.com exception if such an exception exists. However, I am troubled by such an exception, especially given that the enforcement action might also adversely affect Pricewert’s customers who only engaged in completely legal activity.
Two concluding observations:
1) 230’s basic division between first party content and third party content sounds great in theory but is tough to apply in practice.
2) In light of 230, enforcement agencies should rethink their expansive liability theories that basically assume that everyone should be responsible for a common set of online behavior (unless the agency is pursuing a criminal enforcement action).
Posted by Eric at 10:08 AM | Derivative Liability , Marketing | TrackBack
June 22, 2009
Ninth Circuit Helpfully Amends Barnes v. Yahoo Opinion
By Eric Goldman
Barnes v. Yahoo, Inc., 05-36189 (9th Cir. Amended Opinion June 22, 2009)
The Ninth Circuit has issued an amended opinion in last month's Barnes v. Yahoo opinion. The amended opinion makes two changes to the initial opinion, both of significant value.
First, the opinion deletes the entire old section II, a two paragraph section where the panel declared that, under Ninth Circuit law, 47 USC 230 is an affirmative defense that could not support a 12b6 motion to dismiss. That discussion was poorly researched, sloppy and completely gratuitous. Rather than try to fix the section, the panel wisely decided just to kill it. This still leaves open the possibility that a district court will reject a 230 defense to a 12b6 motion, although I think the better result is that 230 can support a 12b6 motion as the Gibson v. Craigslist case just held.
Second, the panel added a new footnote to its recap of the prima facie elements of a 47 USC 230 defense. You may recall that in my initial blog post, I excoriated the panel for saying, in plain language, that 47 USC 230 only applied to state law claims. To fix this obvious error, the panel added the following footnote:
"We limit our restatement of section 230(c)(1) to state law claims because we deal in this case with state law claims only. We have held that the Amendment’s protection also extends to federal law causes of action, see, e.g., Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, 521 F.3d 1157 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc) (applying the Amendment to a cause of action under the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3601 et seq.). Because no federal law cause of action is present in this case, we need not decide how or whether our discussion of section 230(c)(1) would change in the face of such a federal claim."
I don't know why the last sentence of the footnote is there. I guess this is super-CYA, but everyone knows that the 230(c)(1) analysis doesn't change one bit between federal and state law claims. Nevertheless, this footnote should eliminate any efforts by plaintiffs' lawyers to misuse the prior unnecessarily sloppy language.
Both of the changes in this amended opinion were directly responsive to the requests Yahoo and its amici made. I suspect both groups are pleased with these changes. I certainly am, although I remain disappointed that the entire exercise was necessitated by the panel's sloppy work up-front. Given that this is the second time in 2 years that the Ninth Circuit has had to fix badly drafted 47 USC 230 opinions, I remain (over?)optimistic that the Ninth Circuit will be more careful with its 230 jurisprudence in the future.
In conjunction with the amendments, the Ninth Circuit rejected both sides' request for an en banc hearing, although the amendments were so responsive to the defense requests that they largely mooted the defense's requests. (My intuition is that the plaintiffs never expected to get an en banc hearing but made their request just because Yahoo and the amicis had put an en banc hearing in play). I would be surprised if there are further appeals to the Supreme Court at this point. As a result, I believe this case is now effectively ready for further proceedings on remand on the promissory estoppel claim. Personally, from the limited material I've seen, Yahoo might find it prudent to cut short further proceedings and settle up rather than have its choices scrutinized too carefully. So I would not be surprised if this amended opinion prompts a settlement soon.
The case library:
* Amended Ninth Circuit Opinion
* Barnes' petition for rehearing
* Public Citizen et al amicus brief in support of rehearing
* Yahoo's petition for rehearing
* Ninth Circuit opinion and my blog post on it
* Ninth Circuit oral arguments
* District court opinion and my blog post on it
* Barnes' response to Yahoo's motion to dismiss
* Yahoo's brief in support of its motion to dismiss
* Yahoo's motion to dismiss
* Yahoo's notice of removal to federal court (which contains Barnes' initial complaint)
The Justia page has even more materials from the district court proceedings.
Posted by Eric at 11:57 AM | Derivative Liability | TrackBack
June 18, 2009
47 USC 230 Can Support 12b6 Motion to Dismiss-Gibson v. Craigslist
By Eric Goldman
Gibson v. Craigslist, 2009 WL 1704355 (SDNY June 15, 2009). The CMLP page. The Justia page.
