Roommates.com Motions over Batzel Briefing

By Eric Goldman Now that the Roommates.com case is pending en banc, let the games begin! The first round: the Fair Housing Councils want to submit a brief arguing why the Ninth Circuit Batzel precedent should be overturned in light…

Vendor of Illicit Phone Records Not Protected by 230–FTC v. Accusearch

By Eric Goldman Federal Trade Commission v. Accusearch, Inc., 06-CV-105-D (D. Wy. Sept. 28, 2007) Accusearch (a/k/a Abika) offers for sale records of telephone calls made by telephone subscribers. Abika doesn’t acquire the records itself directly from the phone companies;…

Ticketmaster Wins Big Injunction in Hannah Montana Case, But Did the Public Interest Get Screwed?–Ticketmaster v. RMG

By Eric Goldman Ticketmaster L.L.C. v. RMG Technologies, Inc., 2007 WL 2988403 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 16, 2007) You may remember Ticketmaster’s multi-year battle against Tickets.com over data aggregation and deep linking. Ticketmaster never got a solid win in that case,…

Roommates.com En Banc Rehearing GRANTED!

By Eric Goldman Terrific news from the Ninth Circuit this morning! They have granted an en banc hearing in the Fair Housing Council v. Roommates.com case and (as their rules require) designated the prior opinion non-precedential. The full text of…

230 Applies Even if Website Retains Content That Author Asked to Remove–Global Royalties v. Ripoff Report

By Eric Goldman Global Royalties, Ltd. v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, 07-956-PHX-FJM (D. Ariz. Oct. 10, 2007) Surprise! Ripoff Report/Xcentric/badbusinessbureau/Magedson are in court again (I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve blogged on them–check here and do a find…

September 2007 Quick Links Part II

By Eric Goldman Contracts * Manasher v. NECC Telecom, No. 06-cv-10749 (E.D. Mich. Sept. 18, 2007). NECC included the following language on its invoices: “NECC’s Agreement ‘Disclosure and Liabilities’ can be found online at www.necc.us or you could request a…

Ask.com Not Liable for Search Results or Indexing Decisions–Murawski v. Pataki

By Eric Goldman Murawski v. Pataki, 2007 WL 2781054 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 26, 2007) William Murawski is one of those not-going-to-win political candidates from New York (strongly reminiscent of Carl Person). Unhappy with the 2006 election process, Murawski sued a variety…

DiMeo v. Max Affirmed by Third Circuit

By Eric Goldman DiMeo v. Max, 2007 WL 2717865 (3rd Cir. Sept. 19, 2007) You may recall the 2006 47 USC 230 ruling in DiMeo v. Max. The opinion was an instant Cyberlaw classic. Why? Among other credentials: the case…

August 2007 Quick Links, Part II

By Eric Goldman * e360 Insight v. Spamhaus Project, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 20725 (7th Cir. Aug. 30, 2007). An email marketing company was listed on Spamhaus’ ROSKO and sued for defamation and other torts in Illinois. Spamhaus took the…

Anti-Spyware Vendor Protected by 47 USC 230(c)(2)–Zango v. Kaspersky

By Eric Goldman Zango Inc. v. Kaspersky Lab, Inc., No. C07-0807-JCC (W.D. Wash. Aug. 28, 2007) There has been a fair amount of hand-wringing/teeth-gnashing over the legal liability of anti-spyware vendors when they label a software program as spyware or…