Ten Reasons Why California’s New Data Protection Law is Unworkable, Burdensome, and Possibly Unconstitutional (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Jeff Kosseff [Jeff Kosseff is an assistant professor of cybersecurity law at the U.S. Naval Academy. The views in this post are only his, and do not represent the Naval Academy, Department of Navy, or Department of…
Q2 2018 Quick Links, Part 4 (Social Media, Section 230, Defamation)
Social Media * NY Times: They Tried to Boycott Facebook, Apple and Google. They Failed * Reuters: Philippines complains Facebook fact-checkers are biased * D.R. v. D.A., 17-P-339 (Mass. App. Ct. May 8, 2018). A judge can interpret a Facebook “like”…
Q2 2018 Quick Links, Part 3 (Privacy, Advertising, E-Commerce)
Privacy * Financial Times: How the wealthy use privacy laws to keep out of the news. GDPR as a pro-censorship tool * Techdirt: Companies Respond to the GDPR By Blocking All EU Users * Financial Times: Data protectionism: the growing menace to global business…
Amazon Again Avoids Liability for Defective Marketplace Item–Fox v. Amazon
This is a product liability lawsuit against Amazon due to a hoverboard purchased via Amazon that caught on fire. Plaintiffs bought the hoverboard from the Amazon site in November 2015 as a Christmas gift for their son. The son used…
Section 230 Helps Facebook Defeat Pro Se Defamation Suit–Jefferson v. Facebook
The court tries to summarize the complaint: On November 17, 2017, Plaintiff Curtis Jefferson filed a Complaint seeking $700 million dollars for character defamation in connection with events that transpired during his arrest in Baltimore, Maryland on September 16, 2015….
Constitutional Challenge Against FOSTA Filed–Woodhull v. US (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Alex F. Levy Pres. Trump signed the “Allow Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA) into law on April 11, 2018. As many critics predicted, the law had an immediate chilling effect on a significant amount…
First Amendment Doesn’t Prevent Probationer Condition Restricting the Display of Illegal Activity on Social Media–In re Jawan S.
17 year old Jawan S. was convicted of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm. The court sentenced him to 2 years probation. Among other probation conditions, the court said no “illegal gang, guns & drug…
Q2 2018 Quick Links, Part 2 (Copyright)
* Naruto v. Slater (9th Circuit April 23, 2018). The monkey selfie case ends (for now?) with a whimper. The monkey has constitutional standing (per a misguided 9th Circuit precedent that should be overturned) but Naruto as a monkey lacks…
The California Supreme Court Didn’t Ruin Section 230 (Today)–Hassell v. Bird
I previously described the case facts: “A lawyer was unhappy with a Yelp review about her. The lawyer sued the putative author (with dubious service of process), got a default ruling that the review was defamatory along with a removal…
Q2 2018 Quick Links, Part 1 (Trademarks and Other IP)
Trademark * Carter v. Oath Holdings, 17-cv-07086-BLF (N.D. Cal. June 21, 2018) Courts have held that an online provider does not “use” a mark under the meaning of the Lanham Act when its search engine returns a search result based…