Newly Released Consumer Survey Indicates that Legal Concerns About Competitive Keyword Advertising Are Overblown (Forbes Cross-Post)

By Eric Goldman Competitive keyword advertising—buying ads triggered by a keyword search for a competitor’s trademarks at venues like Google AdWords, Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing—has generated enormous legal angst over the past decade, including hundreds of law review articles, occasional…

My Presentations on the Obama Administration’s “Privacy Bill of Rights” and the Proposed Amendments to the EU Data Privacy Directive

By Eric Goldman Many of you probably haven’t heard about the “CONSENT” project in Europe, but you probably will. The CONSENT project is a multi-year, multi-million dollar research project, funded by the European Union, to conduct empirical research on consumer…

Ongoing Website Editing Doesn’t Trump Single Publication Rule–Yeager v. Bowlin

By Eric Goldman Yeager v. Bowlin, No. 10-15297 (9th Cir. Sept. 10, 2012) The single publication rule says that the statute of limitations starts with the first publication of the work, and so long as the work doesn’t change, further…

Another Case Says No Liability for Linking to Allegedly Defamatory Content, Plus a Recap (Guest Blog Post)

Vazquez v. Buhl, 2012 WL 3641581 (Conn. Super. July 17, 2012) [Eric’s Note: Sam Bayard is an associate at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in New York. I got to know him during his stint at the Citizen Media Law Project….

We’ve Filed a Request to Publish Redmond v. Gawker Media

By Eric Goldman My RA Sruli Yellin and I wrote a letter requesting that the California Appellate Court publish its opinion in Redmond v. Gawker Media, the recent case that said Gizmodo’s hyperlinks to its sources helped defeat a defamation…

Ranking of “Dirtiest Hotels” Based on User Ratings is “Unverifiable Rhetorical Hyperbole”–Seaton v. TripAdvisor (Partial Forbes Cross-Post)

By Eric Goldman [This is another situation where I’m posting the first draft of this post here and linking to the Forbes version, which reads a little differently. As always, I welcome feedback about which version you liked better.] Seaton…

Amazon.com’s Anti-Counterfeiting Efforts Blessed by California Appellate Court (Forbes Cross-Post)

By Eric Goldman A California appellate court has blessed Amazon.com’s ($AMZN) efforts to police counterfeit goods sold by its third party merchants.  This is especially good news for Amazon because the leading precedent on the topic had blessed eBay’s ($EBAY)…

Google Tries Again to Respond to Judge Alsup’s Shill Disclosure Order. Now, How About Oracle?

By Eric Goldman Oracle America, Inc. v. Google Inc., 3:10-cv-03561-WHA (N.D. Cal. Aug. 24, 2012) In the ongoing saga about Judge Alsup’s requests that Oracle and Google disclose possible shills, Google filed a supplemental disclosure that listed 13 individuals/organizations. There’s…

Why Did Google Flip-Flop On Cracking Down On “Rogue” Websites? Some Troubling Possibilities (Forbes Cross-Post)

By Eric Goldman Earlier this month, Google announced that it may downgrade search results for a website if Google receives a high volume of “valid” takedown notices against the website.  Google’s move has confused many Google-watchers, largely because the exact…

Judge Alsup Tells Google to Try Harder With Its Shill Disclosures

By Eric Goldman Oracle America, Inc. v. Google Inc., 3:10-cv-03561-WHA (N.D. Cal. Aug. 20, 2012) I can’t imagine Google is surprised that Judge Alsup did not like its response to his request that Google and Oracle disclose potential shills in…