By Eric Goldman Venson Villapando had, in the words of his psychologist, a “normal” heterosexual interest in “adolescent and adult females.” In 2009, he logged into Craigslist’s “casual encounters” section and responded to an ad with the headline “looking to get…
By Eric Goldman and Jake McGowan CFAA/Trespass * My colleague Kyle Graham traces the early history of California Penal Code Sec. 502. * Andrew Sellars on the Aaron Schwartz prosecution and Rep. Lofgren’s proposed Aaron’s Law. Related blog post. Consumer Protection * Interesting…
By Eric Goldman and Jake McGowan Facebook * Growing Facebook fatigue? * The FDA thinks that a pharma company liking a comment on its Facebook page constitutes an endorsement of the comment contents. * WSJ: More questions about how Facebook handles…
By Eric Goldman and Jake McGowan Privacy * Transcript of court hearing in California v. Delta Airlines. Judge’s ruling starts p. 20. The case archive. * Fleischer v. NYP Holdings, Inc., 2013 WL 1105005 (N.Y.A.D. Mar. 19, 2013): “Plaintiff’s third and…
By Eric Goldman and Jake McGowan Copyright * France is scaling back its three-strikes policy because “suspending Internet connections was incompatible with the French government’s hopes of spurring growth in the digital economy.” Given its horrendous track record of anti-Internet regulations,…
By Eric Goldman Last week, I spoke at the 16th Annual FDA-OCRA 2013 Educational Conference in Irvine to an audience of medical device and pharmaceutical compliance professionals. My topic was how the FTC regulates social media, with an emphasis on…
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Kramer v. NCS, 12-1956 (8th Cir. May 28, 2013) Kramer, who operated an internet service provider in Clinton, Iowa, filed an ambitious–and as it turned out, ultimately quixotic–lawsuit over spam emails. He initially sued 300 unnamed…
By Eric Goldman U.S. v. Amaya, 2013 WL 2548393 (N.D. Iowa, June 11, 2013) This is a quite lengthy sentencing opinion following Amaya’s meth conviction, a not uncommon circumstance given the disproportionately high meth sentences produced by the sentencing guidelines….
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani with comments by Eric] Rottner v. AVG Technologies, 12-10920-RGS (D. Mass May 3, 2013) [pdf] Rottner sued AVG Technologies on behalf of a putative class, alleging that AVG’s “PC TuneUp” product did not perform as advertised….
By Eric Goldman Beckman v. Match.com, 2013 WL 2355512 (D. Nev. May 29, 2013) and Okeke v. Cars.com, 2013 N.Y. Slip Op. 23174 (N.Y.City Civ. Ct. May 28, 2013) Mary Kay Beckman suffered an online dating nightmare. She met Wade Mitchell…