Spitzer’s Witchhunt Nails Adware Executive Personally

By Eric Goldman In response to my post yesterday about adware witchhunts, a reader privately criticized me for analogizing the adware situation with manias where people’s lives were at stake. Ben Edelman made a similar point in his comment to…

California Anti-Phishing Law–Cal. B&P Code Sec. 22948

By Eric Goldman Going through my stack, I came across Cal. Business & Professions Code Sec. 22948-22948.3 (SB 355), California’s recently enacted anti-phishing law. In general, compared to other state anti-Internet behavior laws, this law is relatively targeted and unobjectionable….

Latest Junk Fax Lawsuit–Adler v. Vision Lab Telecommunications

By Eric Goldman Adler v. Vision Lab Telecommunications, Inc., 2005 WL 2621984 (D.D.C. Oct. 17, 2005). I’ve set up a Westlaw alert to notify me of new TCPA cases and I’m pretty shocked by the volume of cases being reported…

Adware Witchhunt Gone Awry

By Eric Goldman Ben Edelman’s latest “research report”/attack salvo goes after Claria because an ad promoting a Claria product was delivered via alleged spyware. To connect Claria with the “spyware” vendor, Ben traces the money as follows: Step 1: Claria…

Galster on Infomediaries and Bonded Sender Programs

By Eric Goldman In late March, I posted a blog post entitled “Infomediaries–Where Are They?” In that post, I explained why infomediaries have the potential to improve social welfare compared to our existing marketing system, but I noted that no…

Copyright Infringement for Bundling with P2P File Sharing Software?

By Eric Goldman Suzi of Spyware Confidential/Spyware Warrior relayed the following question to me: “Saw your recent posting on the Direct Revenue/KaZaA partnership. Many have praised this move despite the fact the Supreme Court has ruled that these P2P networks…

Peering Agreement Dispute Between Level 3 and Cogent

By Eric Goldman Peering agreements rarely get much attention, even though they are the Internet’s infrastructure. Through peering agreements, Internet access providers (IAPs) agree to exchange packets directly with another IAP. These exchanges are usually for no money with the…

Amazon Not Liable for User Book Reviews–Hammer v. Amazon

By Eric Goldman Hammer v. Amazon.com, 2005 WL 2467046 (EDNY Sept. 27, 2005) This is a continuation of Hammer v. Trendl, 2003 WL 2146686 (EDNY Jan. 18, 2003). Hammer is a self-published author of handwriting analysis books. He had a…

Presentation on Coasean Analysis of Marketing

By Eric Goldman I’m giving a talk on my next major paper (tentatively titled “A Coasean Analysis of Marketing”…a title that will likely change yet again), at the Midwestern Law & Economics Association meeting in Chicago. A preview of my…

Jacoby on Sponsorship Confusion

By Eric Goldman Sorry for the light blogging–between my travel/presentation schedule and the Jewish holidays, it has been hectic! Jacob Jacoby is a leading trademark survey expert/consultant–I imagine he’s been an expert in over 150 trademark cases. He recently posted…