Top Ten Internet Law Developments of 2012 (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman I’m pleased to share my list of top 10 developments of 2012: #10: The Push Towards Anti-Class Action Arbitration Clauses. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion that businesses may be able to adopt mandatory…
Anti-Scraping Lawsuits Are Going Crazy in the Real Estate Industry (Catch-Up Post)
By Jake McGowan with comments from Eric [Eric’s preliminary note: it’s taken me weeks to review this blog post, so I’ve been keeping poor Jake in a holding pattern. Still, I hope the wait is worth it.] The real estate…
Sale of “Damn You Auto Correct!” Website Leads to Fights Over Its Google Analytics Numbers — Studio 159 v. PopHang, LLC, et al.
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani with comments by Eric] Studio 159 v. PopHang, LLC & NextPoint, Inc., 2012 WL 6675790 (C.D. Cal.; Dec. 21, 2012) (Copy of Purchase and Sale Agreement) Studio 159 sold to PopHang and Nextpoint (Break Media) 22…
Facebook Isn’t–and Shouldn’t Be–A Democracy (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman In 2009, Facebook ($FB) nominally enabled user governance by obligating itself to honor user votes before making certain site policy changes. This experiment in user self-governance was radical and largely unprecedented–especially given the size of Facebook’s userbase, which…
Lawsuit Against Instagram Over Terms of Service Changes Looks Flimsy — Funes v. Instagram
[Venkat Balasubramani with a comment by Eric] Funes v. Instagram, 12-6482 (N.D. Cal. complaint filed Dec. 21, 2012) Eric and I posted about Instagram’s recent TOS rev. Neither of us were particularly enthusiastic about the changes. (See Facebook’s Proposed Amended…
Facebook’s Proposed Amended Sponsored Settlement and Instagram’s TOS Revs
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Fraley v. Facebook, 11-cv-196193 (N.D. Cal.) (Amended Proposed Settlement) (Motion to Approve) (Preliminary Approval) (case docs, compiled by Citizen Media) I initially passed on blogging the amended proposed settlement agreement in Fraley v. Facebook, the Sponsored…
Minors’ Suit Over Facebook Credits Survives in Part – I.B. v. Facebook
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani with comments by Eric] I.B. v. Facebook, C 12 1894 CW (N.D. Cal. Oct. 25, 2012) Eric posted before about a Facebook sponsored stories lawsuit that was brought on behalf of minors. There, Facebook was confronted…
Search Engine Developer Sues Facebook for Disallowing Access to User Data — Profile Technology v. Facebook (Catch-Up Post)
By Jake McGowan Profile Technology, Ltd. v. Facebook, Inc. (Complaint) Web developers sometimes try to enhance the functionality of an already-popular social network. But this typically requires permission to access the social network’s information, which is not always easy to…
Employee/Ex-Employer Lawsuit Over Twitter Account Settles – Phonedog v. Kravitz
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] PhoneDog v. Kravitz, No. C 11-03474 MEJ (N.D. Cal.) This is one of the first cases where employee and employee (in this case contractor) battled over a Twitter account. Noah Kravitz worked for PhoneDog as a…
Court Says Plaintiff Lacks Standing to Pursue Failure-to-Purge Claim Under the VPPA – Sterk v. Best Buy
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Sterk v. Best Buy, 11 C 1894 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 17, 2012) The VPPA has spawned a lot of litigation over the past couple of years. One hot button area has been the applicability of the…