By Eric Goldman Late on Friday afternoon before a three-day holiday weekend, Search Engine Land breaks the news that Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general, is investigating Google’s search practices. Due to this timing, the news reports have been chaotic…
By Eric Goldman Internet Community & Entertainment Corp. v. Washington State Gambling Commission, 82845-8 (Wash. Sup. Ct. Sept. 2, 2010) Betcha is one of those too-clever-by-half dot com ideas that practically beg VCs to roll the dice. Rather than allow…
[Post by Venkat] Jagex Ltd. v. Impulse Software, et al., Case No. 10-10216-NMG (D. Mass.) (Aug. 16, 2010) Jagex operates “Runescape,” a popular and free online role-playing game. The game has over 130 million accounts, and users spend a significant…
By Eric Goldman Dr. Barry Eppley v. Lucille Iacovelli, 2010 WL 3282574 (S.D. Ind. Aug. 17, 2010). The CMLP entry. The Internet is filled with commentary about this long-running saga if you want more information. Dr. Eppley is a plastic…
By Eric Goldman Miles v. Raycom Media, Inc., 2010 WL 3419438 (S.D. Miss. Aug. 26, 2010). WLOX is a TV broadcaster in coastal Mississippi (although with those call letters, I expected it would be located in Brooklyn). Toni Miles, a…
[Post by Venkat] In re Reverb Communications, FTC No. 092-3199 (Aug. 26, 2010) (Settlement) Professor Goldman has posted a bunch about the FTC’s endorsement guidelines. (See, e.g., “Do the FTC’s New Endorsement/Testimonial Rules Violate 47 USC 230?;” “A Fuller Explanation…
[Post by Venkat] In re: Easysaver Rewards Litigation (S.D. Cal.) (Aug. 13, 2010) Plaintiffs brought a class action lawsuit against Provide-Commerce (which operated Pro.Flowers.com). The lawsuit alleged that effecting transactions on the Proflowers website resulted in plaintiffs being unwittingly enrolled…
By Eric Goldman Holtzman v. Turza, 08 C 2014 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 3, 2010) This case is a unremarkable straight-down-the-middle analysis of when editorial content becomes a regulated ad, which in turn makes it a remarkable case. Most editorial-content-as-ad cases…
By Eric Goldman Market America, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 2010 WL 3156044 (D. Del. Aug. 9, 2010) This lawsuit comes from an unhappy Google Search Appliance (GSA) customer, Market America, who (like many unhappy systems purchasers) claims that Google and…
by guest blogger Mark Bartholomew [Eric’s introduction: Mark is a law professor at the University of Buffalo. He has written several articles on secondary copyright and trademark infringement. See his SSRN page. We were swapping emails about this ruling, and…