Ex-Employer’s Hijacking of a LinkedIn Account Is a Publicity Rights Violation–Eagle v. Morgan
[By Venkat with comments from Eric] Eagle v. Morgan, 11-4303 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 12, 2013) We’ve previously covered this dispute over a LinkedIn account. (See Another Set of Parties Duel Over Social Media Contacts; Battle Over LinkedIn Account Between Employer…
“Regulation of Social Media and Mobile Media” Talk Slides
By Eric Goldman Last month, I spoke at the ABA Antitrust Section’s always-well-done Consumer Protection Conference. This time I was recruited as the provocateur to discuss the challenges of regulating social media and mobile media. Regular readers know where I…
Family Law Judge Discounts Tweets That Threatened Children and Discussed Alcohol Use – R.M. v. D.Z.
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] R.M. v. D.Z., 2013 IL App (3d) 120846-U (Mar. 4, 2013) [
Court Dismisses Data Breach Lawsuit Against LinkedIn Based on Compromised Passwords – In re LinkedIn User Privacy Litigation
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] In re LinkedIn User Privacy Litigation, 2013 WL 844291 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 5, 2013) [pdf] LinkedIn suffered a data breach in 2012. Someone allegedly posted 6.5 million passwords and email addresses from LinkedIn users on the…
Amazon’s Merchandising of Its Search Results Doesn’t Violate Trademark Law (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Multi Time Machine, Inc. v. Amazon.com, 2013 WL 638888 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 20, 2013). The complaint. No retailer does a better job of cross-selling to its customers than Amazon.com ($AMZN). Amazon is quite effective at exposing customers to…
Buying Keyword Ads on People’s Names Doesn’t Violate Their Publicity Rights–Habush v. Cannon (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Habush v. Cannon, 2013 WL 627251 (Wisc. App. Ct. Feb. 21, 2013) Can you imagine someone buying Google ($GOOG) AdWords keyword advertising triggered by your name? Most of us wouldn’t dream of it, usually because our names just…
Employer Fails to State Stored Communications Act Claims Absent Allegations That Employees Interfered With Company Accounts – Castle Megastore v. Wilson
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Castle Megastore Group, Inc. v. Wilson, et al., 2013 WL 672895 (D. Ariz. Feb. 25, 2013) Castle Megastore is going after three of its former employees for their alleged breaches of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets,…
Resetting One of the Longest Running Cyberbullying Cases–DC v. RR (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Sruli Yellin [Eric’s introduction: In the course of blogging over the past 8+ years, I’ve read hundreds or even thousands of cases. This case ranks in my top 1% of most interesting and memorable cases. Today, we’d…
Lindsay Lohan Loses Publicity Rights Claim Against Pitbull Over Song Lyrics–Lohan v. Perez
By Jake McGowan [writings][LinkedIn] Lohan v. Perez, No. 11-CV-5413 (E.D.N.Y. 2013) Lindsay Lohan just can’t catch a break. In 2007, after a string of unsuccessful movies and a long battle with substance abuse, Lohan found herself on probation for two…
Building Owner Can’t Discover the Identity of Tenant Who Writes Bashing Yelp Review (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Brompton Building, LLC v. Yelp!, Inc., 2013 IL App (1st) 120547-U (Ill. App. Ct. Jan. 31, 2013) Battles over online anonymity aren’t new, and we’ve made a lot of progress clarifying the legal rules. Usually, when a…