In my lengthy deconstruction of the Barnes v. Yahoo case, I criticized the Ninth Circuit for concluding that 47 USC 230 was an affirmative defense (and thus could not support a 12b6 motion to dismiss) without proper briefing or analysis. First, this was sloppy work by the court. Second, the elimination of a 12b6 possibility for the defendants creates a real risk that defendants will be exposed to expensive and time-consuming discovery to eliminate plainly meritless cases. Yahoo and a group of amici have asked the Ninth Circuit to reconsider this aspect of the ruling, and I hope they do so.
Meanwhile, today’s case does a competent job reviewing whether or not 47 USC 230 can support a 12b6 motion to dismiss. Unlike the Ninth Circuit, it actually cites and discusses the numerous cases in the area although, remarkably, it does not cite or address the Barnes v. Yahoo case…! The court reaches the sensible positions that (1) 47 USC 230 does support a 12b6 motion, (2) as a result, the plaintiff was not entitled to discovery, and (3) the case should be dismissed. For more discussion on why 47 USC 230 supports a 12b6, see Paul Levy's excellent brief.
Substantively, today’s lawsuit is brought by a shooting victim who claims that the shooter bought the gun via Craigslist. The complaint argues that Craigslist had a duty to prevent the sale of guns to future criminals and therefore Craigslist breached the duty. This argument is similar to the Doe v. MySpace cases (1, 2) in which the plaintiffs argued that MySpace had a duty to police its website "premises" to prevent online communications that lead to offline crimes. The plaintiff's argument here fares no better here than it did in the MySpace cases. 47 USC 230 precludes the imposition of liability for any breach of duty by failing to police its users' communications (putting aside the also-relevant inquiry of whether Craigslist could have any duty that would have prevented this offline tragedy). The plaintiff tries to get around 230 by arguing it's just trying to hold Craigslist accountable as a "business" rather than as a speaker or publisher of third party content, but the court rejects this goofy argument as "unpersuasive."
More on the case from Eugene Volokh.
Posted by Eric at 06:41 PM | Derivative Liability | TrackBack
June 17, 2009
Twitter, Email and Brand Engagement
By Eric Goldman
Last week, in an interview with a reporter, I extolled the virtues of Twitter as a tool for brands to keep in touch with and engage their customers. The reporter responded by asking why brands would choose Twitter to engage customers instead of email, which companies have been using successfully for many years. I thought this question raised important issues about online marketing, so I thought it would be worth exploring the differences here.
Let's start with some basics. I am a big fan of email marketing. Like many of you, I have voluntarily signed up for numerous commercial email newsletters/announcement. I also get unrequested email from companies I've dealt with; I look at some of these, I ignore others, and occasionally I get so fed up that I blacklist the sender or report it as spam. I also get spam, LOTS of spam, but it doesn't bother me too much. Gmail has a good spam filter and it only takes a minute or two a day to sort, review and delete the spam.
However, as a recipient, email has some downsides. Most obviously, it is not always easy to unsubscribe. I remain amazed in this post-CAN-SPAM era by how often email unsubscriptions don't work. The link may be down, or my opt-out simply doesn't stick technologically, or the sender just ignores me. This is true even for senders who are involved in the legal industry and are spamming lawyers who love to bring lawsuits (never a wise move). If I were a litigious plaintiff, I would have no problem finding plenty of defendants.
Email also has the downside that the sender has my email address and may share it with others who are going to clutter up my in-box. With a good spam filter, this extra unwanted email isn't a huge problem, but the mere threat of subsequent email deluges can give me pause about whether or not I trust a website enough to give them my email address. (As you can appreciate, the website's privacy policy is a complete non-factor in my trust determination).
From the sender's standpoint, email is a huge pain. It is more heavily regulated than other marketing media, and complying with the regulations (such as providing a reliable opt-out mechanism) is costly and filled with litigation risks. Perhaps more importantly, email can be reported or killed as spam at several steps along the way, and the sender can be tagged as a spammer as well for all future messages. So, for example, a big website's email distribution of an announcement about a new user agreement or privacy policy--a completely legitimate communication between a site and its users--is almost certain to prompt a flurry of unsubscribes, emails from users who insist to their IAPs and email service providers that they are being spammed (even though they often just forgot about the relationship), and lots of bouncebacks from dead email addresses that may cause some IAPs/email service providers to blacklist the sender as a spammer. Plus, a bunch of users will never see the message at all because it goes into their spam folder. (Recall, for example, that AT&T spam-foldered its own contract amendment announcement). These are not exactly the hallmarks of an effective communication technology.
