Call for Papers, 2nd Annual Internet Law Work-in-Progress Symposium, NYC, March 24, 2012
By Eric Goldman For more information about this work-in-progress series, you might check out my recap from the inaugural event. This is a wonderful event in a fantastic location with a group of terrific scholars. I am eagerly looking forward…
Notes from HTLI Conference on Defending Against Patent Risk
By Eric Goldman A couple weeks ago, the High Tech Law Institute and the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology co-sponsored a major conference on the evolving patent ecosystem, called “Defense 2.0: New Strategies for Reducing Patent Risk.” We had…
Righthaven Hit With Another Fee/Cost Award, This Time Nearly $120k–Righthaven v. DiBiase
By Eric Goldman Righthaven LLC v. DiBiase, 2011 WL 5101938 (D. Nev. Oct. 26, 2011) There’s really not much to say about this one. In a brief opinion that speaks for itself, Judge Hunt awarded nearly $120,000 in attorneys’ fees…
Yelp Gets Complete Win in Advertiser “Extortion” Case–Levitt v. Yelp
By Eric Goldman Levitt v. Yelp Inc., 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124082 (N.D Cal. Oct. 26, 2011) A group of advertisers sued Yelp for allegedly extorting them to buy ads from Yelp with the implied/express threat that Yelp would degrade…
Did California Unintentionally (?) Impose New Statutory Duties on Every Blogger? A Post on the Newly Enacted California Reader Privacy Act
By Eric Goldman California recently enacted the Reader Privacy Act, SB 602. See the EFF announcement. This new California law seeks to protect online book reader privacy to the same extent reader privacy is protected by libraries, by requiring heightened…
Keyword Metatags are Back…Will Judicial Freakouts Continue?
By Eric Goldman Keyword metatags are back, and I couldn’t be less thrilled. Few Internet technologies have so thoroughly baffled judges as keyword metatags. From a technologists’ perspective, keyword metatags were a 1990s experiment by public search engines at improving…
Q3 2011 Quick Links, Part 5
By Eric Goldman See the other quick links posts in this series: * Q3 2011 Quick Links, Part 4 * Q3 2011 Quick Links, Part 3 * Q3 2011 Quick Links, Part 2 (Trademarks/Domain Names Edition) * Q3 2011 Quick…
Q3 2011 Quick Links, Part 4
By Eric Goldman Content Regulation * Lawmakers are putting the squeeze on advertisers to be content police. Meanwhile, VeriSign begged for the right to act as content police before changing its mind. * Kowalski v. Koster, 2011 WL 4349365 (W.D….
Q3 2011 Quick Links, Part 3
By Eric Goldman Advertising Search Marketing * Search Engine Land: “In many cases, it is worth buying keywords even if you rank organically for them.” Similarly, a Google study indicates that PPC advertising lifts clicks on organic results. Prior blog…
Google Defeats Class Certification in Keyword Ad Lawsuit–FPX v. Google
By Eric Goldman FPX, LLC v. Google, Inc., 2011 WL 4783376 (E.D. Tex. Sept. 29, 2011) Google obtained a major victory in one of the most serious pending lawsuits against it challenging its AdWords keyword advertising program. Putative class action…