October 2008 Quick Links, Part 2

By Eric Goldman Spam * Kramer v. Perez. An Iowa court awards $236M in damages in a spam case. Venkat’s comments. * After the government lost its jury trial against Impulse Media, the court denied Impulse Media attorneys fees. Contracts…

October 2008 Quick Links, Part 1 (Copyright Edition)

By Eric Goldman * Happy (?) 10th birthday, DMCA. The EFF birthday cards (1, 2). * Speaking of the DMCA, Sen. McCain got a first-hand experience with it when his lawyer complained to YouTube that YouTube was taking down campaign…

Lambotte’s Click Fraud Lawsuit Against IAC Survives Motion to Dismiss

By Eric Goldman Lambotte v. IAC/InterActiveCorp, 2008 WL 4829882 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 4, 2008). Initial blog post on the filing of the first complaint. Lambotte filed this putative class action lawsuit against IAC in May based on alleged click fraud….

Stockholder Derivative Action Against Yahoo Based on Click Fraud Rebuffed–Brodsky v. Yahoo

By Eric Goldman Brodsky v. Yahoo! Inc., 2008 WL 4531815 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 7, 2008). The Justia page. Previous blog coverage. You may recall this stockholder derivative lawsuit against Yahoo alleging that Yahoo hyped its stock prices by overstating its…

American Airlines Sues Yahoo for Selling Keyword Advertising

By Eric Goldman American Airlines, Inc. v. Yahoo! Inc., 4:2008cv00626 (N.D. Tex. complaint filed Oct. 17, 2008). The Justia page. Here’s a lawsuit I never expected. Fresh off their settlement with Google, American Airlines is suing Yahoo for selling keyword…

Search Engine “Cache” Function Covered by Implied License–Parker v. Yahoo

By Eric Goldman Parker v. Yahoo, Inc., 2008 WL 4410095 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 25, 2008). Gordon Roy Parker is a serial pro se Internet law plaintiff and putative owner of copyrights in seemingly misogynistic works such as “Outfoxing the Foxes”…

September 2008 Quick Links, Part 3

By Eric Goldman eBay * Universal Grading Service v. eBay, Inc. More fallout from the National Numismatic v. eBay case–another lawsuit alleging antitrust and defamation because eBay designated some coin rating services as preferred and impliedly devalued others. * Windsor…

Delayed Enforcement Blocks Domain Name Lawsuit–Southern Grouts v. 3M

By Eric Goldman Southern Grouts & Mortars, Inc. v. 3M Co., 2008 WL 4346798 (S.D. Fla. Sept. 17, 2008) I’m often baffled by lawsuits over domain names and keywords because they just don’t seem to make any economic sense. This…

DMV.org Hit With SEO-Degrading Injunction–TrafficSchool.com v. eDriver

By Eric Goldman TrafficSchool.com, Inc. v. eDriver, Inc., 2008 WL 4000805 (C.D. Cal. June 4, 2008). Permanent injunction entered Aug. 28, 2008. [Note: I missed this case when it first came out. I recently learned about the case from Rebecca,…

August 2008 Quick Links, Part 2

By Eric Goldman Net Neutrality * The FCC gets on Comcast’s case for deceptively blocking BitTorrent connections without disclosure. While I don’t know anyone who has defended Comcast’s behavior here, at the same time there is an undercurrent of concern…