July 2007 Quick Links, Part II
By Eric Goldman Virtual Worlds * After a remarkable run as media darlings, Second Life is now experiencing some of the inevitable backlash. Case in point: Wired’s “How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life.” In this…
Advertiser Liability for “Contributory” Trespass to Chattels Redux–Burgess v. American Express
By Eric Goldman Burgess v. American Express Co., 2007 NCBC 15 (N.C. Superior Ct. May 21, 2007) David Fish points to an interesting new ruling on the subject of advertiser liability for pop-up advertising (I’m inferring that the pop-ups were…
June 2007 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Email * Spam cases are coming at a regular clip, and it’s tricky divining the latest state of the law. Two recent cases that caught my attention: – US v. Impulse Media Group, 2007 WL 1725560 (W.D….
Lead Fraud (A Cousin of Click Fraud)–NetQuote v. Byrd
By Eric Goldman NetQuote, Inc. v. Byrd, 2007 WL 1725587 (D. Colo. June 13, 2007) I know advertisers are fed up with click fraud, but let’s be clear–every ad payment method will be gamed. This case nicely illustrates that challenge….
Lawyer Rating Service Sued–Browne v. Avvo
By Eric Goldman Browne v. Avvo, CV7 920 (W.D. Wash. complaint filed June 14, 2007) You may have heard about Avvo, the latest entrant in the suddenly crowded field of lawyer ratings/rankings. Avvo pulls together a variety of third party…
May 2007 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Spam * MySpace Inc. v. The Globe.com Inc., No. CV 06-3391 RGK (C.D. Cal. Feb. 27, 2007). This case has some personal interest because theglobe.com was one of my flagship clients before I left the law firm…
Zango’s Busy Litigation Docket
By Eric Goldman I got a tip that Zango’s lawsuit against PC Tools had been removed to federal court, which prompted me to search for “Zango” in PACER for the Western District of Washington. I learned that Zango has a…
Wikipedia and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) / Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
By Eric Goldman As regular readers know, this is one of my favorite topics! In December 2005 (and renewed December 2006), I predicted that marketers would overrun Wikipedia, contributing to Wikipedia’s demise. As further evidence of this effect, Danny Sullivan’s…
April 2007 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman * Rebecca blogs on CollegeNET, Inc. v. XAP Corp., 2007 WL 927946 (D. Or. March 26, 2007), where a jury awarded $4.5M in damages under 43(a) because the defendant had a privacy policy saying it wouldn’t disclose…
Utah Legislators Realizing They Screwed Up By Banning Keyword Advertising
By Eric Goldman Linda Fantin at the Salt Lake Tribune reports on the meeting between Utah legislators and various technology companies (Google, eBay, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, 1-800 Contacts and Overstock.com) to discuss the recently enacted Utah Trademark Protection Act banning…