New Civil FOSTA Lawsuits Push Expansive Legal Theories Against Unexpected Defendants (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Alex Yelderman In the year and two-thirds since it was signed into law, FOSTA has reputedly shattered online networks that sex workers relied upon to keep safe, crippled human trafficking investigations, and scared websites into taking down…
Section 230 Helps Salesforce Defeat Sex Trafficking Lawsuit–Doe v. Salesforce
Salesforce provided SaaS services to Backpage. On that basis, the plaintiffs sought to hold Salesforce liable for any Backpage-caused sex trafficking victimization. This represents an attempt (possibly unprecedented) to impose tertiary liability for sex trafficking. The advertisers, such as pimps,…
State Court Rejects Prager University’s Lawsuit Against YouTube
Prager University publishes videos on YouTube. YouTube demonetized some of its videos and placed some in “restricted mode,” meaning that users of YouTube’s restricted mode functionality won’t see them. Prager claimed that YouTube took these steps due to anti-conservative bias,…
Your Periodic Reminder that Blogging About Litigation Can Generate More Litigation–Wexler v. Dorsey & Whitney
As I’ve mentioned many times, blogging about lawsuits has its own legal peril. By definition, I’m commenting on people who’ve shown a willingness to litigate, so there’s a higher-than-average chance they will want to litigate against me. Though I’m quite…
E*Trade Defeats Copyright Claim Over Dancing Old Man in Commercial–Vacchi v. E*Trade
Gianluca Vacchi is an Italian entrepreneur. He has a large social media presence, including nearly 12M Instagram followers and 1.8M Facebook followers. He claims his social media presence depicts a fictional alter ego who is “an extravagant millionaire dancing with…
Competitor Gets Pyrrhic Victory in False Advertising Suit Over Search Ads–Harbor Breeze v. Newport Fishing
The litigants compete in the whale watching industry in LA/Orange Counties. The plaintiffs operate out of Long Beach/San Pedro, the defendants out of Newport Beach. If you’re not familiar with the geography, Long Beach and Newport Beach are about 20…
New Jersey Attorney Ethics Opinion Blesses Competitive Keyword Advertising (…or Does It?)
In 2016, the Texas Bar issued an opinion decisively blessing competitive keyword advertising by lawyers. (Note: I define competitive keyword advertising as buying a rival’s name/brand as the trigger for ads without displaying the name/brand in the ad copy). At…
Another Competitive Keyword Advertising Lawsuit Fails–Dr. Greenberg v. Perfect Body Image
Dr. Stephen Greenberg is a plastic surgeon on Long Island. Perfect Body Image provides “non-surgical and non-invasive aesthetic services, including, among other things, laser treatments.” Perfect Body doesn’t have any doctors on staff. In addition to Stephen, at least two…
Facebook Defeats Pro Se Consumer Privacy Suit–Hassan v. Facebook
This is a pro se privacy lawsuit by 4 longtime Facebook users (from 2007-09). It covers a lot of the same topics as the dozens of pending privacy class action lawsuits against Facebook. Not surprisingly, as a pro se suit,…
1H 2019 Quick Links, Part 6 (Privacy, E-Commerce, & More)
Privacy * Gullen v. Facebook, Inc., 2019 WL 2486566 (9th Cir. June 14, 2019): No reasonable jury could conclude that Facebook subjected the photo uploaded to the Glenview Patch organizational Facebook page (which is the only photo at issue in this appeal) to…