MySpace Suit for Liability for Sexual Assault Dismissed
By John Ottaviani Doe v. MySpace, Inc., No. A-06-CA983-SS (W.D. Tex. 2/13/2007). “If anyone had a duty to protect Julie Doe, it was her parents, not MySpace.” (Sparks, J.) This is a HUGE win for MySpace! Plaintiff’s negligence and gross…
Google, Click to Call, and Prank Calls
By Eric Goldman Google has [re]launched [see below] a crazy feature called “Click to Call” in Google Maps that allows users to initiate a telephone call from their search results. When you search on a business in Google Maps, the…
Rescuecom v. Google Appellee’s Brief
By Eric Goldman Rescuecom v. Google, 06-4881-CV (2nd Circuit appellee brief filed February 12, 2007) Google filed its brief in the Rescuecom v. Google appeal to the Second Circuit. Admittedly, my view may be biased, but I thought this was…
Google Loses Belgium Copyright Case–Google v. Copiepresse
By Eric Goldman Google v. Copiepresse, No. 06/10.928/C (Tribunal de premiere instance de Bruxelles) (decision in French) (English translation) Google has lost (again) the Copiepresse copyright case in Belgium over Google News. In September 2006, the court initially ruled against…
City Law Requiring Taxi Co to Refer Competitors Isn’t TM Infringement–MCQ’s v. Philadelphia Parking
By Eric Goldman MCQ’s Enterprises, Inc. v. Philadelphia Parking Authority, No. 07-0067 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 11, 2007) As part of making the cab system more consumer-friendly, Philadelphia created a “coordinated dispatch system” for taxicabs. Each taxicab would install GPS. Then,…
Humane Society Barks at the Wrong Defendant–Humane Society v. Amazon
By Eric Goldman The Humane Society of the United States v. Amazon.com (DC Superior Ct complaint filed February 8, 2007) I’m going to start this post with two (relatively uncharacteristic for me) moralistic assertions that I think are largely beyond…
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…