Contrast the user experience with Twitter. More than anything, Twitter is a no-risk opt-in communication tool for consumers to listen to marketers. I can follow a brand at Twitter any time, and more importantly, I can unfollow at any time too. Plus, there isn't any risk that the brand I'm following will ignore my unsubscribes or pass along my Twitter username to spammers. When I unfollow, the relationship is completely over on my terms.
From the brand's standpoint, Twitter has none of the baggage of email marketing. No spam folders to fear, no unsubscribes to manage, no CAN-SPAM. Sure, Twitter's tight character restriction mostly limits marketers to headlines, but frankly this isn't all that different from maximizing email subject lines to get email recipients to open the email.
Twitter has one other really important benefit for brands. Folks are often willing to retweet a message--even a commercial message--thereby sharing it to their entire follower base in ways that these same folks would never forward a commercial email to hundreds of their friends. And this type of word-of-mouth marketing is the holy grail of marketing because of the extra imprimatur of having the message validated by someone in the reader's social network. The retweeting phenomenon is a powerful traffic driver (I've been watching how it boosts my bit.ly stats), and marketers who aren't on Twitter are missing some upside. (Please, marketers, don't even consider shilling or astroturfing or any of those other silly stunts to generate faux word-of-mouth marketing; if you have a good offering, you really don't need to disrespect people that way).
I don't follow many commercial brands in Twitter, but I do want to mention three brands that have impressed me:
@LivingHarvest. I tried hempmilk for the first time recently, and I was fascinated to learn about the extensive anti-industrial hemp regulations that have hampered hempmilk from coming to market. LivingHarvest, a hempmilk manufacturer, is Twittering the status of various legislative efforts to enable industrial hemp farming. It's a fascinating political drama.
@UnitedAirlines. I am a frequent flyer on United Airlines, so I'm already on their email list. But they have totally gotten the point of Twitter. Not only have they been offering valuable freebies to their Twitter follower to boost their subscriber count (they are giving away discount certificates if you sign up before they hit 50,000 followers), but they also offer "Twares," blowout deals on remnant inventory. LOVE IT!
@AmazonMP3. Amazon offers one highly discounted MP3 download a day, and this Twitter account notifies me of the deal of the day. Great stuff. I've lost track of the number of times I've purchased albums this way.
Twitter practices like these build my trust as a loyal customer and pull cash out of my wallet in ways email marketing never did.
One final point: RSS offers many of the same benefits as Twitter in terms of reader empowerment, although it does not have the same retweeting upside. In particular, RSS is a true opt-in like Twitter. The website doesn't get my email address, and whenever I unsubscribe from the RSS feed in my RSS reader, it's over.
For example, as I recently mentioned, RSS is a great option for websites to allow users to learn about changes to user agreements and privacy policies on a true opt-in basis. In this respect, RSS is so much better than email. Consider, for example, DoubleClick's privacy policy, which offers users the opportunity to learn about privacy policy amendments by signing up to an email list. (DoubleClick will rarely have the email address already because it doesn't have direct privity with users). DoubleClick's option is a more enlightened practice than most similar web services, but still, no thanks. If I don't trust DoubleClick's privacy practices to begin with, I'm not going to give them my email address with the risk that they will spam the crap out of it and pass it along to others who will spam the crap out of it too. Of course DoubleClick promises not to do this, but the whole point is that those promises mean nothing to the people who don't trust DoubleClick to begin with. On the other hand, if DoubleClick offered an RSS feed to announce modifications to its privacy policy, then I could subscribe to its notifications with no spam risk at all.
I'm so enamored with RSS as a superior notification tool for announcing privacy policy and user agreement amendments that I will be recommending it to all of my clients as a supplement to other notification options. I hope you'll consider doing the same.
