Of Course The First Amendment Protects Baidu’s Search Engine, Even When It Censors Pro-Democracy Results (Forbes Cross-Post)
Baidu.com is the leading search engine in China. The plaintiffs in this case have published materials online about the democracy movement in China. They allege that, at the request of the Chinese government, Baidu excludes pro-democracy search results, including their…
H2 2013 Quick Links, Part 2 (Privacy, Search Engines)
NSA * WaPo: The NSA seems to really enjoy exploiting high profile tech companies. * The Guardian: the Snowden incident portends the death of the Internet. * The Switch: Yes, there actually is a huge difference between government and corporate surveillance. * American Panopticon: How a…
Top Ten Internet Law Developments Of 2013 (Forbes Cross-Post)
A look back at the Internet law highlights of 2013: #10: Copyright Defendants Get High-Stakes Wins. 2013 saw several copyright defendants win long-running litigation affairs–and potentially crack open new markets, including (1) Google’s stirring win in its nearly decade-long Google…
Details About Amazon’s Confidential Settlement Terms For A Keyword Advertising Lawsuit (Forbes Cross-Post)
Most lawsuits settle; and most settlements are confidential. As a result, outsiders often don’t learn who “won” a settled lawsuit or the range of standard settlement terms. Fortunately, a dispute over the settlement agreement in a keyword advertising trademark lawsuit…
Florida Drops Ill-Conceived Proposal To Ban Competitive Keyword Advertising By Lawyers (Forbes Cross-Post)
In March, the Florida State Bar’s Standing Committee on Advertising proposed an ethics opinion (Proposed Advisory Opinion A-12-1). The opinion was designed to help Florida lawyers understand what they could ethically do with online marketing. It targeted a melange of…
Court Won’t Order Google To Lift Manual Block For ‘Thin Content’–ICF v. Google
ICF provides web hosting services to hundreds of pornography websites. Google allegedly manually blocked these sites for spam, characterizing them as having “thin content,” which Google defines as “providing internet content that has little or no value to end-users.” The…
Another Keyword Advertising Lawsuit Unceremoniously Dismissed–Infostream v. Avid
Infostream Group Inc. v. Avid Life Media Inc., 2013 WL 6018030 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 12, 2013) There is an active, long-standing and wide-ranging litigation war being waged between two groups of websites in the “sugar daddy“/”sugar baby” hook-up category. I…
Calling Out Scraper for “Stealing” Data Is Not Defamatory – Tamburo v. Dworkin
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Tamburo v. Dworkin, 04 C 3317 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 26, 2013) This is an interesting dispute that brings together several legal doctrines we love to cover here. It’s the type of fact pattern a law school…
When Should Search Engines Ignore Court Orders To Remove Search Results? (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Companies and individuals are constantly seeking more effective ways to scrub unwanted online content. One common technique is to get a court declaration that content is unlawful and should be removed, and then send that ruling to…
Another Keyword Advertising Lawsuit Fails–Allied Interstate v. Kimmel & Silverman
By Eric Goldman Allied Interstate LLC v. Kimmel & Silverman P.C., 2013 WL 4245987 (SDNY August 12, 2013) This opinion isn’t earth-shattering but it provides a useful illustration of what I’m seeing. The plaintiff is a debt collection service. The…