Supreme Court Promotes Weaponization of Generic Domain Names–USPTO v. Booking.com
The USPTO believed that “generic.com” domain names were almost always generic and therefore unregistrable. On that basis, it denied registration for Booking.com. The Supreme Court holds that generic.com domain names aren’t necessarily generic, which means they have the potential to…
A Review of the “Final” CCPA Regulations from the CA Attorney General
On June 2, the California Attorney General’s office (the DOJ) released hundreds of pages of new material about its CCPA regulations, including 11,000+ words of its “final” regulations and a 59 page “final statement of reasons” purportedly explaining the DOJ’s…
My Interview With Mathew Ingram Regarding Section 230
[Note: I did this interview with Mathew Ingram in late February–before the recent flood of new anti-Section 230 activity in DC that I still need to blog. I had always planned to share it here, but the issue got backburnered…
Running Geotargeted Advertising Confers Personal Jurisdiction–UMG Recordings v. Kurbanov
The plaintiffs brought a copyright infringement lawsuit in the Eastern District of Virginia federal court. The defendants include FLVTO and 2conv, two Russian-based websites that enable users to engage in stream-ripping of YouTube videos and other sources (i.e., extracting the…
Court Upholds Formation of a Lengthy Contract Presented on a Mobile Device–Hidalgo v. AAU
The plaintiffs are suing over a data breach. The defendant sought to invoke its arbitration clause in its membership agreement. The court finds the contract formed and sends the case to arbitration. The case involves the following screenshot as part…
Section 230 Protects Twitter from the “Devin Nunes’ Cow” Lawsuit–Nunes v. Twitter
In this well-publicized case, Rep. Devin Nunes sued Liz Mair (@LizMair) and the accounts @devincow (“Devin Nunes’ Cow”), and @DevinNunesMom for various tweets. That lawsuit is dubious. Even less wisely, Nunes also sued Twitter for these third-party tweets. The judge…
Another Court Rejects Turo’s Eligibility for Section 230–Turo v. Los Angeles
As I previously blogged: Turo is a peer-to-peer marketplace for car rentals. “Colloquially put, Turo is the ‘Airbnb’ of private motor vehicles.” Though Turo doesn’t dictate where the buyer and seller exchange the car, Turo facilitates matches at airports, either…
Reviewing the Americans With Disabilities Act’s Application to Websites–Martinez v. SDCCU
Following the Ninth Circuit’s Robles v. Domino’s opinion, we’ve entered a period of relative clarity about when websites constitute “places of public accommodation” for purposes of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). A recent court opinion, over a financial institution’s…
President Trump Loves Section 230 for Himself, Just Not for Anyone Else (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Jess Miers [Eric’s introduction: this is the second of a two-part series from Jess Miers, a 3L at SCU and my RA, providing historical context on Trump’s anti-social media statements, including the anti-Section 230 Executive Order from last…
“There’s Always a Tweet” Applies to Trump’s Anti-Social Media Rhetoric (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Jess Miers [Eric’s introduction: this is the first of a two-part series from Jess Miers, a 3L at SCU and my RA, providing historical context on Trump’s anti-social media statements, including the anti-Section 230 Executive Order from…