American Blinds-Google Lawsuit Settles
By Eric Goldman Google Inc. v. American Blinds & Wallpaper Factory Inc., 5:03-cv-05340-JF (N.D. Cal. settled August 31, 2007) After almost four years of litigation, the American Blinds lawsuit ended today with a stunning victory for Google. According to a…
Anti-Spyware Vendor Protected by 47 USC 230(c)(2)–Zango v. Kaspersky
By Eric Goldman Zango Inc. v. Kaspersky Lab, Inc., No. C07-0807-JCC (W.D. Wash. Aug. 28, 2007) There has been a fair amount of hand-wringing/teeth-gnashing over the legal liability of anti-spyware vendors when they label a software program as spyware or…
Douglas v. Talk America Revisited
By Eric Goldman Last month, I blogged on the Douglas v. Talk America case. I think it’s fair to say that a lot of lawyers are scratching their head about this case. The case *might* stand for the proposition that…
Google’s AdWords Contract Upheld Again, But Advertiser Lawsuit Against Google Continues–CLRB Hanson v. Google
By Eric Goldman CLRB Hanson Industries LLC v. Google Inc., 5:05-cv-03649-JW (N.D. Cal. Aug. 21, 2007) This lawsuit is one of several advertiser lawsuits against search engines from 2005 (see my initial post when the lawsuit was filed). Many of…
Website Isn’t Liable When Users Lie About Their Ages–Doe v. SexSearch
By Eric Goldman Doe v. SexSearch.com, 2007 WL 2388913 (N.D. Ohio Aug. 22, 2007) Introduction This case adds to the burgeoning 230 jurisprudence involving people looking online for love or sex. (Others that come to mind include Carafano, Anthony, Landry-Bell,…
Online Reputation and its Implications for Online User Agreements
By Eric Goldman Shmuel Becher and Tal Zarsky, E-Contract Doctrine 2.0: Standard Form Contracting in the Age of Online User Participation Right now, the rules applicable to online user agreements are a doctrinal mess. We want to encourage businesses and…
Search Engine Strategies Copyright and Trademark Panel
By Eric Goldman Today I participated in the Copyright and Trademark panel at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, along with Clarke Walton, Eve Chaurand-Fraser of Ask, Mary Berk of Microsoft and Debra Wilcox of Baker & Hostetler. As usual,…
Roommates.com Plaintiff’s Reply to EFF Brief
By Eric Goldman The Fair Housing Councils have filed a reply to the EFF et al amicus brief (which I joined) in favor of an en banc hearing in the Roommates.com case. In it, the plaintiffs admit that aspects of…
American Airlines Sues Google Over Keyword Ads
American Airlines v. Google, 4:07-cv-00487 (N.D. Tex. complaint filed Aug. 16, 2007) [Warning: 4.4MB file] “American Airlines does not bring this lawsuit lightly.” (para. 6) Well, this is interesting. It’s not unusual for a trademark owner to sue Google for…
Lemley on Online Safe Harbors
By Eric Goldman Mark Lemley, Rationalizing Internet Safe Harbors Mark Lemley has weighed in on an topic near and dear to my heart–secondary liability online. He advances two principal arguments in his paper. First, it would make sense to harmonize…