Lawsuit Over Google’s Unified Privacy Policy Pared Down, But Two Claims Survive
This is a lawsuit against Google for “commingling user data across different Google products.” Under the policy in effect before March 2012, information collected in one particular Google product was not automatically combined with information from another product. This changed…
Lawyer’s Suit Over “Professional Recognition” Spam Flops
Say you’re a lawyer and you receive a promotional email intimating that you’re one of the “Top Lawyers in California.” You probably just delete it and move on, right? That would be too easy. Nicholas Bontrager sued Showmark alleging that…
Are We Going To See An Explosion Of Food Labeling Lawsuits?–POM v. Coca-Cola (Forbes Cross-Post)
POM, the pomegranate juice maker, is unhappy that Coca-Cola sells a Minute Maid “Pomegranate Blueberry Blend of 5 Juices” that contains only 0.3% pomegranate juice and 0.2% blueberry juice. Even though Coca-Cola apparently complies with Food and Drug Administration (FDA)…
Email Harvesting: Repeated Emails From LinkedIn May Violate Publicity Rights
This is a lawsuit alleging that LinkedIn improperly mined users’ contact lists and sent them repeated invitation emails. While Judge Koh eliminated the Stored Communications Act and California anti-hacking statute claims, a chunk of the lawsuit remains. Harvesting contact lists…
Path May Be Liable for Text-Spamming Users’ Contact Lists
Sterk, of Sterk v. Redbox fame, sued Path, alleging that he received unsolicited marketing texts from Path. The court declined Path’s request to stay the case in favor of FCC proceedings, and the parties filed summary judgment motions on the…
CAN-SPAM Preemption Doesn’t Apply To Fraud…And More
This a spam case. Plaintiff sued, alleging violations of California’s spam statute with respect to 49 emails. Plaintiff alleged that defendants: register[ed] its domain names used to send spams to unregistered fictitious business names claiming their addresses to be boxes…
Hulu Unable to Shake Video Privacy Protection Act Claims
Plaintiffs were Hulu Plus subscribers who alleged that Hulu improperly disclosed their personal information to third parties (comScore and Facebook) in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act. On Hulu’s motion for summary judgment, the court grants it as to…
Disclosing Unique User IDs In URLs Doesn’t Violate ECPA–In re Zynga/Facebook
In separate lawsuits, plaintiffs alleged Facebook and Zynga violated the Stored Communications Act (in Zynga’s case, also the Wiretap Act). The crux of plaintiffs’ allegations was that when a Facebook user clicked on an ad or a link, the HTTP…
Apple May Be Liable For Privacy Violations by Third Party Developed Apps
There are so many privacy lawsuits around the iOS ecosystem that it’s tough to keep track of them all. This particular (consolidated) lawsuit involves privacy claims against Apple and also against various apps, including Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Facebook,…
Advertiser May Have Claims Against SEO Firm Using Undisclosed Spammy Practices
A law firm bought SEO services from an organization called “The Rainmaker Institute.” The relationship didn’t end well. The law firm now says the SEO firm used undisclosed spammy techniques that had a high risk of triggering Google penalties. Allegations…