Guerrilla Marketing Under False Pretenses Might Be Passing Off–Heartland v. Forest River
By Eric Goldman Heartland Recreational Vehicles, LLC v. Forest River, Inc., 2009 WL 418079 (N.D. Ind. Feb. 18, 2009). The Justia page. When deciding whether it should bring a lawsuit, a potential plaintiff needs to consider not only their likelihood…
Bay Area Blawgers 4.0, March 18, 6-8 pm, SCU
By Eric Goldman The High Tech Law Institute at SCU Law is sponsoring the fourth gathering of Bay Area legal bloggers/blawgers. We’ll have an hour of structured discussion and lots of mingle time. The theme for the discussion will be…
Facebook User Agreement Imbroglio Recap (and Some Comments of My Own)
By Eric Goldman I didn’t have a chance to blog on the Facebook user agreement amendment flap in real-time, but now that Facebook has rolled back its amendments and everyone is catching their breath, the Monday morning quarterbacking is proceeding…
TradeComet Sues Google for Antitrust Violations
By Eric Goldman TradeComet.com LLC v. Google, Inc., 09 CIV 1400 (SDNY complaint filed Feb. 17, 2009). The Justia page. TradeComet, which operates the SourceTool.com website, has sued Google for a variety of antitrust violations. As is typically the case…
AP Enforcement Action Against Syndicator Survives Dismissal Motion–AP v. All Headline News
By Eric Goldman Associated Press v. All Headline News Corp., 08 Civ 323 (SDNY Feb. 17, 2009) We’ve seen a lot of ruffled feathers over Internet republication of news headlines, ledes and snippets–the most recent being the GateHouse lawsuit and…
Google Street View Case Dismissed–Boring v. Google
By Eric Goldman Boring v. Google, Inc., 2:08-cv-00694-ARH (W.D. Pa. Feb. 17, 2009) You may recall the Boring case from last Spring. A Pennsylvania couple sued because Google’s camera car drove up their private driveway and the resulting pictures were…
Affiliate Liability Talk Notes from SMX West
By Eric Goldman Last week, I spoke for 10 minutes (actually, I took 12) at SMX West on the topic of advertiser liability for affiliates’ actions. My talk notes: General Principles Issue: when are advertisers liable for their affiliates’ behavior?…
Yahoo/Overture Sued for Search Results Snippets Containing Plaintiff’s Name–Stayart v. Yahoo
By Eric Goldman Stayart v. Yahoo!, 2:2009cv00116 (E.D. Wis. complaint filed Feb. 5, 2009). The Justia page. Bev Stayart appears to be proud of her accomplishments. As the complaint recounts her credentials, we are informed that she has an MBA…
Yahoo’s Sale of Competitive Keyword Ads Isn’t False Designation of Origin–Heartbrand Beef v. Lobel’s
By Eric Goldman Heartbrand Beef, Inc. v. Lobel’s of New York, LLC, 2009 WL 311087 (S.D.Tex. Feb. 5, 2009). The Justia page. Heartbrand sells Akaushi beef, a special and very expensive Japanese variety of beef. Heartbrand brought an enforcement action…
2008 Cyberlaw Year-in-Review
By Eric Goldman It’s a sign of my schedule that I’m just now getting to this, and this post will be more pithy than I initially conceived. This post recaps some of the Cyberlaw highlights from last year. Frankly, the…