When It Comes to Section 230, the Ninth Circuit is a Chaos Agent–Estate of Bride v. YOLO
The Ninth Circuit is interpreting Section 230 again. Time to grab your tissue box. * * * The Jenga-ing of Section 230 continues in the Ninth Circuit. This time, the court blows up the Barnes precedent, which created a promissory…
Ryanair v. Booking CFAA Trial Ends with Strangest Possible Outcome (Guest Blog Post)
Ryanair recently “prevailed” in its CFAA claim in its litigation against Booking.com. I use scare quotes around “prevailed” because, according to the jury verdict, the actual damages suffered by Ryanair were $5,000. $5,000 just so happens to be the exact…
Google Can Terminate Account Based on CSAM Allegations–Baker v. Google
The scenario: Google thought that a user uploaded CSAM and terminated her account. The user disagreed, appealed, and got nowhere. The user took the matter to court (pro se), where the lawsuit failed: Contract Breach. “Plaintiff does not allege any…
It’s Hard to Bind Former Subscribers to TOS Amendments–Brooks v. WarnerMedia
This is a VPPA case over Meta Pixels. 🙄🙄🙄 Everyone agrees this lawsuit will be going to arbitration per the HBO Max TOS. However, in 2022, HBO Max swapped arbitration providers from AAA to NAM. The opinion doesn’t clearly explain…
Facebook Isn’t Subject to the ADA–Lloyd v. Facebook
Lloyd brought a pro se lawsuit against Facebook raising a myriad of concerns. My prior blog post. The Ninth Circuit easily dismisses most of it in a breezy memorandum opinion, but the contract claim gets revived for a little longer….
Coursera Wins a TOS Formation Battle, But With Heavy Losses–Ghazizadeh v. Coursera
This is a VPPA case 🙄. Coursera invoked the arbitration clause in its TOS. It gets the arbitration it wanted, but via a messy opinion that does not represent a clean approval of its TOS management practices. Check out how…
Reusing Social Media Photos for Ads? Be Careful!–Khachatryan v. 1 Hotel
This case involves the following photo posted to the “@brave_johnson” Instagram account, which self-describes as the account of a 7-year old and lists 2 URLs for talent agencies: [Note: normally I would think carefully about posting photos of children, but…
Courts Are Rejecting Attempts to Weaponize Laws That Protect Consumer Reviews
In 2014, California enacted AB2365, sometimes called the “Yelp law,” codified at Cal. Civil Code 1670.8. The law prohibits businesses from suppressing consumer reviews (on Yelp or elsewhere). Its main substantive terms: (1) A contract or proposed contract for the…
MA Supreme Court Blesses Uber’s TOS Clickthrough Formation–Good v. Uber
This opinion addresses the aftermath of an Internet lawyer’s nightmare. In Kauders v. Uber Techs., 486 Mass. 557 (Mass. Sup. Ct. Jan. 4, 2021), the Massachusetts Supreme Court struck down Uber’s TOS because it wasn’t properly formed. Maybe I missed…
Ninth Circuit Does More Damage to Section 230–Calise v. Meta
This is a lawsuit over scammy ads from Chinese advertisers. The plaintiffs claim Facebook “affirmatively invites” scammy ads by “actively soliciting, encouraging, and assisting scammers it knows, or should know, are using its platform to defraud Facebook users with deceptive…