Republishing MySpace Post in Local Paper Might Be Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress–Moreno v. Hanford Sentinel

By Eric Goldman Moreno v. Hanford Sentinel, Inc., 2009 WL 866795 (Cal. App. Ct. April 2, 2009) This is one of the most interesting cases I’ve seen in a while. Moreno was a UC Berkeley undergraduate who grew up in…

Rip-off Report Lawsuit Updates: Certain Approval Programs and Ecommerce Innovations

By Eric Goldman Certain Approval Program v. Xcentric Certain Approval Programs, L.L.C. v. XCentric Ventures L.L.C., 2009 WL 596582 (D. Ariz. March 9, 2009). I previously blogged about this case in November. This ruling is in response to the plaintiff’s…

McGeveran on Facebook Beacon and Social Media Marketing

By Eric Goldman Bill McGeveran, a law professor at University of Minnesota, has posted Disclosure, Endorsement, and Identity in Social Marketing to SSRN. The paper walks through Facebook Beacon and marketers’ other efforts to take advantage of online word of…

Google Street View Case Dismissed–Boring v. Google

By Eric Goldman Boring v. Google, Inc., 2:08-cv-00694-ARH (W.D. Pa. Feb. 17, 2009) You may recall the Boring case from last Spring. A Pennsylvania couple sued because Google’s camera car drove up their private driveway and the resulting pictures were…

Yahoo/Overture Sued for Search Results Snippets Containing Plaintiff’s Name–Stayart v. Yahoo

By Eric Goldman Stayart v. Yahoo!, 2:2009cv00116 (E.D. Wis. complaint filed Feb. 5, 2009). The Justia page. Bev Stayart appears to be proud of her accomplishments. As the complaint recounts her credentials, we are informed that she has an MBA…

2008 Cyberlaw Year-in-Review

By Eric Goldman It’s a sign of my schedule that I’m just now getting to this, and this post will be more pithy than I initially conceived. This post recaps some of the Cyberlaw highlights from last year. Frankly, the…

Outdated Whois Information Might Lead to False Light Tort–Meyerkord v. Zipatoni

By Eric Goldman Meyerkord v. The Zipatoni Co., 2008 WL 5455718 (Mo. App. Ct. Dec. 23, 2008) It’s a late entry, but this opinion may be a dark horse candidate for the most bizarre case of 2008. Meyerkord was a…

The Sex Tape Problem…and a Possible Legislative Solution?

By Eric Goldman An inescapable fact of the digital era is that people will be depicted in digitized sex videos (“sex tapes”) that they wish did not exist. Sex tapes can be classified into a variety of types: * sex…

April 2008 Quick Links

By Eric Goldman Anti-Gaming * Even though Ticketmaster won its lawsuit, Minnesota overreacted to the Hannah Montana ticket crush by banning software to circumvent an online ticket allocation process. See Sec. 609.806. Check out the hyperbole in this press release!…

47 USC 230 Trifecta of Cases–Friendfinder, e360insight, iBrattleboro

By Eric Goldman 47 USC 230 cases have been coming at such a rapid clip that I’ve fallen behind. In this blog post, I’ll catch up on three recent cases: Friendfinder Doe v. Friendfinder Network, Inc., 2008 WL 803947 (D.N.H….