2025 Internet Law Year-in-Review
2025 is the Trump 2.0 era, so you won’t find much upbeat news in this Internet Law year-in-review. 10. Are Websites Legally Equivalent to Exploding Coke Bottles? Traditionally, tort law distinguishes between tangible items (chattels) and intangible services. Several doctrines…
A Massive Roundup of Section 230 Decisions
This post also owes its origins to my 2-week trip to China in June. Section 230 decisions started backing up while I was on the trip and never stopped accruing. In total, this post covers about 30 decisions in 7k+…
Too Many Courts Are Letting States Take Wrecking Balls to the Internet (Roundup)
‘Tis the season for Internet censorship. 🎄 More accurately, Internet censorship is now a four-season sport in state legislatures. There is not a stereotypical red state/blue state divide. Instead, the “divide” is between pro-censorship and anti-censorship legislators. You can count…
Texas Judge Enjoins App Store Authentication Law–CCIA and SEAT v. Paxton
This blog post involves two near-identical cases challenging the Texas App Store Accountability Act, Senate Bill 2420 (“SB 2420” or “the Act”), Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 121.001 et seq. SB 2420 is a robust multi-pronged segregate-and-suppress law that…
District Court Again Rejects Plaintiffs’ Attempts to Manufacture Common Law Notice-and-Takedown Duties–Bogard v. TikTok
This is a quirky lawsuit designed to subvert Section 230, the First Amendment, and traditional common law. I previously summarized the case: This lawsuit purports to focuses on the allegedly defective operation of the services’ reporting tools, but the plaintiffs’…
Courts Enjoin Internet Censorship Laws in Louisana and Arkansas
[I have a mondo draft roundup blog post, coming soon, covering a lot of segregate-and-suppress rulings. For now, I’ve prioritized coverage of these two rulings due to their importance. I’ll discuss the Louisiana law first, then the Arkansas law. Warning:…
OnlyFans Defeats “Chatter Scam” Claim–N.Z. v. Fenix
The court summarizes the plaintiffs’ “chatter scam” contentions: Plaintiffs allege that Fenix Defendants, in cooperation with the Agency Defendants, operate a fraudulent scheme whereby Fenix Defendants charge OnlyFans subscribers to communicate directly with creators, purport to connect subscribers with creators,…
Is Blogging a “Recreational Activity”?–Sander v. Westchester Reform Temple
In 2021, Jessie Sander was hired as a Jewish educator at the Westchester Reform Temple, located in Scarsdale, NY. Sander calls the temple a “Zionist institution.” The temple’s website still publicly espouses support for Israel. Shortly after she was hired,…
COVID Jawboning Lawsuit Dismissed (For Now)–Dressen v. Flaherty
This is a COVID-related jawboning case: Plaintiffs allege that Defendants violated their constitutional rights by pressuring social media companies to ban or limit their social media posts related to the COVID-19 vaccine….Plaintiffs characterize Defendants’ efforts as “relentless pressure, inducement, coercion,…
Court Authorizes Unmasking Subpoena in Copyright Case–In re DMCA Subpoena to GoDaddy
The copyright owner Tamaris claims that 100+ websites, including “casinoestelar.com” and “powerbet.win,” infringe their copyrights. The copyright owner obtained a 512(h) unmasking subpoena and served it on GoDaddy. GoDaddy notified the site operator, who asked the court to quash the…