Facebook Can’t Shake Publicity Rights Claim–Hepp v. Facebook
Third parties created ads featuring Hepp without her consent. From the complaint (Hepp is the upper right image; the photo was taken from security camera footage): Facebook ran some of the ads featuring Hepp’s image. The district court dismissed Hepp’s…
Section 230 Helps Facebook Defeat Lawsuit Over Scam Ads–Calise v. Meta
The plaintiffs allege that Facebook runs third-party ads for scammy third-party merchant websites. One plaintiff claims a merchant didn’t send the ordered goods as described. Another plaintiff claimed that a merchant never sent any goods at all. The plaintiffs sued…
Catching Up on a FOSTA Case–ML v. Craigslist
This is one of many FOSTA cases in process. They are all quite complicated and hard to understand. This particular lawsuit targets Craigslist even though Craigslist shut down its adult services category in 2010, eight years before FOSTA was enacted,…
Louisiana’s Anti-Vegan Law Constitutionally Enjoined–Tofurky v. Strain
[Note: I’ve been traveling for the past 10 days and have a long list of important developments to blog when I get back.] Numerous states have enacted laws that prohibit the use of meat/dairy terms, such “meat,” “milk,” “cheese,” and…
Court Dismisses Trademark Claims Over Internal Search Results–Las Vegas Skydiving v. Groupon
Las Vegas Skydiving Adventures offers tandem skydiving under the “Fyrosity” brand. It has never offered its services through Groupon. A search for “skydive Fyrosity” at Groupon says “No matching deals. You may also like ….” and produces search results for…
Departing Employees Rename Their Former Employers’ Facebook Account. That May Be a Problem–La Baguette v. Tito & Tita
This is an employer/ex-employee dispute over a Facebook page. As alleged in the complaint, plaintiffs operated a bakery known as “La Baguette,” and hired defendants to manage aspects of the business. Defendants also managed the social media presence of the…
Trademark Registration of Political Messages for Expressive Merchandise–In re Elster (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Lisa Ramsey, Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law Federal Circuit holds refusal to register a political message for T-shirts violates the First Amendment, but fails to acknowledge that these types of registrations can…
So Many Unanswered Empirical Questions About FOSTA
I read an article, “Sex Trafficking and Technology: A Systematic Review of Recruitment and Exploitation,” by Lindsay B. Gezinski & Kwynn M. Gonzalez-Pons (unfortunately paywalled). They did a comprehensive and systematic review to identify empirical studies that bear on online…
Georgia Supreme Court Blesses Google’s Keyword Ad Sales–Edible IP v. Google
Edible Arrangements objected to Google selling its trademark to trigger keyword ads. They filed a trademark lawsuit in 2018 but abandoned the suit when it got sent to arbitration. However, they didn’t give up! The Edible team had the brilliant…
Court Denies Class Certification in Click Fraud Case–Singh v. Google
15 years ago, there was a now-mostly-forgotten battle royale over click fraud in Google AdWords (see links at the post’s bottom). Fun times. Since the resolution of that litigation, click fraud issues have largely faded into the background, flaring up…