Posted by Eric at 07:03 AM | Marketing , Spam , Trademark | TrackBack
June 11, 2009
Google Sued Again for Trademark Infringement--Soaring Helmet v. Leatherup.com
By Eric Goldman
Soaring Helmet Corp. v. Bill Me Inc., 2:2009cv00789 (W.D. Wash. complaint filed June 9, 2009). The Justia page.
It's clearly open season on trademark infringement lawsuits against Google. The latest is a lawsuit by Soaring Helmet, manufacturers of "Vega" helmets. This case is similar to the recent Hearts on Fire v. Blue Nile case in that the manufacturer (Hearts on Fire/Soaring Helmet) complained that a retailer (Blue Nile/Leatherup.com) purchased the manufacturer's trademark and said/implied in its ad copy that it sold the manufacturer's goods even though it allegedly didn't carry the manufacturer's goods at all.
The main difference between this lawsuit and the Hearts on Fire lawsuit is that the manufacturer also dragged Google into the lawsuit--even though Google treated Soaring Helmet's initial cease-and-desist letter as a trademark opt-out and blocked subsequent references to Vega in Leatherup.com's ad copy. Thus, unless Soaring Helmet seeks to reach back to the ads displayed before its C&D, it appears Soaring Helmet is trying to hold both Google and Leatherup.com liability simply for showing ads triggered by Soaring Helmet's "Vega" trademark.
For those of you keeping score, this is the fourth time in a month that trademark owners have sued Google over its AdWords programs. The other three are:
* FPX v. Google
* John Beck Amazing Profits v. Google
* Stratton Faxon v. Google (this wasn't a trademark case last I checked)
A fifth pending AdWords trademark lawsuit is the Rescuecom case. I'm not aware of any others pending beyond these 5, but surely this action is making Google's outside counsel smile.
I note that the John Beck lawsuit is a putative class action covering all US trademark owners. I wonder if Google could consolidate this case with that...?
Posted by Eric at 07:16 AM | Derivative Liability , Search Engines , Trademark | TrackBack
June 10, 2009
Stop Saying "We Can Amend This Agreement Whenever We Want"!--Harris v. Blockbuster
By Eric Goldman
Harris v. Blockbuster Inc., 2009 WL 1011732 (N.D. Tex. April 15, 2009). The Justia page.
[I've been sitting on this case for a couple of months, but it's such an important case that it still deserves a write-up even at this comparatively late date.]
This case is part of the legal detritus from the Facebook Beacon program. As you recall, Facebook Beacon included purchases from third party e-commerce sites into the buyer's Facebook status reports. This required the e-commerce sites to report Facebook users' purchases back to Facebook. A Blockbuster user claimed that Blockbuster's reports to Facebook violated the Video Privacy Protection Act, which prevents disclosures of PII about video customers without their consent. (Beacon did have an opt-out of debatable efficacy). Blockbuster moved to compel arbitration of this lawsuit based on the mandatory arbitration clause in Blockbuster's user agreement.
Blockbuster used an industry-standard and entirely typical introductory clause to its user agreement, which said:
Blockbuster may at any time, and at its sole discretion, modify these Terms and Conditions of Use, including without limitation the Privacy Policy, with or without notice. Such modifications will be effective immediately upon posting. You agree to review these Terms and Conditions of Use periodically and your continued use of this Site following such modifications will indicate your acceptance of these modified Terms and Conditions of Use. If you do not agree to any modification of these Terms and Conditions of Use, you must immediately stop using this Site.
This industry-standard and entirely typical clause does not fare well in this courtroom. Among other defects, the judge notes that "there is nothing in the Terms and Conditions that prevents Blockbuster from unilaterally changing any part of the contract other than providing that such changes will not take effect until posted on the website." As a result, the court deems the arbitration clause "illusory," an odd Texas law descriptor that appears to be a cousin of lack of consideration.
I could wax philosophic about the ontological meaning of a "contract" that one party can amend unilaterally at any time without notice. However, I'd rather focus on the simple practical implication from this ruling. I've never been a fan of the language Blockbuster used, and I had hoped many websites would reconsider the language after the Ninth Circuit trashed such provisions in 2007 in Douglas v. Talk America (also see my follow-up post). Yet, these clauses are still ubiquitous, even at big websites that "should know better," so let me boil it down for you into a single all-caps mantra:
STOP PUTTING CLAUSES INTO YOUR CONTRACTS THAT SAY YOU CAN AMEND THE CONTRACT AT ANY TIME IN YOUR SOLE DISCRETION BY POSTING THE REVISED TERMS TO THE WEBSITE
This language has a significant risk of killing the entire contract, which would strip away a lot of very important provisions that should be/need to be in the contract. So far Blockbuster has only lost its mandatory arbitration clause, but it's possible other important risk management clauses (warranty disclaimer, liability limits, dollar caps, etc.) will similarly fall. If those clauses fail, let the plaintiff feasting begin!
