AALS Law & Computers Meeting in New Orleans

By Eric Goldman I’m pleased to announce the AALS Section on Law and Computers program at the AALS annual meeting in New Orleans on Saturday, January 9, 2010. This program was developed in response to the Call for Papers we…

Keylogger Software Company Not Liable for Eavesdropping by Ex-spouse — Hayes v. SpectorSoft

[Posted by Venkat] In what probably belongs in the “software doesn’t surreptitiously record conversations, people do” file, a federal court in Tennessee rejected Electronic Communications Privacy Act and product liability claims brought by someone whose ex-spouse used software to log…

Tagged Settles Spam and Address Book Harvesting Claims Brought by NY and TX Authorities

[Post by Venkat] Tagged, which is supposedly the “third-largest social networking site in the world” (whatever this means) recently settled enforcement actions brought by New York and Texas Attorneys General. (See coverage at Bits and Media Post.) The basic allegations…

Starbucks Data Breach Plaintiffs Try Their Luck in the 9th Circuit — Krottner v. Starbucks

[Post by Venkat] A lost laptop computer containing the personal information of Starbucks employees prompted a class action lawsuit against Starbucks (in Washington). The lawsuit received some coverage (see, for example Bob McMillan here, and Starbucks Gossip here), but the…

A New Way to Bypass 47 USC 230? Default Injunctions and FRCP 65

By Eric Goldman I recently got the following email from David Gingras, the relatively new General Counsel of the Ripoff Report (reposted with his permission): ________ “As you know, Ripoff Report has defended, and won, a lot of CDA cases…

Google AdWords Litigation Keeps Rolling In–Parts Geek v. US Auto Parts

By Eric Goldman Parts Geek LLC v. US Auto Parts Network Inc.,3:2009cv05578 (D.N.J. complaint filed Nov. 2, 2009) [warning: 3MB PDF]. The Justia page. In my world, we have an honor code among geeks–thou shalt not harm other geeks. As…

Law Professor Sues Over ‘Above the Law’ Blog Posts–Jones v. Minkin

By Eric Goldman Jones v. Minkin, 1:09-cv-23256-MGC (S.D. Fla. complaint filed Oct. 27, 2009). The Above the Law blog post on the lawsuit with links to the posts in question. Given its history of provocative and occasionally aggressive blog posts,…

Court Sanctions Lawyer for Including Social Security Number and Date of Birth Information in Filing — Engeseth v. Isanti County

[Post by Venkat] I’ve blogged about parties who complain when opposing counsel wrongly includes personal information (usually social security numbers) in court filings. Attempts to assert counterclaims based on this type of conduct typically fail. For one example, see In…

October 2009 Quick Links

By Eric Goldman Just a reminder that I am posting most of these types of links exclusively to my Twitter feed. * Tricome v. eBay, Inc., 2009 WL 3365873 (E.D.Pa. Oct 19, 2009). Court upholds eBay user agreement’s venue selection…

Internet Obscenity Conviction Requires Assessment of National Community Standards–US v. Kilbride

By Eric Goldman U.S. v. Kilbride, 2009 WL 3448360 (9th Cir. Oct. 28, 2009) Jeffrey Kilbride and James Schaffer were porn spammers, operating through Ganymede Marketing, a Mauritian company. I previously blogged on their case in 2007. Their spam failed…