Craigslist’s Anti-Consumer Lawsuit Threatens to Break Internet Law–Craigslist v. 3Taps/Padmapper (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Craigslist, Inc. v. 3Taps, Inc., 2013 WL 1819999 (N.D. Cal. April 30, 2013) Craigslist is one of the best examples of the Internet’s sharing economy. Craigslist improves markets by helping buyers and sellers find each other. Remarkably, it…
Year-in-Review Talk on Online Marketing Issues
By Eric Goldman Today I’m speaking in Westminster, Colorado at the Rocky Mountain IP and Technology Institute. My topic is “Online Marketing/E-Commerce Updates” and was designed to be a “year-in-review” type talk. However, as I thought about the most important…
Suing Over Keyword Advertising Is A Bad Business Decision For Trademark Owners–General Steel v. Chumley (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman General Steel Domestic Sales, LLC v. Chumley, 2013 WL 1900562 (D. Colo. May 7, 2013) Trademark owners rarely win keyword advertising lawsuits in court. Reinforcing this conclusion, another trademark owner lost a trial over competitive keyword advertising…
Differences Between Consumer Surveys for Trademark Cases and False Advertising Cases
By Eric Goldman In February, I spoke about the differences between consumer surveys in trademark cases compared with false advertising cases. My talk notes: Overall, the similarities between consumer survey in the two types of cases outweigh the differences. So…
Competitive Keyword Advertising Lawsuit Survives Motion to Dismiss–Elcometer v. TCQ-USA
By Eric Goldman Elcometer, Inc. v. TQC-USA, Inc., 2013 WL 1433388 (E.D. Mich. April 9, 2013) There are so many competitive keyword advertising lawsuits that I can’t track them systematically, but I’ll still blog them when I see them. The…
Product Review Website Defeats Trademark Claims–Boarding School Review v. Delta Career Education
By Eric Goldman Boarding School Review, LLC v. Delta Career Education Corp., 1:11-cv-08921-DAB (SDNY March 29, 2013) This case involves Community College Review, with the tagline “find the right community college for you.” It publishes information about various community colleges…
FTC Warns Nordstrom Over Tweetup Freebies
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] The FTC conducted an investigation on Nordstrom’s marketing and promotion in connection with a “tweetup” held in Boise. Apparently Nordstrom provided free gifts to “influencers”, including $50 gift cards to Nordstrom Rack. [Sadly, I did not…
Why Google’s Commitment Letter to the FTC Isn’t Commercial Speech (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Josh King [Eric’s introduction: Josh King is Vice President, Business Development & General Counsel at Avvo. Among other ways we work together, he’s a fellow board member of Public Participation Project, which is advocating for a federal…
Linkwrap of Google’s Antitrust Deal With the FTC
By Eric Goldman It seems like forever since the FTC settled its antitrust investigation with Google, even though it’s been less than 3 months. My recap post from the initial announcement. We’re waiting for the European denouement, but in the…
Book Recommendation: “Trademark and Deceptive Advertising Surveys”
By Eric Goldman I read only a couple of books per year. As very long-form scholarship, books usually require big blocks of time to read (and I rarely have such blocks), and I typically find the payoff isn’t worth the…