I recognize that weaning ourselves from very flexible amendment language leaves us as drafters with few good options to modify online user agreements over time. I discussed this dilemma in my post on the Douglas case. I haven't found any better solutions in the past 2 years, but I can say with confidence--DON"T DO WHAT BLOCKBUSTER DID.
UPDATE: I got the following email from a reader proposing a good alternative to current amendment notification processes: "To avoid the spam-filter problem, the provider could give notice via an RSS feed as well, and then disclaim like crazy about the problems with the email option (which would indeed simply be an option -- a link to a page where users can sign up to receive notices)." I love this idea! RSS is a true opt-in with few of the challenges of email.
Also, this brought to mind the EFF's new TOSBack service, which I'll mention more in a future blog post, that effectively provides a third party service to track amendments of various user agreements into an RSS feed. I LOVE IT! I have subscribed to TOSBack and plan to blog on interesting user agreement amendments it reveals--and I suspect I'm not the only one queued up to do so. TOSBack is a game-changer for public scrutiny of agreement amendments--sites being monitored in TOSBack are now on notice that their user agreement amendments are being watched!
Posted by Eric at 10:26 AM | Licensing/Contracts , Privacy/Security | TrackBack
June 09, 2009
May 2009 Quick Links Part 2
By Eric Goldman
Blogs and Boards
* WSJ: Bloggers, Beware: What You Write Can Get You Sued
* j2 Global Communications v. Zilker Ventures, CV 08-07470 SJO (AJWx) (C.D. Cal. April 22, 2009). A consumer review website can putatively qualify for anti-SLAPP protection, but not in this case because the plaintiff established its prima facie case.
* Biggs Cardosa Associates Inc. v. Bradbury, 2009 WL 1508703 (Cal. App. Ct. May 29, 2009). Here's another one for all of you Rip-off Report fans. A former employee lost a jury trial (and was hit with over $100,000 of damages) for breaching a "non-disparagement" clause in his separation agreement by posting negative comments about his former employer and colleagues on a variety of online fora, including numerous posts on the Rip-off Report.
* Houston Chronicle article on a lawsuit against a website operator for a user post saying that a woman has herpes when she, in fact, does have herpes. She is claiming public disclosure of private facts. [Stupid Houston Chronicle expired the article and moved it to its archives, breaking a number of links throughout the web. Here's a short recap of the article.]
* Stengle v. Office of Dispute Resolution, 2009 WL 1138119 (M.D. Pa. April 27, 2009). The contract of an independent contractor government "hearing officer" was non-renewed because she blogged on the topics of her hearings, raising questions about her impartiality. As the court says in dismissing the resulting lawsuit from the hearing officer:
To reiterate, this Court fully recognizes the cherished right of free speech, as well as the commendable goals of the RA. But these cannot wash away the bona fide concerns that arise when a judicial officer elects to disseminate her opinions in cyberspace with little or no restraint. Because of her position, Plaintiff's attempts to qualify her stances as solely her own were entirely ineffectual. With particular jobs come certain precise responsibilities. In Plaintiff's case, one of these included avoiding even the appearance of bias via extra-judicial comments. Plaintiff's deep concerns about the special education issues and the resulting creation of her blog ultimately caused her to face a dilemma that she alone created. The choices she freely made thereafter led to her non-renewal, and as aforestated we do not find any of the Defendants' conduct actionable under the circumstances.
This case reminded me some of Richerson v. Beckon from last year.
* JuicyCampus redux: People's Dirt. Let the angst over anonymous online forums begin anew.
* Doe v. Ciolli, 2009 WL 1204361 (D. Conn. April 30, 2009). In the AutoAdmit lawsuit, the court rejected Matthew Ryan's (aka ":D") motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.
