47 USC 230’s Legislative History
I had reason to revisit the legislative history for 47 USC 230, which was Section 509 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.[FN1] For some reason, I had trouble retrieving it through typical Google searches, so I’m sharing it here for…
Epinions, The Path-Breaking Website, Is Dead. Some Lessons It Taught Us (Forbes Cross-Post)
Before Yelp and TripAdvisor, before blogs or social media, there was Epinions.com. Founded in 1999, Epinions was a consumer review website before we fully appreciated how much we needed consumer reviews. It made several advances over other websites of its…
CafePress May Not Qualify For 512 Safe Harbor – Gardner v. CafePress
Gardner is a wildlife photographer. He sued CafePress and Beverly Teall alleging that Teall sold a product through CafePress displaying one of Gardner’s images. While only one image was at issue in the operative complaint, prior to mediation, plaintiff’s counsel…
In Its “Innocence of Muslims” Ruling, the Ninth Circuit is Guilty of Judicial Activism–Garcia v. Google
In a ruling that sent shockwaves through the internet community, the Ninth Circuit, with one judge dissenting, found that an injunction should have been granted against YouTube, requiring removal of the “Innocence of Muslims” film. Does Garcia have a copyright…
TCPA Claim Over Yahoo!’s IM to SMS Messaging Survives Summary Judgment
Yahoo! offers instant message users the ability to receive a text message notification of an instant message. A customer received two messages, and sued for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The court denies Yahoo!’s motion for summary judgment….
H2 2013 Quick Links, Part 3 (Content Regulation)
Section 230 * The Good Wife on CBS had an episode, “Whack a Mole,” that addressed Section 230. It got Section 230 right on defamation damages but wrong on injunctions. * Preliminary injunction in Backpage v. Hoffman, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 119811 (D.N.J. Aug. 20, 2013)….
Top Ten Internet Law Developments Of 2013 (Forbes Cross-Post)
A look back at the Internet law highlights of 2013: #10: Copyright Defendants Get High-Stakes Wins. 2013 saw several copyright defendants win long-running litigation affairs–and potentially crack open new markets, including (1) Google’s stirring win in its nearly decade-long Google…
Court Won’t Order Google To Lift Manual Block For ‘Thin Content’–ICF v. Google
ICF provides web hosting services to hundreds of pornography websites. Google allegedly manually blocked these sites for spam, characterizing them as having “thin content,” which Google defines as “providing internet content that has little or no value to end-users.” The…
National Advertising Division (NAD) Doesn’t Consider Section 230 Defenses
In October, I spoke at the National Advertising Division’s (NAD) annual conference on a panel about Section 230 and advertiser liability for user-generated content (UGC). [Sorry for my delay posting this recap]. A paradigmatic example is a Facebook brand page…
Should We Cheer The California Attorney General’s Revenge Porn Arrest–Or Find It Alarming? (Forbes Cross-Post)
The California Attorney General’s office announced the arrest of Kevin Christopher Bollaert for his role in a revenge porn scheme. Most folks are cheering the arrest for understandable reasons: revenge porn is odious, especially when victims must pay to remove…