Angie’s List Defeats Lawsuit Over Alleged “Pay-to-Play” Rankings–Strauss v. Angie’s List
Strauss spent over $200,000 on Angie’s List advertising over about a decade. After he stopped advertising, he claimed Angie’s List treated him poorly, including deindexing him from its search, then degrading his positioning in search results, and other malfeasance. All…
Video Advertising Contract Descends Into Possible “Cyberattack”–Radian Weapons v. GY6Vids
This is a lawsuit between Radian Weapons and GY6Vids, a company that Radian hired to promote Radian’s products on YouTube. (GY’s YouTube channel currently has almost seven hundred thousand subscribers. Press coverage of the lawsuit from The Bulletin here.) The…
Ninth Circuit Interprets Autodialer Broadly For TCPA Purposes
Marks signed up for a gym membership with Crunch Fitness. He received three text messages. He sued on behalf of a putative class. The key question is whether the messages were sent using an “automatic telephone dialing system” (ATDS) under…
Swedish Court Misunderstands Memes (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Stacey Lantagne Memes are everywhere. Part of the essential communicative fabric of social media, it’s hard to imagine Twitter or Instagram or even texting without them. They get used to react to matters of national debate, sports…
Constitutional Challenge to FOSTA Dismissed for Lack of Standing (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Alex F. Levy On September 24, 2018, the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia dismissed a case challenging the constitutionality of the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA). FOSTA, which…
Google Successfully Amends Its AdWords TOS to Add Arbitration Clause–Trudeau v. Google
Some AdWords advertisers are suing Google for allegedly misimplementing negative keywords. Google seeks to move the dispute to arbitration. In 2013, Google’s AdWords TOS said: 11 Term. Google may add to, delete from or modify these Terms at any time…
Blogger Defeats Defamation Claims Over Posts Claiming a “Scam”–RainSoft v. MacFarland
Brian MacFarland runs a blog, lazymanandmoney.com. For his own home, he held an in-home demonstration of a RainSoft water softener system by Oster, a salesperson at a local distributor, Basement Technologies. (I’m not sure about that brand!). MacFarland was skeptical…
Section 230 Helps Malware Vendor Avoid Liability for Blocking Decision–PC Drivers v. Malwarebytes
We rarely see cases like this any more, so I think it’s worth blogging this April ruling even though it just showed up in Westlaw. PC Drivers makes software designed to speed up users’ computers, an industry niche that’s known…
Departing Employee Required to Transfer Social Media Accounts–Hyperheal Hyperbarics v. Shapiro
This is an ownership dispute over a departing employee’s right to use social media accounts and trademarks of an employer. The facts are somewhat atypical. Shapiro founded a company called Hyperheal Hyperbarics to provide “hyperbaric oxygen therapy”. In 2014, the…
Roca Labs’ Anti-Review Clause Violates FTC Act–FTC v. Roca Labs
Good news: a court ruled that Roca Labs anti-review clause violates the law. It’s shocking that Roca Labs chose to defend this practice in court, so it’s not surprising that the judge didn’t endorse it. Bad news: the court relied…