The FTC, Adware Advertising and Badges of Shame
By Eric Goldman New FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz has embraced one of the favorite causes of the anti-adware grumblers: dry up adware funding by making adware advertisers feel some pain. According to AdAge, he recently said that the FTC might…
Wikipedia Will Fail Within 5 Years
By Eric Goldman Over the weekend I had dinner with Mike Godwin, one of the most significant influencers of the development of Cyberlaw and a longtime friend. Mike and I were discussing Wikipedia, the community-edited and -maintained encyclopedia. I like…
New Metatag/SEO Lawsuit–Salu, Inc. v. Pitts
By Eric Goldman Salu, Inc. v. Pitts (E.D. Ca. complaint filed Nov. 17, 2005). Introduction Salu operates skinstore.com, a website that sells skin care products. (With that name, I was totally expecting to find a porn site, but the website…
Microsoft Will Be an Adware Vendor
By Eric Goldman Microsoft is considering migrating some of its software titles to an ad-supported model instead of a consumer licensing fee model. This isn’t exactly a new idea–this development has been anticipated for at least a decade. However, if…
Product Placement and the Apprentice TV Show
By Eric Goldman I’ve always been confused by the fuss over product placements. I know people generally don’t like advertisements, and I also know that people want to be told when something is an “advertisement.” But product placement occurs in…
Latest Junk Fax Lawsuit–Adler v. Vision Lab Telecommunications
By Eric Goldman Adler v. Vision Lab Telecommunications, Inc., 2005 WL 2621984 (D.D.C. Oct. 17, 2005). I’ve set up a Westlaw alert to notify me of new TCPA cases and I’m pretty shocked by the volume of cases being reported…
Galster on Infomediaries and Bonded Sender Programs
By Eric Goldman In late March, I posted a blog post entitled “Infomediaries–Where Are They?” In that post, I explained why infomediaries have the potential to improve social welfare compared to our existing marketing system, but I noted that no…
Presentation on Coasean Analysis of Marketing
By Eric Goldman I’m giving a talk on my next major paper (tentatively titled “A Coasean Analysis of Marketing”…a title that will likely change yet again), at the Midwestern Law & Economics Association meeting in Chicago. A preview of my…
Women and Law School
By Mark McKenna If I told you that a famous professor from a well-known law school was arguing on his/her blog that law schools should consider discounting their tuition by 1% for each year a graduate stayed in the work…
Cellphone Spam Violates TCPA–Joffe v. Acacia Mortgage
Joffe v. Acacia Mortgage Corp., No. 1 CA-CV 02-0701 (Ariz. Ct. App. Sept. 20, 2005). When is an email a telephone call? The Arizona Court of Appeals says that an email is a telephone call when the receiver gets a…