eBay Denied 230 Defense for Its Marketing Representations–Mazur v. eBay
By Eric Goldman Mazur v. eBay Inc., 2008 WL 618988 (N.D. Cal. March 4, 2008) I declared Monday “47 USC 230 Day” here at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog, but with this new case, I’m declaring it 47 USC…
47 USC 230 Day at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog
By Eric Goldman Today is 47 USC 230 Day at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog as we catch up on a hat trick of recent 47 USC 230 opinions. 1) Gregerson v. Vilana Financial, Inc., 2008 WL 451060 (D….
Utah Quietly Killing the Trademark Protection Act [UPDATED]
By Eric Goldman [See update below] We’re coming up on the one year anniversary of the Utah Trademark Protection Act, Utah’s effort to kill/tax keyword advertising. It looks like the law may not survive until its first birthday, as the…
Lifestyle Lift Tries to Use TM Law to Shut Down User Discussions; Website Countersues for Shilling–Lifestyle Lift v. RealSelf
By Eric Goldman Lifestyle Lift Holding, Inc. v. RealSelf Inc., 2:08-cv-10089-PJD-RSW (complaint filed Jan. 7, 2008 and answer/counterclaims filed March 3, 2008) [disclosure note: I have done some legal work for RealSelf, including some limited counseling on this lawsuit] No…
Feb. 2008 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Advertising * BusinessWeek: Monetizing social networking sites isn’t as easy as everyone had hoped, clickthrough rates are through the floor (0.04%!), and ad proliferation on the sites is driving users away. * Wilbur, Kenneth C. and Zhu,…
CaféPress Denied 230 Motion to Dismiss–Curran v. Amazon
By Eric Goldman Curran v. Amazon.com, Inc., 2008 WL 472433 (S.D. W.Va. Feb. 19, 2008) Erik Curran was a National Guard soldier who served in “a combat zone.” For reasons unclear from this opinion, he was photographed by an unspecified…
No Liability for Providing User-Selected Category Tags–Whitney v. Xcentric
By Eric Goldman Whitney Information Network v. Xcentric Ventures, No. 2:04-cv-47-FtM-34SPC (M.D. Fla. Feb. 15, 2008) On remand from the 11th Circuit, the district court once again found that 47 USC 230 protects Rip-off Report and related entities from a…
Classic Article on “Cybermediaries”
By Eric Goldman Mitra B. Sarkar et al., Intermediaries and Cybermediaries: A Continuing Role for Mediating Players in the Electronic Marketplace, J. COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATIONS, 1995 I’ve been working on my Brand Spillovers paper, which in part addresses the trademark…
Jan. 2008 Quick Links (Non-IP Edition)
By Eric Goldman 47 USC 230 * Doe v. SexSearch, the case absolving a website for age verification of its users, has been appealed. * The Supreme Court denied cert in Parker v. Google. See 2008 WL 114262. * NYT…
December 2007 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Marketing * I’ve blogged about Various, which operates AdultFriendFinder.com, before. They made the news recently in two ways. First, they sold to Penthouse for half-a-billion dollars. Second, they settled with the FTC for “pelting” users with unwanted…