Maternity Clothing Trademark Dispute Has Dubious Support–Blanqi v. Bao Bei (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Alexandra J. Roberts This one’s for the ladiesss (all the pregnant ladies, all the pregnant ladies)! Plaintiff Blanqi makes high-end shapewear and maternity products. It has a pending application to register SPORTSUPPORT as a trademark for lingerie…
Section 230 Doesn’t Prevent City Regulation of Short-Term Rental Services (Again)–HomeAway v. Santa Monica
[It’s impossible to blog about Section 230 without reminding you that it remains highly imperiled.] In my list of top 10 Internet Law cases of all time, Airbnb v. San Francisco appeared as an honorable mention because it showed how any regulator could regulate…
Adpocalypse LawsuitGoBoom–ZombieGoBoom v. YouTube
In 2017, YouTube reconfigured its ad delivery algorithm to screen out videos that it thought advertisers disfavored. The resulting turmoil was popularly called the “Adpocalypse” because it dried up revenues for many YouTube channels. This includes the operator of the Zombiegoboom…
Design Principles for Consumer Protection Legislation (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Samuel Becher, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand [Eric’s note: I’m pleased to share this guest blog post from Prof. Samuel Becher, whose work has been mentioned on this blog before. This post is based on Prof. Becher’s new article, Unintended Consequences and the Design of…
Brief Roundup of Three Keyword Advertising Lawsuit Developments
1) Xymogen, Inc. v. Digitalev, LLC, 2018 WL 659723 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 1, 2018). This appears to be a typical competitive keyword advertising case, with the twist that the plaintiff also alleges counterfeiting. The defendant moved to dismiss. First, the court finds jurisdiction…
What’s New With SESTA/FOSTA (January 17, 2018 edition)
It’s been over a month since I last blogged about SESTA, FOSTA, and Congress’ efforts to address Section 230 and sex trafficking. So it seems like a good time to do an update on recent developments. The holidays were quiet,…
Search Engines Aren’t Liable for Indexing ‘Scam’ Locksmith Listings–Baldino’s Lock v. Google
[It’s impossible to blog about Section 230 without reminding you that it remains highly imperiled.] The plaintiff in this case, Baldino’s Lock & Key, brought a very similar lawsuit in 2014. It alleged that Google indexed scam locksmiths and allowed them…
Interesting Tidbits From FTC’s Antitrust Win Against 1-800 Contacts’ Keyword Ad Restrictions
Over the course of about a decade starting in 2004, 1-800 Contacts entered into over a dozen settlement agreements with competitors, most of which mutually restricted both parties from buying keyword ads triggered to their competitor’s trademarks and sometimes requiring…
Section 230(c)(2) Protects Anti-Malware Vendor–Enigma v. Malwarebytes
[It’s impossible to blog about Section 230 without reminding you that it remains highly imperiled.] In 2009, the 9th Circuit ruled that Section 230(c)(2) protected Kaspersky from liability for blocking Zango’s software as adware. Since that ruling, we have seen relatively few…
How SESTA Undermines Section 230’s Good Samaritan Provisions
The following is my response to Questions for the Record submitted by Sen. Cortez Masto. Given that she has already co-sponsored SESTA following the Manager’s Amendment and IA’s flip, my response may be too late to matter (not that it would…