* Facebook v. Power Ventures, Inc., 2009 WL 1299698 (N.D. Cal. May 11, 2009). Largely following the troublesome Ticketmaster v. RMG case, Power Ventures' motion to dismiss Facebook's copyright and DMCA claims was denied. (Other claims survived too). Comments from Jeff Neuburger and Tom O'Toole.
Miscellaneous
* Colleen Chien, Of Trolls, Davids, Goliaths, and Kings: Narratives and Evidence in the Litigation of High-Tech Patents, North Carolina Law Review, Vol. 87, 2009
* Mazur v. eBay Inc., 2009 WL 1203937 (N.D. Cal. May 5, 2009) Class certification denied. My blog post on this case’s more troubling ruling about 47 USC 230.
* Riggs v. MySpace, Inc., 2009 WL 1203365 (W.D. Pa. May 1, 2009). Venue selection clause in MySpace user agreement upheld.
* Salter v. State, 2009 WL 1409484 (Ind. App. Ct. May 20, 2009). Saving pornographic photos of a minor to a CD does not constitute the "creation" of child porn, even though a new "copy" has been created.
* State v. Bell, 2009 WL 1395857 (Ohio App. Ct. May 18, 2009). MySpace chat sessions aren't MySpace "business records" for hearsay purposes.
* Forbes: the Hidden Costs of Privacy. This article has been written, and written again, many times in the last decade; yet the regulatory dynamics have not improved.
Posted by Eric at 10:35 AM | Content Regulation , Copyright , Derivative Liability , Patents , Privacy/Security , Publicity/Privacy Rights | TrackBack
June 08, 2009
May 2009 Quick Links Part 1
By Eric Goldman
Just a reminder that I'm posting some quick links exclusively to my Twitter account.
Trademarks
* Texas International Property Associates v. Hoerbiger Holding AG, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40409 (N.D. Tex. May 12, 2009). Domainer loses ACPA claim over typosquatted domain name. The PPC advertising constituted bad faith intent to profit. Ryan Gile recaps the action.
* GunBroker.com LLC v. Heckler & Koch Inc., No. 09-cv-00051 (M.D. Ga. complaint filed May 14, 2009). Interesting lawsuit by an online auction site for guns seeking a declaratory relief action against a trademark owner who deployed an enforcement agency, Continental Enterprises, to send a driftnet takedown letter that apparently targeted used gun resales or compatible goods. Ryan Gile has more.
* Miranda v. Guerroro, 2009 WL 1381250 (S.D. Fla. May 14, 2009). Miranda is “Paola Morena,” a Latin singer. Her former manager convinced her to do some nude photo shoots in an effort to get a Playboy gig. The Playboy gig didn't materialize, and the manager stopped representing Miranda/Morena. After Morena's career took off, the manager then allegedly threatened to publicly post the photos unless she paid him $70k. Morena rebuffed the request, so the manager allegedly followed through with his threats by launching a website paolamorena.com [I got a nasty Google malware warning when I tried to visit the site], calling it her “official” site and posting some of the photos. The court enjoined the manager under trademark law. I'm a little confused how Morena had protectable trademark rights in her name. Did she make any use in commerce in the United States? Did her name achieve secondary meaning? This could be another case where trademark law is being stretched to stop bad behavior.
* Eric Menhart, the self-purported owner of a trademark in the term Cyberlaw, has gotten his very own personal gripe site.
Advertising and Marketing
* How much can Behavioral Targeting Help Online Advertising? HT Greg Linden
* Yingling v. eBay, 5:2009cv01733 (N.D. Cal. complaint filed April 21, 2009). A class action lawsuit alleging that eBay Motors overcharged merchants.
* IAB has issued its Click Measurement Guidelines designed to answer the Q “What is a Click?” See if their 28 page report actually answers the Q.
* A confusingly written LA Times article reports that 4 South Korean dissident bloggers are being criminally prosecuted for artificially inflating impression counts in order to game rankings of most popular pages.
* Perennially funny: unfortunate product names.
Copyright
* Solicitor General recommends against granting cert in Cartoon Network v. CSC.
* AV v. iParadigms, April 16, 2009. The Fourth Circuit says that the Turnitin system is fair use. My initial blog post on the district court ruling.
Security
* News.com: Interview with FBI cybercrime agent working undercover.
* Oddee: problematic CAPTCHAs. Funny.
