“Junk Mail is Alive and Growing”
By Eric Goldman Many people thought the era of cheap electronic communications would spell doom for junk mail because of the cost advantages of printing and distributing electronic solicitations over dead trees solicitations. But instead, over the past year, marketers…
Search Engine Law Conference in Haifa, Israel
I am participating in an intriguing conference on search engine law being sponsored by the Haifa Center for Law & Technology on December 21. See the conference website. If you’re going to be in Israel between December 17 and 27,…
Nov. 2006 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman My monthly roundup of noteworthy tidbits: * Yesmail, an email outsource vendor, was busted by the FTC under CAN-SPAM for failing to honor opt-out requests because Yesmail’s incoming email filters blocked those opt-out requests as spam. This…
Google Personalized Search, 1 Year Later
By Eric Goldman Exactly 1 year ago, I started using Google Personalized Search. Since then, Google Personalized Search has recorded 6,700 searches of mine–an average of over 18 searches a day, every day (including weekends and vacations), or over 1…
Fourth Circuit Rejects Anti-Spam Lawsuit–Omega World Travel v. Mummagraphics
By Eric Goldman Omega World Travel, Inc. v. Mummagraphics, Inc., No. 05-2080 (4th Cir. Nov. 17, 2006) Wow, what a huge ruling on spam from Judge Wilkinson in the Fourth Circuit! People–even judges–hate spam so viscerally that it’s almost impossible…
Griping Blog Post Leads to Lawsuit–BidZirk v. Smith
By Eric Goldman BidZirk, LLC v. Smith, 2006 WL 3242333 (D.S.C. Nov. 7, 2006) Despite all of the hype about blog law, the reality is that we’ve had comparatively few blog-specific lawsuits. As a result, we give extra attention to…
Barrett v. Rosenthal–California Issues Terrific Defense-Favorable Interpretation of 47 USC 230
By Eric Goldman Barrett v. Rosenthal, S122953 (Cal. Supreme Ct. Nov. 20, 2006) The California Supreme Court issued a tremendous defense-favorable opinion today interpreting 47 USC 230. This opinion makes two principal points. First, it defines the word “user” in…
Craigslist Wins 230 Defense in Fair Housing Case–Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under the Law v. Craigslist
By Eric Goldman Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under the Law, Inc. v. Craigslist, Inc., 1:06-CV-00657 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 14, 2006) A group of lawyers sued Craigslist for displaying user-submitted classified ads that putatively violated the federal Fair Housing…
Click Fraud Presentation
By Eric Goldman I’m giving a presentation today on click fraud at the Stanford event I previously blogged about. My slides. Some of the points I plan to make about these slides: * there is no uniform definition of click…
Beebe on Trademark Dilution
By Eric Goldman Barton Beebe, A Defense of the New Federal Trademark Antidilution Law, 16 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 1143 (2006) Barton provides a (relatively) succinct policy analysis of the Trademark Dilution Revision Act. He concludes that…