Announcing the 2018 Edition of My Internet Law Casebook
I’m pleased to announce this year’s edition of my Internet Law casebook, Internet Law: Cases & Materials. It’s available for sale as a PDF at Gumroad for $10, as a Kindle book for $9.99, in hard copy at Amazon for…
Advertiser’s Suit Against Google Loses for Third (and Final) Time–Abid v. Google
I previously described this case: “Abid markets cancer-curing honey. He bought AdWords to promote his MightyHoney website. Google rejected the ads.” The court has dismissed this pro se lawsuit twice already, each time without prejudice. Prior blog posts from April…
Businesses Cannot Contractually Ban “Abusive” Consumer Reviews
An article recently posted to SSRN argues that the Consumer Review Fairness Act (CRFA) purportedly lets businesses contractually ban “abusive” reviews. If this is correct, it could affect millions of businesses and hundreds of millions of consumers. However, the article’s…
Ten Reasons Why California’s New Data Protection Law is Unworkable, Burdensome, and Possibly Unconstitutional (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Jeff Kosseff [Jeff Kosseff is an assistant professor of cybersecurity law at the U.S. Naval Academy. The views in this post are only his, and do not represent the Naval Academy, Department of Navy, or Department of…
Amazon Again Avoids Liability for Defective Marketplace Item–Fox v. Amazon
This is a product liability lawsuit against Amazon due to a hoverboard purchased via Amazon that caught on fire. Plaintiffs bought the hoverboard from the Amazon site in November 2015 as a Christmas gift for their son. The son used…
Lawsuit Over Cancer-Curing Honey Ads Still Sucks–Abid v. Google
Abid markets cancer-curing honey. He bought AdWords to promote his MightyHoney website. Google rejected the ads. He sued Google pro se for a variety of claims. The court previously granted Google’s motion to dismiss with leave to amend. My prior…
More Bad News for Uber’s Contract Formation–Ramos v. Uber
In last year’s Meyer v. Uber, Uber won an important ruling in the Second Circuit upholding its online contract formation with riders. Still, the contract formation news has not been all good for Uber. For example, in last year’s Metter v….
TWiT’s Trademark Lawsuit Against Twitter Sent Back to the Drawing Board
The popular and long-running show “This Week in Tech,” commonly called TWiT, sued Twitter. TWiT provides audio and video content branded under the TWiT trademark. It alleges that Twitter’s offering of video services and content under the TWITTER brand infringes…
Redfin Must Defend Copyright Suit Over Property Photos–Stross v. Redfin
Stross is a photographer who licenses his photographs to real estate agents. He licensed the photos through ACTRIS, a multiple listing service that compiles listings into a database for use by brokers and realtors. ACTRIS users who upload their photos…
YouTube Defeats Another Remove-and-Relocate Lawsuit–Song Fi v. Google
The YouTube “remove-and-relocate” cases involve similar facts. A YouTuber uploaded a video and promoted it. YouTube suspected irregularities with the promotion, removed the video from its initial URL (breaking inbound links, stripping the comments, and resetting the like and view…