Facebook Gets Partial Win in Click Fraud Lawsuit
By Eric Goldman In re Facebook PPC Advertising Litigation, C 09-3043 JF (HRL) (N.D. Cal. April 22, 2010). My blog post on the complaint filing. This is an unexpectedly hard-to-parse ruling in a click fraud lawsuit against Facebook. Facebook sought…
Amazon Wins Keyword Advertising Suit–Video Professor v. Amazon
By Eric Goldman Video Professor, Inc. v . Amazon.com, Inc., 1:09-cv-00636-REB-KLM (D. Colo. April 21, 2010) Video Professor has been involved in a few interesting legal scrapes. For example, you may recall that in 2007 they launched a major crackdown…
FTC Drops Investigation of Advertiser Who Gave Gifts to Bloggers
By Eric Goldman Although the FTC’s revised Endorsements and Testimonials Guidelines were inscrutable overall, a few things were, in fact, clear from the FTC’s announcements: 1) The FTC believes shill blogging is out of control 2) They blame advertisers for…
Online Publishers, Advertising and Privacy Considerations
By Eric Goldman I recently spoke at OMMA Global on a panel entitled “Can Publishers Take Ownership of Privacy?” This panel focused on the role of online publishers in the marketing-and-privacy discussions. Most of the privacy angst has focused on…
FTC Endorsement and Testimonials Guidelines Notes from SMX West
By Eric Goldman Last month, I spoke at SMX West about the FTC Endorsement and Testimonial Guidelines. My talk notes: Beatles fans routinely parsed the meaning of John Lennon’s lyrics, which irritated him. When Lennon released “I am the Walrus,”…
eBay Mostly Beats Tiffany in the Second Circuit, but False Advertising Claims Remanded
By Eric Goldman Tiffany (NJ) Inc. v. eBay Inc., 2010 WL 1236315 (2d Cir. April 1, 2010) In a subtle opinion with potentially significant implications, eBay has preserved most of its big 2008 district court victory in the long-running Tiffany…
March 2010 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Internet Exceptionalism * Stern v. Sony Corp., CV 09-7710 PA (C.D. Cal. Feb. 8 2010) “to the extent Plaintiff is suing Sony as a manufacturer of video games, and the provider of online services, Sony is not…
Google Gets Favorable ECJ Opinion, But Will It Prove to Be a Hollow Victory?
By Eric Goldman The European Court of Justice issued its long-anticipated decision in the three Google AdWords cases (C-236/08, C-237-08 and C-238/08) referred to it by the French Cour de Cassation. The ruling only answers the questions posed to it…
Plaintiff Wins $7,000 Following Bench Trial on Claims Under California Anti-Spam Statute — Balsam v. Trancos
[Post by Venkat] Balsam v. Trancos, Inc., Cal Sup. Ct. Case No. (Civ.) 471791; March 10, 2010 [scribd] Although spam lawsuits have not gone particularly well for individual (non-ISP) plaintiffs, Dan Balsam recently took a case to trial in San…
Stratton Faxon v. Google Dismissed
By Eric Goldman Stratton Faxon v. Google, Inc., NNH-CV-09-5031219S (Conn. Superior Ct. dismissed March 8, 2010) Stratton Faxon v. Google was always an oddball case in the constellation of trademark owner challenges to Google AdWords. First, the plaintiff–a law firm…