Third Circuit Schizophrenia Over Student Discipline for Fake MySpace Profiles
By Eric Goldman J.S. v. Blue Mountain School District, 2010 WL 376186 (3rd Cir. Feb. 4, 2010) Layshock v. Hermitage School District, 2010 WL 376184 (3rd Cir. Feb. 4, 2010) Now that I’m a middle-aged man, I don’t find fake…
FTC Privacy Roundtable Recap
By Eric Goldman [Introductory note: I have repeatedly criticized the FTC on this blog, and this post may implicitly criticize them as well. At the same time, I want to share a couple of compliments for the FTC. First, the…
Google Street View Lawsuit Revived, But Only on Trespass Grounds–Boring v. Google
By Eric Goldman Boring v. Google Inc., 2010 WL 318281 (3rd Cir. Jan. 28, 2010). You may recall the book project A Day in the Life of America [Amazon affiliates link], which published what 200 photojournalists saw on May 2,…
January 2010 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Copyright * An English translation of Google’s December loss in France on a Google Book Search lawsuit. * Ed Felten reports on a survey of files available via BitTorrent. Acknowledging some methodological limits, he estimates ~99% were…
Terri Chen Replaces Rose Hagan as Google’s Chief Trademark Counsel
By Eric Goldman I previously mentioned that Rose Hagan, Google’s longtime chief trademark counsel, was retiring. (Her last day was Wednesday). Rose’s next ventures include art and jewelry. Terri Yun-Lin Chen, a current trademark counsel at Google, has taken over…
Utah May Repeal Its Spyware Control Act–SB 26
By Eric Goldman It’s that time of year again. The Utah legislature is back in session and cooking up new schemes to regulate the Internet. So far I only see one Internet-specific bill in queue, SB 26. Surprisingly, it does…
Facebook User Agreement Upheld in Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Over Third Party App–Miller v. Facebook
By Eric Goldman Miller v. Facebook, Inc., 1:2009cv02810 (N.D. Ga. Jan. 15, 2010). Miller’s complaint filed in October 2009. Miller makes the Adobe Flash videogame “Boomshine.” He alleges that defendant Yeo published a Facebook app, ChainRxn, that violates Miller’s “look…
Google and China: Some General Thoughts
By Eric Goldman I have deferred blogging on the Google/China imbroglio for a few reasons. First, heavyweights such as Jonathan Zittrain have tracked International online censorship and online security issues more closely than I have. Second, after Google’s provocative blog…
Keyword Ad and Product Shots Case Survives Motion to Dismiss–FragranceNet v. FragranceX
By Eric Goldman FragranceNet.com, Inc. v. FragranceX.com, Inc., 2010 WL 174159 (E.D.N.Y. Jan. 14, 2010) I previously blogged about this case in 2007. That ruling was one of several in New York that, following the Rescuecom v. Google district court…
File Names Can Help Predict File Content in Child Porn Prosecution–US v. Beatty
By Eric Goldman United States v. Beatty, 2009 WL 5220643 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 31, 2009) This is a child porn prosecution. Using Phex P2P software, an undercover investigator accessed the Gnutella network and conducted searches using search terms known to…