Too Rusty For Krusty–Nickelodeon v. Rusty Krab Restaurant (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Prof. Alexandra Jane Roberts Remember the Fifth Circuit case from 2018 holding that a real restaurant’s name could infringe trademark rights in the name of a fictional restaurant from the TV show SpongeBob SquarePants, the Krusty Krab?…
Section 230 Helps Craigslist Defeat Sex Trafficking Case–LH v. Marriott
This is another sex trafficking case against Craigslist. The plaintiff’s position primarily focuses on craigslist’s creation of a section of its platform devoted to “erotic services,” but also points to features like craigslist’s embedded messaging system (which allows for confidential…
Section 230 Helps Salesforce Defeat Sex Trafficking Lawsuit–GG v. Salesforce
This is another lawsuit where the plaintiff claims to have been sex trafficked on Backpage. Backpage used Salesforce as its CRM vendor, so the plaintiff claims Salesforce should be liable for the victimization. I’m aware of two other decisions involving…
Is Google’s Search Engine a “Common Carrier”? (Seriously???)–Ohio ex rel Yost v. Google
This is a crazy case. Ohio AG Yost claims that Google’s search engine is a common carrier and a public utility. Nominally, his goal is to redress Google self-preferencing, but that’s a transparently pretextual excuse to censor search results and…
Big Ruling for Free Speech: Most of Florida’s Social Media Censorship Law (SB 7072) Remains Enjoined–NetChoice v. Attorney General
On Monday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit issued an important Internet free speech opinion, NetChoice v. Attorney General (a/k/a NetChoice v. Moody). The opinion holds that the key parts of Florida’s social media censorship law (SB 7072)…
Rounding Up the Supreme Court Briefs in NetChoice v. Paxton, the Challenge to Texas HB20’s Social Media Censorship Law
A quick recap: last summer, Texas passed HB20, a #MAGA messaging bill that poses existential threats to the Internet as we know it. NetChoice and CCIA led a lawsuit seeking to enjoin most of it. In December, the federal district…
Twitter Defeats Another Account Suspension Lawsuit–Al-Ahmed v Twitter
This case involves the tragic situation where two Twitter employees allegedly became operatives for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and turned over sensitive information about the government’s critics to the Saudi Arabia government. I’m going to focus solely on Twitter’s…
Another Failed Lawsuit Over Trump’s Deplatforming–Rutenberg v. Twitter
Rutenberg sued Twitter for deplatforming Trump because it deprived her of reading material she wanted. (In drafting this post, I tried to come up with a joke based on the prior sentence, but it’s already peak humor without any embellishment)….
My SCOTUS Amicus Brief on Texas HB20’s Unconstitutional Transparency Requirements
Last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dissolved the existing injunction against Texas HB 20, the so-called social media censorship law, in a one-sentence order. The entire order says: “IT IS ORDERED that appellant’s opposed motion to stay preliminary…
Three More Yearbook/People Database Cases Signal Trouble for Defendants
Yearbook/people database opinions are being issued faster than I can blog them. They are not going well for defendants. The opinions are so lengthy and repetitive that I’m just going to cut-and-paste the parts I think are relatively noteworthy. Sorry…