Section 230 Helps Search Engine Defeat “Right to Be Forgotten” Lawsuit–Mosha v. Yandex
Looking holistically at the broad arc of Internet Law history, I could make a good case that the EU’s Right to Be Forgotten marked the beginning of the end of the modern Internet. It was the first time that a…
Competitor Gets Pyrrhic Victory in False Advertising Suit Over Search Ads–Harbor Breeze v. Newport Fishing
The litigants compete in the whale watching industry in LA/Orange Counties. The plaintiffs operate out of Long Beach/San Pedro, the defendants out of Newport Beach. If you’re not familiar with the geography, Long Beach and Newport Beach are about 20…
IP/Internet/Antitrust Professor Amicus Brief in 1-800 Contacts v. FTC
Prof. Mark Lemley (Stanford Law) and I filed an amicus brief in 1-800 Contacts v. FTC with the Second Circuit on behalf of 29 professors of intellectual property, Internet law, and antitrust. The abstract: The case involves 1-800 Contacts’ settlement…
New Jersey Attorney Ethics Opinion Blesses Competitive Keyword Advertising (…or Does It?)
In 2016, the Texas Bar issued an opinion decisively blessing competitive keyword advertising by lawyers. (Note: I define competitive keyword advertising as buying a rival’s name/brand as the trigger for ads without displaying the name/brand in the ad copy). At…
Another Competitive Keyword Advertising Lawsuit Fails–Dr. Greenberg v. Perfect Body Image
Dr. Stephen Greenberg is a plastic surgeon on Long Island. Perfect Body Image provides “non-surgical and non-invasive aesthetic services, including, among other things, laser treatments.” Perfect Body doesn’t have any doctors on staff. In addition to Stephen, at least two…
1H 2019 Quick Links, Part 2 (Keyword Advertising)
* Grasshopper House LLC v. Clean & Sober Media LLC, 2019 WL 2762936 (C.D. Cal. July 1, 2019). Prof. Tushnet recaps the case. The passages that stood out to me: Lastly, Passages argues for a third mechanism to estimate Cliffside’s…
The Florida Bar Regulates, But Doesn’t Ban, Competitive Keyword Ads
The Florida Bar has a drama-filled history regarding the regulation of competitive keyword advertising by lawyers. This post explains the background. In 2013, the bar was poised to ban competitive keyword ads, but at the last minute it did a…
Terminated AdSense Publishers Can’t Get Their Accrued Earnings–eOnline v. Google
The plaintiffs are publishers that participated in the Google AdSense program. They outsourced much of their content development to a service called TextBroker that pays authors between 0.7 and 5 cents per word (i.e., a 1000 word article makes between…
Using Third Party Trademarks as Hashtags Creates an Implied Association–Align v. Strauss (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Alexandra Jane Roberts When does using a competitor’s trademark as a hashtag create a false impression of association? While plenty of cases have assessed whether a company’s use of competitors’ marks in its advertisements constitutes trademark infringement,…
Rounding Up Three Recent Keyword Advertising Cases–Comphy v. Amazon & More
Three interesting recent keyword advertising cases: Comphy Co. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 2019 WL 1128519 (W.D. Wash. March 12, 2019) Comphy makes high-end linens. It chooses not to sell directly on Amazon. Nevertheless, Amazon has purchased search engine keyword ads triggered…