Unmasked Judge/Commenter Sues Newspaper for $50mm — Saffold v. Plain Dealer
[Post by Venkat] Saffold v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co., Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas (filed April 7, 2010) [scribd] A judge/commenter who was unmasked by the Cleveland Plain Dealer is reportedly suing the newspaper for 50 million dollars. (h/t…
Facebook Privacy Class Action Filed by Lanier Firm Voluntarily Dismissed — Melkonian v. Facebook
[Post by Venkat] Melkonian v. Facebook, Orange County Superior Court Case No. 30-2009-00293755-CU-BT-CJC [complaint] In August of last year, prominent plaintiffs’ lawyer Mark Lanier filed a privacy lawsuit against Facebook on behalf of a group of plaintiffs. [WSJ Law blog]…
March 2010 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Internet Exceptionalism * Stern v. Sony Corp., CV 09-7710 PA (C.D. Cal. Feb. 8 2010) “to the extent Plaintiff is suing Sony as a manufacturer of video games, and the provider of online services, Sony is not…
Beacon Class Action Settlement Approved — Lane v. Facebook
[Post by Venkat] Lane v. Facebook (Case No. 09-3845 RS; March 17, 2010) [scribd link] Judge Seeborg yesterday issued an order approving the class settlement in Lane v. Facebook, the class action lawsuit arising out of Facebook’s Beacon program. Background:…
Data Anonymization and Re-identification Lecture Featuring Paul Ohm, SCU, April 7
By Eric Goldman University of Colorado law professor Paul Ohm has written one of the most provocative privacy-related papers of the past few years, Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization. Using examples such as the…
FTC Privacy Roundtable Recap
By Eric Goldman [Introductory note: I have repeatedly criticized the FTC on this blog, and this post may implicitly criticize them as well. At the same time, I want to share a couple of compliments for the FTC. First, the…
4th Amendment Updates in the State Courts
The US Supreme Court is not the only Supreme Court to recently focus on 4th Amendment privacy issues critical to technology. By Ethan Ackerman This blog recently covered the US Supreme Court’s decision to hear a 4th Amendment case dealing…
File Names Can Help Predict File Content in Child Porn Prosecution–US v. Beatty
By Eric Goldman United States v. Beatty, 2009 WL 5220643 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 31, 2009) This is a child porn prosecution. Using Phex P2P software, an undercover investigator accessed the Gnutella network and conducted searches using search terms known to…
November-December 2009 Quick Links, Part 2
By Eric Goldman Copyright * Want Ad Digest Inc. v. Display Advertising Inc. (N.D.N.Y. Sept. 3, 2009). A classified ads publisher wants to stop a competitor from republishing its classified ads. The court said that advertisers, not the publisher, generally…
When the Supreme Court gets in your inbox
The Supreme Court agrees to review one of the very few Circuit Court opinions finding 4th Amendment protection for in-box content. Should netizens tremble or rejoice? By Ethan Ackerman The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by a…