June 2006 Quick Links
…1700 articles. Here’s a quick look at some of the items that have caught my attention this month: * The FTC announced its own data breach due to a stolen…
Google Avoids Another Lawsuit Over Rankings (For Now)–Roberts v. Google
…principally alleges a breach of contract. He claims that Google’s “add your URL” feature constituted a unilateral offer, and part of the contract terms were various marketing representations that Google…
Quick Links May 2006
…in France. * 310,000 consumers were affected by Lexis-Nexis’ data breach. Lexis-Nexis offered them a free year of credit monitoring services. Only 6% took Lexis-Nexis up on the offer, a…
Yahoo “Syndication Fraud” Lawsuits–Crafts by Veronica v. Yahoo and Draucker Development v. Yahoo
…premium to avoid such placement). However, despite the serious-sounding use of the term “fraud,” this is actually a fairly garden-variety breach of contract action, and a weak one at that….
NY Enforcement Actions for Reselling Emails in Breach of Privacy Policy
…week, Spitzer’s office announced a settlement with Datran that included a $1.1 million check. Note that Datran didn’t breach the privacy policy directly; it allegedly purchased and used tainted email…
Google Sued Over Rankings–KinderStart.com v. Google
…reluctant to apply this statute to media companies’ publication decisions; there may even be constitutional limits on doing so. * Breach of Implied Covenant of Good Faith/Fair Dealing. This is…
NCSoft Sued in South Korea for ID Theft
…capitalize on consumer outrage. I’m inferring from news reports that NCSoft collected the ID number unnecessarily and consumers are ticked about the security breach and its possible implications (even if…
Top Cyberspace IP Cases of 2005
…NCSoft Corp., No. CV 04-9253-RGK (C.D. Cal. Aug. 22, 2005). In a later ruling, NCSoft’s claims that Marvel sent bogus takedown notices under the false DMCA notification provisions of 17…
10th Circuit Recognizes Initial Interest Confusion Doctrine–Australian Gold v. Hatfield
…products via the websites. Unquestionably, the defendants engaged in bad behavior, such as lying to get the product and causing the intermediate distributors to breach their agreements. The defendants also…
DOJ Fishes for Search Records, and Google Fights Back–Gonzales v. Google
…Bush’s administration is engaged in domestic surveillance, the NSA and other agencies illegally use tracking cookies and even members of Congress breach their own voluntarily-adopted privacy policies. We don’t need…