Review Website Gets Hammered In Court–Consumer Cellular v. ConsumerAffairs
…for pay-to-remove businesses. Case citation: Consumer Cellular, Inc. v. ConsumerAffairs.com, 3:15-CV-1908-PK (D. Ore.). Magistrate report, 2016 WL 3176602 (Feb. 29, 2016). Trial court adoption of magistrate report (June 2, 2016)….
Yelp Forced To Remove Defamatory Reviews–Hassell v. Bird
…Yelp. This is in contrast to the Ripoff Report cases like Blockowicz and Giordano (discussed below), where users couldn’t delete reviews after publishing them. The court could have thrown the…
WTF Is Going On With Section 230?–Cross v. Facebook
…Ripoff Report isn’t a “neutral publisher” (sorry, I can never write that term without pointing out it’s an oxymoron). * J.S. v. Village Voice. Section 230 dismissal denied when plaintiff…
FTC Wins Deception Case Over Faux User-Generated Content–Fanning v. FTC
John Fanning challenged the FTC findings that the website he developed, named Jerk.com, materially misrepresented its attributes. On appeal, the First Circuit affirms. Jerk.com resembled Ripoff Report, but for people….
Google Isn’t Required To De-Index Negative Ripoff Report–Fakhrian v. Google (Forbes Cross-Post)
…removing user posts, even if defamatory (Ripoff Report has since slightly relaxed its absolutist stance), and (3) Ripoff Report’s venerability causes its posts to show up highly in Google’s search…
Marquette University’s Troubling Report on Faculty Blogger (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Stephen F. Diamond At the heart of an important and deeply troubling faculty committee report involving academic freedom at Marquette University is the conclusion that a blog…
The Pros and (Scary) Cons of the New EU Trade Secret Directive, Part 1 (Guest Blog Post)
…and on both sides of the Atlantic. First came the “Report on Trade Secrets for the European Commission” in 2011, followed in 2013, by the Obama Administration’s “Strategy for Mitigating…
The New ‘Defend Trade Secrets Act’ Is The Biggest IP Development In Years (Forbes Cross-Post)
…to research and argue both sets of law. Trade secret litigation is already extremely expensive; according to the AIPLA Report of the Economic Survey 2015, the median cost for a…
Senate Judiciary Committee Passes Amended Defend Trade Secrets Act. What Changed? (Guest Blog Post)
…owners standing to assert secrecy concerns in such cases. (See report on new Section 3 below). [Eric’s comment: in my article, I suggested that the ex parte seizure provision be…
Posting Mocking Photo To Social Media May Be Tortious….If You’re Shaq–Binion v. O’Neal
…their outsized social media footprint. Perez Hilton reports that “Shaq FINALLY Apologizes For Mocking A Man With A Rare Disorder Online! Read His Tweet HERE!” The article does not report…