This is a lawsuit based on Facebook’s tracking of users while they are logged out. The code for a “like” button implemented by third parties apparently causes the browser of a consumer visiting the third party page to send a…
This is a pro se lawsuit against Yelp, Twitter, Facebook and other major companies, so we know the plaintiff’s chances are nil. The plaintiff claims he was unconstitutionally banned by these services and sought a TRO against their bans. The…
This is another lawsuit over short-term housing rentals in San Francisco. You’ve been watching the litigation over the San Francisco regulation (Section 41A.5(g)) requiring “hosts” (short-term landlords) to register with the city, limiting the number of days that a unit…
DMCA Safe Harbor Doesn’t Protect Zazzle’s Printing of Physical Items–Greg Young Publishing v. Zazzle
The court summarizes the key facts: “GYPI alleges that Zazzle has publicly displayed 41 paintings by Westmoreland or Erickson on its website, and that Zazzle has created consumer products bearing these images.” GYPI lacked standing to enforce the Westmoreland paintings,…
You probably remember the story about a new dad’s Facebook Live broadcast of his baby’s birth. His video was covered by many media outlets, including some outlets that published snippets of the video (re the defendants in this case: 30…
Dawn J. Bennett was a financial advisor in major trouble with the SEC. She also has a sporting apparel company. She hired an SEO, Pierson, to improve the search engine indexing of her website. After a payment dispute, Pierson posted…
By guest blogger Heather Whitney [Heather is a Visiting Researcher at Harvard Law School (Spring 2017). She has also been Bigelow Fellow & Lecturer in Law at University of Chicago Law School (2014-2016) and a Googler (2007-2010). She will be…
[This is another excerpt from my Emojis and the Law paper.] In preparing the article, I gathered a dataset of all cases I could find in Westlaw and Lexis containing the word “emoticon” or “emoji.” This dataset is subject to…
Yesterday, the Supreme Court struck down a North Carolina law that banned registered sex offenders from using social media sites. It’s a rare treat to get a Supreme Court opinion delving into Internet content regulations, and as a bonus, this…
[This is another excerpt from my Emojis and the Law paper.] The Trademark Office has registered emoji trademarks. On January 20, 2017, I conducted a search in the TESS database for “emoji” and identified 385 records. At that time, most…