Wisconsin Appeals Court Punts on the Legality of Buying People’s Names for Keyword Advertising–Habush v. Cannon
By Eric Goldman Habush v. Cannon, 2012 WL 2345137 (Wis. App. Ct. June 21, 2012). The case record. My prior blog post on this case. You may recall this case. Habush Habush & Rottier and Cannon & Dunphy are both…
Mortuary Student Can Be Disciplined for Facebook Posts–Tatro v. University of Minnesota
By Eric Goldman Tatro v. University of Minnesota, 2012 WL 2328002 (Minn. June 20, 2012). My prior blog post on the appellate court ruling in this case. This is one of the many lawsuits over a school disciplining a student…
Another Failed Effort to Remove a Ripoff Report Posting–Karnaby v. Mckenzie
By Eric Goldman Karnaby v. Mckenzie, 2012 WL 2149457 (Conn. Super. Ct. May 10, 2012) [Jan. 2018 UPDATE: In an unusual development, in Jan. 2018, Ripoff Report redacted its report after Karnaby successfully arbitrated through Ripoff Report’s private arbitration option….
Another Bad Ruling for PissedConsumer on Trademark and 47 USC 230 Claims–Amerigas v. Opinion Corp.
By Eric Goldman Amerigas Propane, LP v. Opinion Corp., 2012 WL 2327788 (E.D. Pa. June 19, 2012) You may recall PissedConsumer, the site that solicits user gripes, SEOs the crud out of them, and then offers the griped business pay-to-play…
CYBERsitter Sues Google for AdWords Trademark Infringement
By Eric Goldman CYBERsitter LLC v. Google, Inc., CV12-5293 (C.D. Cal. complaint filed June 18, 2012) CYBERsitter competes with Net Nanny and ContentWatch (apparently both owned by the same entity, ContentWatch) in the Internet filtering software niche. CYBERsitter claims ContentWatch…
Section 230 Doesn’t Protect Employer From Negligent Supervision Claim–Lansing v. Southwest Airlines. Warning: Ugly Opinion
By Eric Goldman Lansing v. Southwest Airlines Co., 2012 IL App (1st) 101164 (Ill. Ct. App. June 8, 2012) Overview This is a bad opinion. The court reaches the correct result that 47 USC 230 doesn’t immunize an employer for…
First Post-Viacom 512(c) Opinion Doesn’t Look Much Different–Obodai v. Demand Media
By Eric Goldman Obodai v. Demand Media, Inc., 2012 WL 2189740 (SDNY June 13, 2012) This is the first substantive ruling I’ve seen interpreting the Second Circuit’s Viacom v. YouTube ruling. (The Viacom ruling was also discussed in the Ouellette…
Recap of the Fourth Trademark Scholars Roundtable at DePaul University
By Eric Goldman In April, Graeme Dinwoodie and Mark Janis once again convened a roundtable of trademark law scholars to geek it out on trademark law. Group photo. This year’s theme was “trademark boundaries,” i.e., how trademark law abuts against…
Nathenson on Teaching Internet Law
By Eric Goldman Ira Nathenson is a law professor at St. Thomas University in Florida. He has posted to SSRN an article called “Best Practices for the Law of the Horse: Teaching Cyberlaw and Illuminating Law Through Online Simulations,” which…
More Evidence That the Initial Interest Confusion Doctrine is Dying–Dwyer v. Sensocon
By Eric Goldman Dwyer Instruments, Inc. v. Sensocon, Inc., 2012 WL 2049921 (N.D. Ind. June 5, 2012) Earlier this year, I blogged about some research I had done suggesting the declining fortunes of the initial interest confusion doctrine. I anticipated…