Xanga.com Busted for COPPA Violation

By Eric Goldman The FTC announced today that Xanga.com had settled charges that it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The settlement includes, among other remedies, a payment of $1 million–by far the largest fine in a COPPA…

Adware, Spam and Some of My Other Favorite Topics

By Eric Goldman There has been a flurry of interesting legal developments in the last few days: * The plaintiffs voluntarily and unilaterally dismissed (with prejudice) Simios v. 180solutions, one of several putative class actions against adware vendors. See the…

Barrett v. Rosenthal Oral Argument Recap

By Eric Goldman Today I attended the California Supreme Court’s oral argument in the Barrett v. Rosenthal case. A short recap of the case: Bolen sent an email to Rosenthal that is allegedly defamatory of the plaintiff. Rosenthal then forwarded…

47 USC 230 Preempts State Criminal Law–Voicenet Communications v. Corbett

By Eric Goldman Voicenet Communications, Inc. v. Corbett, 2006 WL 2506318 (E.D. Pa. Aug 30, 2006) Does 47 USC 230 preempt state criminal laws that otherwise meet its statutory requirements? For a decade, we’ve thought the answer was yes, but…