Xanga.com Busted for COPPA Violation
By Eric Goldman The FTC announced today that Xanga.com had settled charges that it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The settlement includes, among other remedies, a payment of $1 million–by far the largest fine in a COPPA…
Adware, Spam and Some of My Other Favorite Topics
By Eric Goldman There has been a flurry of interesting legal developments in the last few days: * The plaintiffs voluntarily and unilaterally dismissed (with prejudice) Simios v. 180solutions, one of several putative class actions against adware vendors. See the…
Barrett v. Rosenthal Oral Argument Recap
By Eric Goldman Today I attended the California Supreme Court’s oral argument in the Barrett v. Rosenthal case. A short recap of the case: Bolen sent an email to Rosenthal that is allegedly defamatory of the plaintiff. Rosenthal then forwarded…
47 USC 230 Preempts State Criminal Law–Voicenet Communications v. Corbett
By Eric Goldman Voicenet Communications, Inc. v. Corbett, 2006 WL 2506318 (E.D. Pa. Aug 30, 2006) Does 47 USC 230 preempt state criminal laws that otherwise meet its statutory requirements? For a decade, we’ve thought the answer was yes, but…
Alaska’s Anti-Adware Law–A One-Year Status Report
By Eric Goldman A year ago today, Alaska enacted the most expansive anti-adware law to date. This post gives a quick status report on the law. So, what’s happened in the past year? As far as I can tell, nothing….
Do Quotation Marks Matter? Yes (in the Ninth Circuit)–Picture It Sold v. iSOLD It
By Eric Goldman Picture It Sold, Inc. v. iSOLD It, LLC, 2006 WL 2467552 (9th Cir. Aug. 28, 2006) The plaintiff sued iSOLD for trademark infringement based on competitive keyword ad purchases, and it sought an injunction against continued keyword…
Barrett v. Rosenthal Oral Arguments Scheduled for September 5
By Eric Goldman The California Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments in Barrett v. Rosenthal for September 5 at 2 pm in San Francisco. See the case record here. This case has the potential to define, as binding California precedent…
August 2006 Quick Links (Volume 2)
By Eric Goldman Some more things that caught my eye in the past month (see Volume 1): * Wikipedia’s entry on trademarks that have become generic. “Google” isn’t listed…yet—instead, it’s listed as a trademark “often used generically”. HT: Marty. My…
August 2006 Quick Links (Volume 1)
By Eric Goldman So many good links this month, I’m breaking up this quick links post into two installments. The first installment: * When Internet start-ups want to hire their first lawyer, they typically have three immediate legal needs—they want…
Trademark Coexistence Agreement Article
By Eric Goldman Marianna Moss (a friend/wife of my former colleague) has written an article entitled Trademark “Coexistence” Agreements: Legitimate Contracts or Tools of Consumer Deception?, 18 Loyola Consumer Law Review 197 (2005). To my knowledge, this is the first…