Last week, we learned that a New York hotel, the Union Street Guest House, was fining guests $500 for posting negative online reviews. The story received considerable media attention because the restriction violates our social norms and is almost certainly…
The defendant, Teri Buhl, was prosecuted under a bizarre set of facts. Buhl, a journalist, was in a relationship with P (the opinion does not identify him, but Buhl’s account of the case, linked below, does). P’s daughter kept a…
Few online algorithms generate as much criticism as Yelp’s algorithm for filtering its users’ reviews, but Yelp has so far successfully avoided a serious legal challenge to its filter. Recently, a California appellate court green-lighted a lawsuit over how Yelp…
My 2014 Internet Law syllabus and updated casebook ($8 DRM-free PDF download) are now online. This year I’m celebrating my 20th year teaching the course! (For more background on my Internet Law course, see this essay). This post will explain…
This is another firing-for-Facebooking case. Plaintiff was an hourly employee in Tyson’s Nashville facility. In September 2012 she was initially suspended after a video surfaced of her “shaking her tail” and placing money in the shirt of a male co-worker….
Natalie Munroe was a teacher in Central Bucks School District. She received good reviews over the years. In 2009, she started a blog, Where are we going, and why are we in this hand basket? (last post, April 2014) She blogged as…
You may have heard of Silk Road, an online marketplace that enabled hard-to-trace buying and selling of illegal goods. The court says it was “as if the purchases were occurring on eBay;” buyers and sellers could even leave feedback about…
Plaintiffs alleged that Viacom and Google violated the Video Privacy Protection Act and other federal and state privacy laws by improperly collecting and passing along information when end users (kids) viewed videos or games at Viacom-owned websites (nick.com, nickjr.com, and…
Content Regulation * Jancik v. Redbox Automated Retail, LLC, 2014 WL 1920751 (C.D. Cal. May 14, 2014) (cites omitted). Another websites-and-ADA case diverging from the troubling 2012 Netflix ruling: However, the Redbox Instant website and the Redbox kiosks cannot be…
Privacy * Snapchat’s basic value proposition (“Disappearing digital photos”) has been deceptive from the beginning. The FTC busted them for it. (I saw James Grimmelmann added this to his Internet Law casebook. We’ve also added it to our Advertising Law…