Data Breach Claim Survives Based on Allegation of Misuse of Personal Information — Burrows v. Purchasing Power
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Burrows v. Purchasing Power, LLC, 12-cv-22800-UU (S.D. Fla. Oct. 18, 2012) [pdf] This is another data breach lawsuit. Some of the claims survive defendants’ motion to dismiss. Purchasing Power runs a preferred purchasing (or discount purchasing)…
Overreaching Anti-Circumvention Claim Shut Down–DISH Network v. World Cable
By Jake McGowan Dish Network L.L.C., et al, v. World Cable Inc., 11-CV-5219 (E.D.N.Y. 2012) In the hopes of ratcheting up damages, plaintiffs often try to assert any possible claim in their arsenal. In the realm of copyright law, this…
Consumer Review Website Isn’t Liable for Users’ Copyright Infringement–Ripoff Report v. ComplaintsBoard
By Eric Goldman Xcentric Ventures, LLC v. Mediolex Ltd., 2012 WL 5269403 (D. Ariz. October 24, 2012). The initial complaint. This is a long-running and ill-advised lawsuit by Ripoff Report against ComplaintsBoard for allegedly infringing Ripoff Report’s purported copyright in…
How Zappos’ User Agreement Failed In Court and Left Zappos Legally Naked (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman In re Zappos.com Inc., Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, 2012 WL 4466660 (D. Nev. Sept. 27, 2012). In January, Zappos (part of $AMZN) announced a massive data security breach affecting 24 million consumers. As typically happens in these…
Photographer Who Sued Twitter For Copyright Infringement Voluntarily Dismisses Lawsuit — Boffoli v. Twitter
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Boffoli v. Twitter, 12-Cv-0154-RSL (W.D. Wash. Oct. 25, 2012) (Notice of Dismissal) Several months ago, a photographer (Christopher Boffoli) sued Twitter for allegedly not taking down his images that others posted and retweeted. The lawsuit received…
Social Media Discovery Case Update and Tips for Those Seeking Discovery
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] I’m tired of social media discovery cases. Maybe I’m just tired of discovery (that’s civil discovery I’m talking about, not discovery in the conventional sense). Anyway, we keep seeing these cases, courts (and litigants) continue to…
Blogger Can’t Defeat Copyright Infringement Claim on Motion to Dismiss–Katz v. Chevaldina
By Eric Goldman Katz v. Chevaldina, 2012 WL 5245401 (S.D. Fla. October 5, 2012). The original complaint. This is a high-profile case (and part of an ongoing litigation battle between the parties). Raanan Katz is a Florida real estate developer…
Google Gets Unwanted Ruling in AdWords Trademark Lawsuit–CYBERsitter v. Google
By Eric Goldman CYBERsitter LLC v. Google, Inc., 2012 WL 5873650 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 24, 2012) This is one of three remaining trademark lawsuits against Google for AdWords. The other two pending suits are Rosetta Stone and Home Decor Center;…
Google Defeats Trademark Challenge to Its AdWords Service–Jurin v. Google (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Jurin v. Google, Inc., 2012 WL 5011007 (E.D. Cal. October 17, 2012). Google ($GOOG) makes billions of dollars a year selling AdWords ads triggered by third party trademarks. Over the past decade, trademark owners have brought about 20…
Twitter’s Country-Specific Content Blocking Raises Questions about the Efficacy of Geolocation (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Marketa Trimble Twitter’s General Counsel announced last week that the company, for the first time, “withheld” content from users from a certain jurisdiction. As Twitter explains on its website, its “goal is to respect [its] users’ expression,…