Ninth Circuit Rejects Plaintiffs’ Bad Misreadings of eBay’s User Agreement–Block v. eBay
Even after all of these years, I remain amazed by the bizarre contract misinterpretations that plaintiffs’ lawyers are capable of. Today’s case targeted the eBay user agreement, a document of special interest to me given my contributions to the agreement…
IP Battle Between Jumpy House Manufacturers Isn’t Bounced – WhatRU Holding v. Bouncing Angels
At any moment, a product manufacturer can find itself trapped in a tangled nightmare of IP infringement claims. In WhatRU Holding, LLC v. Bouncing Angels, Inc., a district court in Minnesota found personal jurisdiction over a defendant company that sold…
Yahoo! Scores Significant Win in Email-to-SMS Lawsuit
We’ve blogged a bunch about text spam lawsuits in general, and about those against Yahoo! as well. Most recently, a judge denied Yahoo!’s request to dismiss a lawsuit relating to IM-to-SMS functionality. (See “TCPA Claim Over Yahoo!’s IM to SMS…
Court Spoils “Banana Lady’s” Appeal Over Online Recordings of Her Act
Catherine Conrad is the “Banana Lady” (see her Facebook photos) who delivers singing birthday telegrams. I didn’t know such things still exist, but perhaps they do in the Midwest (she’s based in the Madison, Wisconsin area). For reasons the court…
Android and Pandora Privacy Rulings Accept Low Hurdle for Standing
A pair of rulings from Judge White in lawsuits involving the privacy practices of Android and Pandora employ a loose standard for standing and allowed plaintiffs in both cases to press forward with their claims. In re Google Android Consumer…
47 USC 230’s Legislative History
I had reason to revisit the legislative history for 47 USC 230, which was Section 509 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.[FN1] For some reason, I had trouble retrieving it through typical Google searches, so I’m sharing it here for…
Another Reason Not To Let People Borrow Your Cellphone–Olsen v. Henderson
Pro-tip: if you’re going to let someone borrow your phone, make sure you don’t have any sexy selfies that can be freely accessed by anyone who accesses the phone. (Probably a good idea to secure your photos anyway.) Brian Olsen…
Epinions, The Path-Breaking Website, Is Dead. Some Lessons It Taught Us (Forbes Cross-Post)
Before Yelp and TripAdvisor, before blogs or social media, there was Epinions.com. Founded in 1999, Epinions was a consumer review website before we fully appreciated how much we needed consumer reviews. It made several advances over other websites of its…
CafePress May Not Qualify For 512 Safe Harbor – Gardner v. CafePress
Gardner is a wildlife photographer. He sued CafePress and Beverly Teall alleging that Teall sold a product through CafePress displaying one of Gardner’s images. While only one image was at issue in the operative complaint, prior to mediation, plaintiff’s counsel…
Court Blesses Instagram’s Right to Unilaterally Amend Its User Agreement–Rodriguez v. Instagram
Instagram revised its terms of service in December 2012. The revisions (1) stated that Instagram was disclaiming “ownership of content” posted by users, as opposed to disclaiming “any ownership rights in content” posted by users; (2) broadened the scope of…