DePaul Reputation Talk Slides
By Eric Goldman Last week I presented on my long-running Economics of Reputational Information project once again–this time at a DePaul conference on cyberlaw. I titled the talk “A Tale of Two Reputation Systems” and approached it as a comparative…
Q3 2009 Quick Links, Part 4
By Eric Goldman Spam * Ars Technica: “a disturbing number of e-mail users respond to spam, and not just because they’re dumb—some of them did so because they were actually interested in the product or service.” I collected some empirical…
Q3 2009 Quick Links, Part 3
By Eric Goldman Copyright * AP v. All Headline News settles. My initial blog post. The settlement order. * The Turnitin case has settled. My blog post on the district court ruling. * Corbis Corp. v. Starr, No. 3:07CV3741 (N.D….
Texas Class Action Aims to Derail Facebook Beacon Settlement–Harris v. Facebook
[Post by Venkat] In late September, Facebook announced the settlement of a class action challenging its ill-fated “Beacon” program. Facebook set aside $9.5 million to settle the class claims and agreed to set up a privacy foundation. Facebook also agreed…
Q3 2009 Quick Links, Part 2
By Eric Goldman Trademark * Venkat: Twitter makes the dictionary. * Federal Circuit says Hotels.com is generic. * Steve Madden sues eBay for trademark infringement. Marty’s coverage. Justia page. I found the fifth cause of action, “trademark delusion,” a surprisingly…
Q3 2009 Quick Links, Part 1
By Eric Goldman My system of managing news items that don’t warrant a full blog post but can’t fit into a 140 character Twitter post has broken down. So, I’m belatedly catching up on my backlog of things that caught…
Sex Predator Stung By Undercover Officer Who Self-Reported 3 Different Ages–US v. Haile
By Eric Goldman US v. Haile, 2009 WL 3163556 (W.D. Ky. Sept. 29, 2009) Let me start out by stating the obvious: sexual predation of minors is an unacceptable crime. I remain deeply troubled by how many Westlaw cases report…
A Fuller Explanation of Why the FTC Endorsement/Testimonial Guidelines Violate 47 USC 230
By Eric Goldman Last week’s release of the FTC’s new Endorsement and Testimonial Guidelines has generated a significant amount of angst online. The resulting commentary has been strongly and almost uniformly negative. Frankly, none of the sources I read have…
Ochoa on the Duration of James Joyce’s Copyrights
By Tyler Ochoa [Eric’s note: my colleague Tyler Ochoa contributes to the blog from time to time. This time, he submits a modified version of a letter he sent to the editors of the San Francisco Chronicle, wherein he explains…
CAN-SPAM Doesn’t Preempt CA Privacy Law–Powers v. Pottery Barn
by Ethan Ackerman On Sept. 19th, a California state appellate court held that CAN-SPAM doesn’t categorically trump state laws that may address email. Defendant retail store Pottery Barn was hoping it would agree with the initial ruling of the California…