IP/Internet/Antitrust Professor Amicus Brief in 1-800 Contacts v. FTC
Prof. Mark Lemley (Stanford Law) and I filed an amicus brief in 1-800 Contacts v. FTC with the Second Circuit on behalf of 29 professors of intellectual property, Internet law, and antitrust. The abstract: The case involves 1-800 Contacts’ settlement…
And At the End of the Day, the CCPA Remains Very Much the Same (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Tanya Forsheit I am back to provide a post mortem on what many have portrayed – inaccurately – as a long and successful battle by business interests to gut the CCPA. The legislative session is over and,…
Court Enforces Arbitration Clause in “Modified Clickwrap”–Chen v. Sierra Trading Post
This case doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s typical of what I’m seeing. The plaintiffs claim that the retailer Sierra Trading Post (STP) provides misleading comparison prices. STP sought to send the case to arbitration based on its TOU…
Section 230 Applies to Facebook’s Post Removals and Account Suspensions–King v. Facebook
The court summarizes the facts: King alleges Facebook removed multiple posts by him, and temporarily suspended his Facebook access on several occasions in 2018, for posts that Facebook deemed a violation of its terms of service (“ToS”). The crux of…
Consumers Can’t Understand the Online Contracts They “Agree” To. Now What? (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Prof. Samuel I. Becher, Victoria University of Wellington [Eric’s introduction: I’ve repeatedly mentioned the “crisis of online contracts.” We routinely embrace the fiction of online contract formation despite the fact that we know people don’t read the contracts, they wouldn’t…
Facebook Defeats Pro Se Consumer Privacy Suit–Hassan v. Facebook
This is a pro se privacy lawsuit by 4 longtime Facebook users (from 2007-09). It covers a lot of the same topics as the dozens of pending privacy class action lawsuits against Facebook. Not surprisingly, as a pro se suit,…
Lessons from Bumble’s Choice of Law Clause–King v. Bumble
This is a lawsuit against the dating app “Bumble” challenging Bumble’s refund and renewal practices. Plaintiffs allege Bumble violated two California statues: (1) the Dating Service Law, and (2) the Automatic Renewal Law. The first requires dating services to give…
Russia Fucked With American Democracy, But It Can’t Fuck With Section 230–Federal Agency of News v. Facebook
The plaintiff FAN allegedly is part of a Russian government agency, Internet Research Agency, that undermined the integrity of our 2016 presidential elections. In other words, FAN apparently was a Russian troll operation. As part of its post-2016 election cleanup,…
Amazon May Be Liable for Marketplace Items–Oberdorf v. Amazon
In what could be a seismic ruling, the Third Circuit held that Amazon is a legally responsible seller of defective marketplace items, exposing it to potentially enormous liability. This represents the worst loss yet for Amazon over marketplace sales. However,…
Twitter Gets Another Significant Section 230 Win in Lawsuit by Suspended User–Murphy v. Twitter
Murphy had about 25,000 Twitter followers. She repeatedly referred to a trangender female as male in her tweets. Twitter suspended her account for “misgendering.” After more negative interactions between them, Twitter permanently banned Murphy. Murphy claimed that Twitter changed its…