* Everyone wants to talk about whether Google is a monopolist
- In early May, I heard Susan Athey, Microsoft's Chief Economist, give a lunchtime attack speech on Google at a George Mason event
- Google is circulating a document explaining why it's good for competition
- Google is blanketing DC with lobbyists too.
- And Google says it's actually small potatoes.
- Wired: Will Wolfram Alpha forestall antitrust inquiry into Google? As I've argued before, we continue to see new entrants into the search business all the time—it’s just too big a market to ignore.
- NYT weighs in too. And the Washington Post discusses how Microsoft and others are complaining about how many Google folks are going into the Obama administration.
* Danny Sullivan: State Of Search: Google Will Stay Strong Despite Bing & Yahoo
* Wired: Secret of Googlenomics: Data-Fueled Recipe Brews Profitability
Posted by Eric at 04:03 PM | Copyright , Derivative Liability , E-Commerce , Licensing/Contracts , Marketing , Privacy/Security , Search Engines , Trademark | TrackBack
June 03, 2009
An Insider's Look at Utah's Failed HB 450
By Eric Goldman
Perry Clegg is a Utah IP attorney and the 2009 chair of the Utah State Bar's Cyberlaw Section. A few months ago, he wrote an article entitled "Insight on Utah Senate's Sedation of HB 450," which provides his assessment of why HB 450--Utah's latest legislative attack on online advertising--failed to pass the Utah Senate this year.
The article implies that HB 450 failed in part due to in-fighting among various influential folks in Utah, perhaps caused by some bruised feelings/egos. With slicker and more inclusive politicking in the future, these influencers are poised to rally behind a similar future regulation.
As a result, the article provides some support for why I think Utah will attack online advertising a fourth time. Indeed, the article quotes a third party as saying that "the bill’s opponents should either propose a compromise solution or expect some form of this bill to pass next year. Senate leadership apparently believed that there were not enough votes to pass it this year, but that they could gather the votes to pass it by next year."
What I find most amazing is that there appears to be broad insider consensus that some type of Utah regulation of online advertising makes sense. As the article says, "the Utah legislature is generally behind HB 450’s policy but want to make sure they do their homework so the policy is implemented using the right language." In most other places around in the country, most policy-makers recognize the illogic and futility of trying to reshape global online advertising to meet state specifications. The pro-regulatory Utahns seem to see the world differently, and many of us who don't live in Utah simply cannot understand why the Utah legislature keeps picking a fight that it's almost certain to lose in the courts, even if legislation passes. I have no rational explanation for this.
In any case, I will be closely watching the Utah legislature in February 2010 to see what shenanigans they might be trying anew.
Posted by Eric at 02:35 PM | Marketing , Search Engines , Trademark | TrackBack
June 02, 2009
Web Developer Didn't "Convert" Website--Conwell v. Gray Loon
By Eric Goldman
Conwell v. Gray Loon Outdoor Marketing Group, Inc., 82S04-0806-CV-00309 (Ind. Sup. Ct. May 19, 2009)
This is a classic cautionary tale about interactions between a web developer/host and a customer. The customer retained the web developer to develop a website. The paperwork between the parties was not a model of clarity. Later, the customer orally asked the developer to modify the site; this time, there is only garbled conversations and no paperwork. The developer modified the site but the customer changed its mind and asked the developer to roll back to the earlier version. But the developer could not do so because it didn't keep a copy of the earlier version (what???), The customer stiffed the developer and the developer took the website offline. The developer sued for non-payment; the customer cross-sued for conversion on the theory that it had paid for the site and had been deprived of its property.
The Indiana Supreme Court wrestles with several questions, concluding that:
1) The relationship was governed by common law principles applicable to services, not the UCC Article 2 applicable to goods. This is a tricky area of the law, but I think this may be the more logical result for a combination web developer/host, especially one who never actually delivers any code to the customer.
2) Was there an enforceable agreement to amend? The trial court said yes, and the Supreme Court saw no reason to override that factual finding.
3) Did the developer convert the code/website by erasing the old version? The application of ancient doctrines of "conversion" to intangible bits always makes me queasy, and it's led to some confused jurisprudence. In this case, the court sidesteps all of that doctrinal messiness for the simple reason that the customer never obtained ownership of the code. This is really basic copyright law. Customers who want ownership of the work done by vendors need to spell that out in a written agreement. No written agreement specifying customer ownership, no customer ownership--it's that simple. The court says the customer didn't properly obtain ownership in the written customer-vendor agreement, so the vendor had retained copyright title to its developed code all along, and the customer never had title to be converted.
