Publicity Rights Class Action Against Facebook Over Promotion of ‘Friend Finder’ Service Dismissed — Cohen v. Facebook
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Cohen v. Facebook, Inc., C10-5282, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124506 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 27, 2011) This is a putative class action against Facebook for “promoting its ‘friend finder’ feature by disclosing to users that their Facebook…
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…
In Hannaford Data Breach Case, First Circuit Says Card Replacement and ID Theft Insurance are Reasonable Mitigation Damages and Compensable–Anderson v. Hannaford Bros.
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Anderson v. Hannaford Brothers Co., 10-2384; 2450 (1st Cir. Oct. 20, 2011) Background: Plaintiffs sued Hannaford based on a massive data breach in 2007. In this ruling, the First Circuit said that money spent by plaintiffs…
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…
Ex-Employee Converted Social Media/Website Passwords by Keeping Them From Her Employer–Ardis Health v. Nankivell
[Post by Venkat, with comments from Eric] Ardis Health, LLC, Curb Your Cravings, LLC and USA Herbals, LLC v. Ashleigh Nankivell, 2011 WL 4965172 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 19, 2011) Nenkivell worked for CYC as a “video and social media producer.” Her…
Insurance Company’s Request to Compel Production of Facebook Password Fails (with Costs)–Chauvin v. State Farm Mutual
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani with a comment from Eric] Chauvin v. State Farm Mutual, 10-cv-11735 (S.D. Mich. June 21, 2011) (order affirming magistrate’s ruling) Plaintiff suffered an auto accident and sought to recover attendant care benefits under Michigan’s no-fault statute….
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…
Comments on Doe v. IMDB Privacy Lawsuit
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Doe v. Amazon.com, Inc. and IMDB.com, Inc., 11-cv-1709 (W.D. Wash.; Oct. 13, 2011) An actress who goes by a stage name sued IMDB and Amazon for disclosing her birthdate, which IMDB allegedly obtained through the payment…
Court Rejects Copyright Misuse Defense Against Apple and Affirms License Restrictions in OS X License Agreement — Apple v. Psystar
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Apple Inc. v. Psystar Corp., 10-15113 (9th Cir. Sept. 28, 2011) [pdf] This is a dispute over whether Apple can enforce a restriction in its software license agreements which requires end users to run the Mac…