Judge Expresses Frustration With Overbroad Discovery Requests for Social Media Evidence–Farley v. Callais
As we’ve discussed before, social media accounts are honeypots in litigation; they are irresistible data sources as an encapsulation of a person’s life. As a result, it’s become routine for litigators to seek massive amounts of social media evidence in…
Recent FCC Order Helps Shopkick Defeat TCPA Claims
This is a TCPA lawsuit against Shopkick, a rewards-based app that lets shoppers accumulate and use in-store rewards. Plaintiff brought a putative class action, alleging that Shopkick caused invites to be sent to users’ contacts. Shopkick previously filed a motion…
Gmail Terms of Service Apply to reCAPTCHA During Account Formation–Rojas-Lozano v. Google
This lawsuit against Google alleges that Google unfairly benefits from deploying a CAPTCHA process when users sign up for free gmail accounts. Specifically, the complaint alleged that Google unnecessarily included a second image in the CAPTCHA, and it relies on users…
Jawbone Plaintiff Can Invoke California Choice of Law Provision in Service Agreement
This is a lawsuit against Jawbone, a fitness tracker app, alleging that Jawbone’s battery life was significantly shorter than promised, and that it failed to accurately track and measure movement, calorie expenditure, and sleep: [plaintiff] appeared inactive when he had…
Hashtags Are Not Trademarks—Eksouzian v. Albanese (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Alexandra Roberts [Eric’s note: Prof. Roberts is a trademark expert at the University of New Hampshire School of Law. She’s writing a paper on hashtags as trademarks, a new topic of growing importance. When I saw this…
Two Tough Section 230 Rulings From Last Week–General Steel v. Chumley & Xcentric v. Smith
Last week, we saw two Section 230 losses. Initially I was troubled by this confluence, but after digesting these opinions, I’m pretty certain they both involve unusual facts that limit any real damage to Section 230’s immunity. However, as usual…
City Can’t Use Copyright To Censor Critical Videos–Inglewood v. Teixeira
Joseph Teixeira lives in Inglewood, California, and he’s not a fan of Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts, Jr. (In a sign of remarkable judicial restraint, the judge doesn’t crack a single “butt” joke or pun). Teixeira blogs his objections about…
Keyword Ad Lawsuit Isn’t Covered By California’s Anti-SLAPP Law
The plaintiff, Los Angeles Yellow Cab, and defendants compete in the taxi industry. The defendants bought keyword ads at the search engines, such as the following triggered by the search “Yellow Cab Los Angeles”: Yellow Cab Los Angeles—Call 800–521–8294 or…
Angie’s List Must Defend Fraud Charges Over Pay-to-Play Review Manipulation (Forbes Cross-Post)
U.S. law is clear that consumer review websites aren’t liable for their users’ reviews. However, plaintiffs are increasingly challenging how review websites publicly describe their review databases. A recent court ruling against Angie’s List highlights how plaintiffs are tendentiously parsing…
School District Wrongly Disciplined Student for a Two Word Tweet
Plaintiff was an honor student and athlete at Rogers High School, with no previous disciplinary record. In response to a tweet from an anonymous Twitter account (Roger Confessions) asking whether “[plaintiff] actually made out with [name of female teacher at…