Snap Wants to be a State Actor??–Kansas v. Snap
For decades, private Internet services have uniformly tried to avoid being legally characterized as government actors. If they become state actors, they must comply with Constitutional restrictions–meaning the Constitutionally required freedoms of speech and press would extend to their user-authors…
11th Circuit Rejects Keyword Advertising Liability–Deltona v. NOCO
This case involves two competitors in the vehicle-battery charger industry. The plaintiff calls its offering “Battery Tender” (based on the analogy of a ship’s tender) and claims trademark rights in the term. Believing that the term is generic, NOCO began…
Scammy Ad Lawsuits Keep Vexing the Courts–Huckabee v. Meta
Scammers used Mike Huckabee’s name and image to hawk CBD products in Facebook ads. I’m not in the ad’s target audience, so it blows my mind that anyone would buy anything because Huckabee touted it (or was falsely claimed to)….
Section 230 Doesn’t Apply to Generative AI Enhancements to Ad Copy (But the Plaintiffs Lose Anyway)–Bouck and Suddeth v. Meta
The blog post covers two cases involving scammy ads on Facebook that were part of a pump-and-dump for Chinese penny stocks. The first two rulings came in March. In the Bouck case, the court rejected Facebook’s Section 230 defense because…
The YOLO Remand Shows Why the 9th Circuit Should Stop Carving Up Section 230–Bride v. Snap
This is the remand of the troubling Ninth Circuit Section 230 decision in Bride v. YOLO. As you may recall, the plaintiffs claims that YOLO made statements about its content moderation and the safety of its environment that the plaintiffs…
TOS Formation Fails, and So Does Section 230–Judge v. Academia
The named plaintiff is a professor. The defendant is a website, Academia, that helps professors share their works publicly. Academia heavily promotes its “Mentions” service that tracks a professor’s mentions and citations. [Historically, I have used a variety of free…
Section 230 Helps Discord Defeat “Defective Design” Claims Regarding Sexual Predation–Jane Doe v. Discord
This is another entry in the genre of “predator access” cases claiming that predators solicited minors for sex online, in this case on Discord. Many predator access cases have targeted Roblox, which has a pending MDL in CA consolidating dozens…
With Opinions Like This, Congress Doesn’t Need to Repeal Section 230–Massachusetts v. Meta
This is one of the dozens of state AG lawsuits against social media services that are being litigated independently of/in parallel with the federal social media addiction MDL (where the state AGs are also suing social media companies). Because these…
What Does a Hologram Trademark Signify When the Hologram Isn’t There?–Upper Deck v. Pixels
Pixels is a print-on-demand vendor. Pixels’ users have uploaded various images associated with Michael Jordan sports trading cards. Here’s an example: If this were a framed original of the trading card, the First Sale doctrine should apply. If it were…
Section 230’s Application to Account Terminations, CSAM, and More
The Section 230 cases keep coming faster than I can blog them (the first 3 hit my alerts in a single day). Weiss v. Google LLC, 2026 WL 733788 (Cal. App. Ct. March 16, 2026) Weiss’ business started running financial…