Did California Unintentionally (?) Impose New Statutory Duties on Every Blogger? A Post on the Newly Enacted California Reader Privacy Act
By Eric Goldman California recently enacted the Reader Privacy Act, SB 602. See the EFF announcement. This new California law seeks to protect online book reader privacy to the same extent reader privacy is protected by libraries, by requiring heightened…
Q3 2011 Quick Links, Part 4
By Eric Goldman Content Regulation * Lawmakers are putting the squeeze on advertisers to be content police. Meanwhile, VeriSign begged for the right to act as content police before changing its mind. * Kowalski v. Koster, 2011 WL 4349365 (W.D….
Article on Bypassing Geographic Content Restrictions Using Borrowed IP Addresses
By Eric Goldman Marketa Trimble (UNLV Law) has posted a full copy of her article, The Future of Cybertravel: Legal Implications of the Evasion of Geolocation. I’ve highlighted this article before, such as in my coverage of the Internet Law…
Stock Trading Message Board Protected by 47 USC 230–Deer Consumer Products v. Little
By Eric Goldman Deer Consumer Products v. Little, Index No. 650823/11 (NY Sup. Ct. Aug. 31, 2011) SeekingAlpha is a message board for stock traders. This is their second appearance on the blog. In Desai v. Clark, a SeekingAlpha author…
Failure to Delete Third Party Comments Supports a Malice Finding in Defamation Case–Tanner v. Ebbole
By Eric Goldman Tanner v. Ebbole, 2011 WL 4425540 (Ala. Civ. App. Ct. Sept. 23, 2011) Competitive animosity can be found in every industry, but it sometimes amazes me just how sharp it can. Today’s case involves competing tattoo shops…
Web Vendor Dispute Gets Ugly–Ground Zero Museum v. Wilson
By Eric Goldman Ground Zero Museum Workshop v. Wilson, 2011 WL 3758582 (D. Md. Aug. 24, 2011) Disputes like these make me wonder if we can’t find some way to get along. Suson runs a non-profit museum focused on the…
Request for Help: Doctor v. Patient Lawsuits Over Online Reviews
By Eric Goldman I’m doing some research, and I’m hoping you can help. I’m trying to comprehensively catalog doctor vs. patient lawsuits over online reviews of the doctor. I’m equally interested in suits by other health care professionals; I’ve noticed…
Blogger Can Display County Seal in Blog Posts–Rothamel v. Fluvanna County
By Eric Goldman Rothamel v. Fluvanna County, Va., 2011 WL 3878313 (W.D. Va. Sept. 2, 2011) I don’t use images on this blog, but many bloggers include images to help illustrate their posts. It’s not uncommon, then, for bloggers to…
Reflections on the DOJ-Google Half-Billion Deal over Illegal Pharma Ads (July-August 2011 Quick Links, Part 2)
By Eric Goldman I haven’t previously written on the DOJ’s bust of Google over illegal pharmaceutical ads, partially because I couldn’t reconcile my views about this enforcement action. From my vantage point, this action equally fits into two dichotomous stories,…
Overreactive Guidance for Social Networking Du Jour — NLRB Edition
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] NLRB Memo – Memorandum OM 11-74 (Aug. 18, 2011) (“Report of the Acting General Counsel Concerning Social Media Cases”) There has been a steady drumbeat from employment lawyers warning about the increasingly watchful eye of the…