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…
Quiznos Sued for User-Created Ads–Subway v. Quiznos
By Eric Goldman Doctor’s Associates, Inc. v. QIP Holders, LLC, 2007 WL 1186026 (D. Conn. April 19, 2007) Hey all you UGC evangelists, listen up! UGC is terrific, but there can be a dark side regarding legal liability. This case…
Referencing TM in Online Ad Copy May Be TM Use in Commerce–Hamzik v. Zale
By Eric Goldman Hamzik v. Zale Corp./Delaware, 2007 WL 1174863 (NDNY April 19, 2007) Another lawsuit against an advertiser for buying keyword advertising. In this case, the plaintiff claims a trademark in the term “Dating Ring” and says that Zales.com…
March 2007 Quick Links Part 2
By Eric Goldman Yesterday I posted the Google edition of my list of interesting items from March. Today I post the remainder of items that caught my eye last month. Trademarks/Brands * Bosley Medical Institute v. Kremer, 2007 WL 935708…
Regulating “Stealth” Marketing
By Eric Goldman I’ve never understood the legal distinctions between “editorial content” and “marketing.” To me, content is content. Certainly, content can have problematic/harmful attributes, such as false content. And often I want to know more about the identity of…