As usual, so many problems are completely avoidable through proper communication through written agreements and amendments between customers and vendors. Some other obvious observations here:
* it's hard to imagine many web development disputes that are worth taking to a state supreme court, especially one where the outstanding bill was about $5k.
* if you are a web developer's customer and you want to own the developed code, you have to say so in a written agreement
* and, if you want a copy of your website's code, make sure you say so in the contract AND actually get a copy!
* if you are a web developer, you might keep customers happier if you keep every version of their website's code instead of tossing old versions.
* this dispute would have be governed by UCC 2B or UCITA if either were the law of Indiana. I wonder to what extent the new ALI Principles on the Law of Software Contracts (acknowledged in the opinion) will help resolve future disputes like this.
This case reminded me a little of the New Mexico v. Kirby case from a couple years ago, where a customer's failure to pay its website developer while keeping the developed code led to an unexpected jail sentence. I offer more lessons about web developer-customer relationships in that blog post.
While the customer lost the battle here, the issue of when electronic records are subject to conversion doctrines is hardly going away. This court reaches the sensible result that a putative owner gets no protection from conversion unless he/she actually has title to the asset. Read literally, though, I wonder if this ruling could undercut claims over conversion of virtual world assets? After all, a virtual world asset holder may rarely have clear title to the asset; certainly the holder won't be the copyright owner of the asset. Perhaps the analysis will be different in situations where a third party (the virtual world operator) allocates "title" within its own titling system to users--it might still be possible to deprive an asset holder of "title" within that asset system even if the asset holder would have no conversion claim against the virtual world operator if the operator takes the exact same steps to deprive the asset holder.
Other comments about this case:
* Juliet Moringiello
* Eugene Volokh
Posted by Eric at 11:19 AM | Copyright , Licensing/Contracts , Virtual Worlds | TrackBack
June 01, 2009
Doe v. MySpace--Same Case Name, Different Plaintiff, Same Result
By Eric Goldman
Doe IX v. MySpace, Inc., 2009 WL 1457170 (E.D. Tex. May 22, 2009). The Justia page.
This is yet another lawsuit involving an underage sexual assault where MySpace mediated some communications between abuser and victim. The flagship decision involving this fact pattern is Doe v. MySpace, a Fifth Circuit case granting an unambiguous win to MySpace per 47 USC 230. We're up to Doe IX v. MySpace, but the results are no different; and this case gets quickly tossed per 230 as well.
Knowing it had to overcome the 230 immunization, Doe IX tried two arguments. First, the plaintiff argues that MySpace had a duty to police its premises. However, this exact argument was addressed and soundly rejected by the Fifth Circuit, and it's easily dismissed.
Second, the plaintiff argued a Roommates.com-style attack, saying that MySpace was an information content provider because it allowed users to build a structured profile (and even converted user-supplied birthdays to corresponding zodiac symbols) and allowed other users to browse and search these profiles by defined attributes. The court rejects these arguments as well, construing Roommates.com as applicable only when the service provider mandates the completion of the profiles. MySpace made users' completion of the profiles voluntarily, thus (according to the court) rendering Roommates.com inapplicable.
As Tom O'Toole notes, this is yet another case where Roommates.com was cited in favor of the defendant. I think the citation count is even more stacked for the defendant than he indicates, though--I am aware of at least seven cases doing so, compared to only one case where Roommate.com was cited for the plaintiff. My census:
Roommates.com Cited for Defense: GW Equity v. Xcentric, Best Western v. Furber, Goddard v. Google, Joyner v. Lazzareschi, Atlantic Records v. Project Playlist, Barnes v. Yahoo (note: although the case was a partial loss for the defendant, the Roommates.com discussion came in the defense-favorable part) and this opinion
Roommates.com Cited for Plaintiff: NPS v. StubHub
Irrespective of the exact count, I fully agree with Tom's conclusion: "it's fair to say that while Roommates.com was a loss for one particular online publisher, it is causing very few problems for the rest of the Web."
Posted by Eric at 11:11 AM | Derivative Liability | TrackBack