Lori Drew Conviction Reflections, Part 1 of 3: Why MySpace Might Regret the Conviction

By Eric Goldman [As I’ve mentioned before, I think Lori Drew’s conviction is a tragic denouement to an already tragic situation. After thinking more about the conviction, I initially planned to blog some brief additional commentary to my initial post….

Lori Drew Guilty of 3 Misdemeanor Violations of the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act

By Eric Goldman According to news reports (WSJ Law Blog, LA Times, AP), the jury has declared Lori Drew guilty of “three misdemeanor counts of accessing a computer without authorization.” I would like to parse the actual jury verdict form…

October 2008 Quick Links, Part 2

By Eric Goldman Spam * Kramer v. Perez. An Iowa court awards $236M in damages in a spam case. Venkat’s comments. * After the government lost its jury trial against Impulse Media, the court denied Impulse Media attorneys fees. Contracts…

Lambotte’s Click Fraud Lawsuit Against IAC Survives Motion to Dismiss

By Eric Goldman Lambotte v. IAC/InterActiveCorp, 2008 WL 4829882 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 4, 2008). Initial blog post on the filing of the first complaint. Lambotte filed this putative class action lawsuit against IAC in May based on alleged click fraud….

Stockholder Derivative Action Against Yahoo Based on Click Fraud Rebuffed–Brodsky v. Yahoo

By Eric Goldman Brodsky v. Yahoo! Inc., 2008 WL 4531815 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 7, 2008). The Justia page. Previous blog coverage. You may recall this stockholder derivative lawsuit against Yahoo alleging that Yahoo hyped its stock prices by overstating its…

September 2008 Quick Links, Part 3

By Eric Goldman eBay * Universal Grading Service v. eBay, Inc. More fallout from the National Numismatic v. eBay case–another lawsuit alleging antitrust and defamation because eBay designated some coin rating services as preferred and impliedly devalued others. * Windsor…

Licensing a Work, and When Licensing Doesn’t Work–Reuters v. GMU

A timely Exhibit A in the argument that contract law is being used as a back-door wedge in expanding copyright. By Ethan Ackerman Just as Bruce Boyden seriously asks, “is the case for contracts somehow expanding copyright rights vastly overstated?”…

August 2008 Quick Links, Part 2

By Eric Goldman Net Neutrality * The FCC gets on Comcast’s case for deceptively blocking BitTorrent connections without disclosure. While I don’t know anyone who has defended Comcast’s behavior here, at the same time there is an undercurrent of concern…

August 2008 Quick Links, Part 1

By Eric Goldman eBay * Mazur v. eBay Inc., 2008 WL 2951351 (N.D. Cal. July 25, 2008). See my previous blog post on the case. Some commentators are excited about this ruling because it rejects eBay’s motion to dismiss a…

eBay Cracks Down on Cookie Stuffing–eBay v. Digital Point Solutions

By Eric Goldman eBay, Inc. v. Digital Point Solutions, No. 5:08-cv-04052-PVT (N.D. Cal. complaint filed Aug. 25, 2008) It is exceedingly rare for marketers to sue affiliates who are trying to game their affiliate programs. I’m sure there have been…