When Congress Giveth, is the Dormant Commerce Clause Taken Away?–Free Speech Coalition v. Shurtleff
by Ethan Ackerman Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Shurtleff, 2:05CV949DAK (D. Utah March 23, 2007) Why do courts seem eager to use CAN-SPAM’s preemption language to give state email laws a free pass from the Dormant Commerce Clause? Utah’s courts…
Affiliate Spam Liability is Fact Question–US v. Cyberheat
By Eric Goldman U.S. v. Cyberheat, Inc., 2007 WL 686678 (D. Ariz. March 2, 2007) This case deals with one of the great unresolved Cyberlaw questions: when is an online advertiser liable for the downstream behavior of its media outlets?…
February 2007 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman * The California Highway Patrol (which, for reasons unclear to me, has investigatory power here) has concluded that the Angelides campaign did not break any laws when they reverse-guessed URLs on Schwarzenegger’s website and found an unrestricted…
Ezor on Email Blocklists
By Eric Goldman Jonthan Ezor has posted a short paper (10 pages + endnotes), Busting Blocks: Appropriate Legal Remedies For Wrongful Inclusion In Spam Filters Under U.S. Law, to SSRN. This article deals with thorny issues created by email blocklist…
January 2007 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman * Marketers (including Microsoft) are paying authors to write Wikipedia entries. Surprised?! * Also on the topic of Wikipedia and marketers, Wikipedia has tagged all of their pages NOFOLLOW so that there’s no way a marketer or…
Anti-Spammer Wins 230 Defense–Pallorium v. Jared
By Eric Goldman Pallorium v. Jared, G036124 (Cal. Ct. App. Jan. 11, 2007) This case is another 230 defense win (using the rarely used 230(c)(2) provision) protecting anti-spammers for their efforts to combat spam. Jared published a list of IP…
Top Cyberlaw Developments of 2006
By Eric Goldman and John Ottaviani [Eric’s Note: I will be in Israel for the rest of the year. So while it’s a little premature to publish an end-of-the-year recap, this may be my last post for the year. John…
“Junk Mail is Alive and Growing”
By Eric Goldman Many people thought the era of cheap electronic communications would spell doom for junk mail because of the cost advantages of printing and distributing electronic solicitations over dead trees solicitations. But instead, over the past year, marketers…
Nov. 2006 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman My monthly roundup of noteworthy tidbits: * Yesmail, an email outsource vendor, was busted by the FTC under CAN-SPAM for failing to honor opt-out requests because Yesmail’s incoming email filters blocked those opt-out requests as spam. This…
Fourth Circuit Rejects Anti-Spam Lawsuit–Omega World Travel v. Mummagraphics
By Eric Goldman Omega World Travel, Inc. v. Mummagraphics, Inc., No. 05-2080 (4th Cir. Nov. 17, 2006) Wow, what a huge ruling on spam from Judge Wilkinson in the Fourth Circuit! People–even judges–hate spam so viscerally that it’s almost impossible…