Yahoo Click Fraud Settlement Preliminary Approval
By Eric Goldman Checkmate Strategic Group, Inc. v. Yahoo, Inc., No. 2:05-CV-04588-CAS-FMO (C.D. Cal. preliminary settlement approved June 28, 2006) I’m a little late blogging this, but Yahoo has gotten preliminary approval to settle its click fraud lawsuits. The basic…
Google Click Fraud Report
By Eric Goldman In preparation for the court’s final approval of the settlement in the Lane’s Gifts v. Google click fraud case, the parties hired an expert to assess Google’s click fraud control mechanisms. The report can be found here….
Search Engine Liability for Selling Keywords Redux–800-JR Cigar v. GoTo.com
By Eric Goldman 800-JR Cigar, Inc. v. GoTo.com, Inc., 2006 WL 1971659 (D. N.J. July 13, 2006) This is a confusing but important case about search engine liability for selling trademarked keywords. Because of the opinion’s convoluted nature, there’s no…
Web Marketing Legal Issues Talk
By Eric Goldman I gave a talk today to in-house counsel on the topic of common marketing mistakes by e-commerce websites. My slides.
Another Day, Another Lawsuit Over Search Engine Placement–Datner v. Yahoo
By Eric Goldman Datner v. Yahoo! Inc, Case No. BC355217 (Cal. Superior Court complaint filed July 11, 2006) Websites dropped from search engine databases may not be getting rich, but maybe their lawyers are. This is the latest entry in…
KinderStart Lawsuit Dismissed (With Leave to Amend)
By Eric Goldman KinderStart v. Google, Case 5:06-cv-02057-JF (N.D. Cal. motion to dismiss granted July 13, 2006) The judge granted Google’s motion to dismiss in the KinderStart lawsuit. Given the weakness of the lawsuit and the tenor of the judge’s…
Trademark Travesty of the Month–SMJ Group v. 417 Lafayette Restaurant
By Eric Goldman SMJ Group, Inc. v. 417 Lafayette Restaurant LLC, 2006 WL 1881768 (S.D.N.Y July 6, 2006) I’ve read so many horrible trademark decisions that I barely notice the garden-variety judicial screw-up. But this case is so exceptional and…
Wikipedia and 230, and a Great 230 Case Law Resource
Ken Myers, a recent Harvard Law School graduate and soon-to-be attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell, has posted an article, Wikimmunity, to SSRN. The article concludes that Wikipedia will be squarely immunized from liability by 47 USC 230. While this conclusion…
DMA Quietly Kills Telephone Preference Service
By Eric Goldman In a move that’s sure to disappoint no one, the Direct Marketing Association is going to end the Telephone Preference Service everywhere except for Maine, Pennsylvania and Wyoming (where the TPS is the statutory default do-not-call list)….
Merriam-Webster Defines “Spyware”
By Eric Goldman A lot of attention has been directed to Merriam-Webster’s addition of Google to its dictionary–as a verb, no less. I’m sure the Google trademark department isn’t thrilled about the genericide implications of this. Meanwhile, this announcement overshadowed…