Think You Want To Be Told About Product Placements In Movies? Think Again (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Do you want movie producers to tell you when they have accepted money from brand owners to showcase their brands in movies, a phenomenon called product placement? Most people would say yes. We dislike thinking that we’re…
Dentist’s Defamation Lawsuit Against Yelp Preempted by Section 230–Braverman v. Yelp
By Eric Goldman Braverman v. Yelp, Inc., 2013 NY Slip Op 31407 (NY Sup. Ct June 28, 2013) Mal Braverman is a Manhattan dentist. He sued Yelp for defamation based on two allegedly defamatory user posts. I’m not sure which…
Book Review: “Unfair to Genius: The Strange and Litigious Career of Ira B. Arnstein”
By Eric Goldman Ira Arnstein is well-known to most IP professors as the named plaintiff in the copyright classic Arnstein v. Porter from 1946 (also see this case archive). The Second Circuit’s opinion is a landmark ruling that appears in…
Will The FTC’s Crackdown On Search Ad Disclosures Hurt Google’s Revenues? (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hates inauthentic online content. To combat this perceived ill, the FTC has been waging a multi-year battle against surreptitious ads online. The FTC has been quite clear about what it wants online…
Some 47 USC 230 Cases From the Past Year You Might Have Missed (Because I Didn’t Blog Them)
By Eric Goldman How do you celebrate the Fourth of July? I spent the holiday thinking about how 47 USC 230 enhances my freedoms. However, I’ve been feeling a little guilty because I try to blog every Section 230 case…
Essay Explaining Why 47 USC 230 Should Immunize State Crimes
By Eric Goldman You’ve probably already heard that at the Summer 2013 NAAG meeting in Boston, some State Attorneys General indicated they will ask Congress to exclude state criminal prosecutions from the 47 USC 230 immunity. Although many folks believe…
Why Craigslist’s ‘Casual Encounters’ Is A Bad Spot To Catch Predators (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Venson Villapando had, in the words of his psychologist, a “normal” heterosexual interest in “adolescent and adult females.” In 2009, he logged into Craigslist’s “casual encounters” section and responded to an ad with the headline “looking to get…
H1 2013 Quick Links, Part 3 (Social Media and Content Regulation)
By Eric Goldman and Jake McGowan Facebook * Growing Facebook fatigue? * The FDA thinks that a pharma company liking a comment on its Facebook page constitutes an endorsement of the comment contents. * WSJ: More questions about how Facebook handles…
“FTC Regulation of Social Media” Talk Slides and Recording
By Eric Goldman Last week, I spoke at the 16th Annual FDA-OCRA 2013 Educational Conference in Irvine to an audience of medical device and pharmaceutical compliance professionals. My topic was how the FTC regulates social media, with an emphasis on…
Facebook Posting of Criminal Trial’s Witness List Isn’t a “True Threat”–US v. Amaya
By Eric Goldman U.S. v. Amaya, 2013 WL 2548393 (N.D. Iowa, June 11, 2013) This is a quite lengthy sentencing opinion following Amaya’s meth conviction, a not uncommon circumstance given the disproportionately high meth sentences produced by the sentencing guidelines….