Jan.-Feb. 2011 Quick Links, Part 4
By Eric Goldman
Internet Freedom
* The EFF points out the inconsistency between Hillary Clinton’s speech championing Internet freedom abroad when our own US government has gone rogue on its own citizens, including unlawful domain name seizures and an obsessive vendetta against Wikileaks.
* Fast Company: Why Twitter stood up for its users against the “secret” Wikileaks subpoena when other sites didn’t.
47 USC 230
* Fleming v. Duncan: Yahoo wins 47 USC 230 motion to dismiss in Georgia state court.
* Neeley v. NameMedia, Inc., 2010 WL 5677069 (W.D. Ark. Dec. 16, 2010). 47 USC 230 preempts “outrage” claim over displaying nude photos in search results. A complementary follow-up ruling: Neeley v. NameMedia, Inc., 2011 WL 336174 (W.D. Ark. Jan 31, 2011).
* Several professors contributed essays to a book critical of 47 USC 230. Paul Levy takes them on.
* Jonathan I. Ezor, Busting Blocks: Revisiting 47 U.S.C. § 230 To Address The Lack Of Effective Legal Recourse For Wrongful Inclusion In Spam Filters, Richmond Journal of Law and Technology (Fall, 2010).
Spam
* Facebook, Inc. v. Fisher, 2011 WL 250395 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 26, 2011). Facebook gets $360M default judgment against spammers.
History
* Antone Johnson on the dot-com hangover of 2000-2002.
* 25 Best Startup Failure Post-Mortems of All Time.
Miscellaneous
* You can watch video from Next Digital Decade event. More on that event: 1, 2, 3. If you haven’t looked yet, you should check out the book.
* Unique Products Solutions v. Hy-Grade Valve (N.D. Ohio Feb. 24, 2011). Patent false marking qui tam process is unconstitutional.
* Shrader v. Biddinger, 2011 WL 678386 (10th Cir.(Okla.) Feb 28, 2011). In this Internet jurisdiction case, the Tenth Circuit adopts ALS Scan v. DSC as its test rather than Zippo.
* FairSearch.org has a new partial rival, Faretransparency.org, the web front for the Open Allies for Airfare Transparency, “a coalition representing all of the stakeholders in the travel booking industry, works to promote price transparency and full access to airline pricing and fee information.” It’s chaos in the online travel booking industry right now!
* Very useful table: State Cyberstalking, Cyberharassment and Cyberbullying Laws
* Evony sues its user for automated mapping of its site.
* ABA Journal: “For Federal Plaintiffs, Twombly and Iqbal Still Present a Catch-22”
* Direct Marketing Association v. Huber, No. 10-cv-01546-REB-CBS (D. Colo. Jan. 26, 2011). Judge strikes down Colorado’s attempt to impose an “Amazon” tax as unconstitutional. My previous reference to the law.
* In the Silicon Valley, being the “Craigslist Congressman” might be considered a compliment. Unfortunately, that term will now be pejorative.
* Segal v. Amazon, 2:11-cv-00227 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 4, 2011). Amazon’s participation agreement’s venue selection clause upheld.
* Rep. Matheson wants to require age authentication to access online porn. Been there/done that 13 years ago with COPA. Lest you forget, it was unconstitutional.
Funny Stuff
* French second-graders are shown items like an old Fisher Price record player and 3.5 and 5 inch floppies and are totally baffled by them. Funny video.
* Great Dilbert strip riffing on the old joke of how you know if a lawyer is lying.