By Eric Goldman Ben Edelman’s latest “research report”/attack salvo goes after Claria because an ad promoting a Claria product was delivered via alleged spyware. To connect Claria with the “spyware” vendor, Ben traces the money as follows: Step 1: Claria…
By Eric Goldman In late March, I posted a blog post entitled “Infomediaries–Where Are They?” In that post, I explained why infomediaries have the potential to improve social welfare compared to our existing marketing system, but I noted that no…
By Eric Goldman Suzi of Spyware Confidential/Spyware Warrior relayed the following question to me: “Saw your recent posting on the Direct Revenue/KaZaA partnership. Many have praised this move despite the fact the Supreme Court has ruled that these P2P networks…
By Eric Goldman Peering agreements rarely get much attention, even though they are the Internet’s infrastructure. Through peering agreements, Internet access providers (IAPs) agree to exchange packets directly with another IAP. These exchanges are usually for no money with the…
By Eric Goldman Hammer v. Amazon.com, 2005 WL 2467046 (EDNY Sept. 27, 2005) This is a continuation of Hammer v. Trendl, 2003 WL 2146686 (EDNY Jan. 18, 2003). Hammer is a self-published author of handwriting analysis books. He had a…
By Eric Goldman I’m giving a talk on my next major paper (tentatively titled “A Coasean Analysis of Marketing”…a title that will likely change yet again), at the Midwestern Law & Economics Association meeting in Chicago. A preview of my…
By Eric Goldman Sorry for the light blogging–between my travel/presentation schedule and the Jewish holidays, it has been hectic! Jacob Jacoby is a leading trademark survey expert/consultant–I imagine he’s been an expert in over 150 trademark cases. He recently posted…
By Mark McKenna Over at his interesting blog (which Mark Schultz plugged a little while back), Grant McCracken has a post discussing modern marketing practices in terms of their “roundness” or “sharpness.” He suggests that all marketing used to be…
By Eric Goldman Peter Menell has posted his article “Regulating ‘Spyware’: The Limitations of State ‘Laboratories’ and the Case for Federal Preemption of State Unfair Competition Laws” to SSRN. This article thoroughly examines state-level unfair competition laws and how they…
Recent legislative activity in the US Senate has brought some press attention to the touchy issue of DNA collection by law enforcement. Similar proposed and passed DNA legislation at the state and federal levels over the last several years has also drawn court challenges. As a result, a fair number of court opinions on the suject exist, enough to allow a quick look at the legal countours and legislative status of DNA collection laws.