Boat Rental Marketplace Defeats Lawsuit Over Offline Boating Accident–In re Chaves
A rare case analyzing Section 230’s intersection with admiralty law. 🚢 The case involves GetMyBoat, an online marketplace for boat rentals. Listings are free, but GetMyBoat takes a cut of any booked transactions. A young woman, Lindsey Faith Partridge, used…
Game On! Bright Data Scores Major Victory in Web-Scraping Dispute with Meta (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy Whether it is by accident or because of who he is, Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California has a way of finding himself at the center of the most important cases in…
Two More Cases Compel Arbitration for Dubious Online Contracts (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy The intersection of the Federal Arbitration Act and the law of online contracts has become utterly corrosive to our legal system. Many people think this is true. But not enough lawyers say it often enough….
Web Page Framing Isn’t Trespass to Chattels–Best Carpet Values v. Google
This case is an old-school turn-of-the-century throwback (and not the good kind). Google’s search app framed the web pages users visit, and the frame included ads. Some screenshots depicting the framing (the first image shows Google’s superimposed frame on the…
Court Enjoins Ohio’s Law Requiring Parental Approval for Children’s Social Media Accounts–NetChoice v. Yost
Ohio enacted a law, the “Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act,” Ohio Rev. Code § 1349.09. The law requires certain websites and services to obtain verifiable parental consent before children are allowed to register or create an account. The…
Advertiser Can’t Force Facebook to Run Sex Product Ads–Strachan v. Facebook
Strachan created various Facebook pages and an advertising account. “In April 2020, Facebook cancelled Strachan’s advertising account and removed his advertising content from the platform.” Allegedly, Facebook “determined he was selling ‘Adult Services and/or Products,’ i.e., ‘sex products.’” To make…
Should Copyright Preemption Moot Anti-Scraping TOS Terms? (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy Many characterize the law of copyright preemption of contracts as a circuit split. But that undersells the level of inconsistency in courts’ interpretations of the law of copyright preemption. It’s not that half of federal…
Suspended Twitter User Loses Lawsuit Over Data Access–Thomas v. Twitter
Twitter suspended the plaintiff’s Twitter account @Zay_Cipher. He wanted access to his content, so he requested an account download. However, he says the download links provided by Twitter were “defective,” so he sued Twitter pro se. Conversion. “Plaintiff’s simple act…
Plaintiffs Are Eager to Invoke the Texas Social Media Censorship Law, But Will They Have to Do So in California?
Plaintiffs CAN’T WAIT to sue Internet services using the Texas social media censorship law. Indeed, they are already filing lawsuits despite the pending Supreme Court appeal hanging over the law. But surprise! The plaintiffs may have to sue in California…
Facebook Faces Contributory Trademark Liability for Marketplace Listings–Car-Freshner v. Meta
This case involves the hanging “car freshener” (which usually smells worse than any odors it tries to mask) in the shape of a tree. The rightsowner has trademark registrations for the tree-shaped outline: Armed with protectable rights in tree outlines,…