March 2008 Quick Links, Part I
By Eric Goldman It’s a sign of my busy March/April that I am just now posting these… Reputation/47 USC 230 * I have a lot to say about the JuicyCampus story (AP, MSNBC, Chronicle of Higher Education). Unfortunately, I ran…
11th Circuit Freaks Out About Metatags–North American Medical v. Axiom
By Eric Goldman North American Medical Corp. v. Axiom Worldwide, Inc., 2008 WL 918411 (11th Cir. April 7, 2008) Oh man, what a bizarre and frustrating ruling from the 11th Circuit on metatags. The parties compete in the “spinal decompression”…
Rescuecom v. Google Second Circuit Oral Arguments
By Eric Goldman Yesterday the Second Circuit heard oral arguments in Rescuecom v. Google, and reports from the oral arguments are trickling out. James Grimmelmann provides a comprehensive report. Many thanks to James for taking the time to write this…
Rescuecom v. Google Pre-Oral Argument Details
By Eric Goldman We’re anxiously awaiting oral arguments in the Rescuecom v. Google case next week. In advance of that, the court cleaned up a couple of matters: 1) The court denied the amicus brief from Yahoo, AOL and eBay….
Google Site-Specific Search-Within-Search Tool–Why is Everyone So Worked Up About This?
By Eric Goldman On Monday, Bob Tedeschi at the NYT published an article entitled “A New Tool From Google Alarms Sites” about Google’s recently launched site-specific search-within-search box. When I first saw the feature, I really didn’t think about it…
Adwords Ad Creates Initial Interest Confusion–Storus v. Aroa
By Eric Goldman Storus Corp. v. Aroa Marketing Inc., 2008 WL 449835 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 15, 2008). (Sorry for my delay blogging this one). A federal district court has held that displaying a competitor’s trademark in Adwords ad copy constitutes…
Iowa Offers Tax Breaks to “Web Search Portal Businesses”
By Eric Goldman Iowa, showing its technological savvy, has passed a law providing some tax abatements for “web search portal businesses” that invest $200M in the state in 6 years. See HF 2233, enacted Feb. 28, 2008. Most industry participants…
Utah Quietly Killing the Trademark Protection Act [UPDATED]
By Eric Goldman [See update below] We’re coming up on the one year anniversary of the Utah Trademark Protection Act, Utah’s effort to kill/tax keyword advertising. It looks like the law may not survive until its first birthday, as the…
Feb. 2008 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Advertising * BusinessWeek: Monetizing social networking sites isn’t as easy as everyone had hoped, clickthrough rates are through the floor (0.04%!), and ad proliferation on the sites is driving users away. * Wilbur, Kenneth C. and Zhu,…
Rescuecom v. Google Oral Arguments Finally Calendared
By Eric Goldman You may recall Rescuecom v. Google, where the district court dismissed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Google for selling trademarked keywords because the sales lacked the requisite use in commerce. We are all watching this case closely…