Buyer Wins Dispute Over Earnout For Purchased Websites
This is an earnout dispute arising out of Internet Brands’ purchase of the “doityourself.com” website. The website was launched in 1995. By 2006, it averaged 1,770,000 unique monthly visitors and earned almost $1 million in revenues. In December 2006, Internet…
Why The Subway ‘Footlong’ Lawsuits Fell Short (Forbes Cross-Post)
You may recall the lawsuit against Subway Restaurants for selling “12 inch” and “footlong” sandwiches that were allegedly less than 12 inches long. The case attracted lots of media attention and consumer sniggers because of Subway’s ubiquity (and the endless…
Court Beats Down Another Competitive Keyword Advertising Lawsuit–Beast Sports v. BPI
If you’ve been keeping up with the blog over the past several years, you already know that competitive keyword advertising lawsuits consistently lose in court. So in that sense, today’s blog post isn’t telling you anything new. Yet, it’s still…
Hacky Sacker’s Publicity Rights Claim Against Energy Drink Tossed–Martin v. 5-Hour Energy Drink
Johannes (Ted) Martin was (and is currently) the world record holder for “most consecutive kicks (no knees)” of a hackysack. A five hour energy drink made an advertisement depicting an unknown actor claiming he performed several superhuman tasks, including breaking…
2H 2015 Quick Links, Part 7 (Marketing, Advertising, E-Commerce)
Marketing/Advertising * Jezebel: The Big Bad World of Products Celebrities Promote on Instagram. Related blog post. * NY Times: Cool Influencers With Big Followings Get Picky About Their Endorsements * NY Times: Since signing with Brooks on Jan. 1, 2014,…
TCPA Claim Against Non-Sender Fails
Plaintiffs sued American Eagle Outfitters and Experian, alleging claims under the TCPA for unwanted text messages. American Eagle is the retailer, and Experian provides marketing services. But neither of these entities actually pressed the “send” button. We’ve seen disputes over…
Third Circuit Revives TCPA Case Against Yahoo
A Yahoo user alleged that he purchased a phone that came with a preassigned telephone number. The previous subscriber of this number apparently set his account so emails sent to his Yahoo account triggered a text message to this phone…
Stockholders Can’t Sue Yelp Because Of Fake Reviews (Forbes Cross-Post)
Are there fake user reviews on Yelp? Sure–Yelp freely admits it. Nevertheless, plaintiffs have attempted a variety of legal theories to hold Yelp legally responsible for those fake reviews. Recently, a federal court shut down one of those lawsuits, holding…
Court Rejects TCPA Claim on the Basis of Implied Consent
Plaintiff sued on behalf of a putative class, alleging that he received marketing messages from Five Stars Loyalty that violated his rights under the TCPA. Plaintiff had lunch at a Flame Broiler restaurant and asked the cashier about the Five…
Another Murky Opinion on Lawyers Buying Keyword Ads on Other Lawyers’ Names–In re Naert
I recently posted a co-authored article, Regulation of Lawyers’ Use of Competitive Keyword Advertising, discussing lawyers’ use of competitive keyword ads triggered by other lawyers’ names. That article examines both IP laws and attorney rules of professional conduct and explains…