By Eric Goldman Oren Bracha and Frank Pasquale, Federal Search Commission? Access, Fairness and Accountability in the Law of Search Frank Pasquale has written several interesting papers on search engine regulation. See, e.g., my blog post on a prior work…
By Eric Goldman Recently I blogged on a study showing that consumers like search results more when they are branded as coming from Google, even if the search results are substantively identical. We now have a similar study, this time…
By Eric Goldman Gordon v. Virtumundo, 06-0204-JCC (W.D. Wash. Aug. 1, 2007) I believe this ruling represents the first time that a CAN-SPAM plaintiff has been ordered to pay attorneys’ fees and costs to a defendant. As a result, it’s…
By Eric Goldman New Mexico v. Kirby, 2007-NMSC-034 (N.M. June 13, 2007) This is a very confusing case, so maybe you can help me figure out what it means. At minimum, this case highlights the problems that can be arise…
By Eric Goldman Virtual Worlds * After a remarkable run as media darlings, Second Life is now experiencing some of the inevitable backlash. Case in point: Wired’s “How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life.” In this…
By Eric Goldman Search Engines * According to this study, up to 40% of search queries are “re-finding queries” (i.e., the searcher is trying to re-find previously viewed information). The implication: “Because people repeat queries so frequently, search engines should…
By Ethan Ackerman In June, privacy advocates generally celebrated the Sixth Circuit’s important 4th Amendment ruling in US. v. Warshak. But hot on its heels, the Ninth Circuit sobered the tone rather quickly in US. v. Alba, declining to find…
By Eric Goldman Douglas v. US District Court ex rel Talk America, No. 06-75424 (9th Cir. July 18, 2007) In this case, the plaintiff initially procured telephony services from AOL, which subsequently sold its telephony business to Talk America. Talk…
By Eric Goldman Burgess v. American Express Co., 2007 NCBC 15 (N.C. Superior Ct. May 21, 2007) David Fish points to an interesting new ruling on the subject of advertiser liability for pop-up advertising (I’m inferring that the pop-ups were…
By Eric Goldman The EFF, Lycos and I have filed an amicus brief in the Fair Housing Council v. Roommate.com case urging the Ninth Circuit to rehear the case en banc. See the EFF’s news release about the brief. Other…