Announcing the 2024 Edition of My Internet Law Casebook
I’m pleased to announce the 2024 edition (15th edition) of my Internet Law casebook, Internet Law: Cases & Materials. The book is available as a PDF at Gumroad for $10,…
Section 230 Helps Substack Defeat a Defamation Claim–Smith v. Substack
This case involves the CancelWatch “blog” on Substack, which says: “We report the activists trying to ruin people’s lives and careers.” In July 2023, it made a post entitled “Oliver…
Section 230 Doesn’t Preempt Utah’s Minor Protection in Social Media Act–NetChoice v. Reyes
Utah passed a terrible law claiming to be “for the kids,” which are increasingly prevalent at the state level. The court summarizes some of the law’s obligations: the Act requires…
Ryanair v. Booking CFAA Trial Ends with Strangest Possible Outcome (Guest Blog Post)
by Kieran McCarthy Ryanair recently “prevailed” in its CFAA claim in its litigation against Booking.com. I use scare quotes around “prevailed” because, according to the jury verdict, the actual damages…
Court Blows Up Gmail’s Section 230 Protection, But Allegations of Biased Spam Filtering Still Fail–Republican National Committee v. Google
Prior blog post. If I say so myself, it was a really good post–you should read it first and then read this post. In my prior post, I wrote: “I…
Government Agencies Can’t Use Dumb Word Filters to Screen Social Media Comments–PETA v. Tabak
PETA promotes its animal rights agenda by making lots of online comments, an advocacy technique that may cross over from being aggressive to being annoying. In this case, they were…
Google Can Terminate Account Based on CSAM Allegations–Baker v. Google
The scenario: Google thought that a user uploaded CSAM and terminated her account. The user disagreed, appealed, and got nowhere. The user took the matter to court (pro se), where…
Section 230 Preempts FOSTA Claim–Doe v. WebGroup Czech Republic
This is a FOSTA case. It reached the 9th Circuit on personal jurisdiction grounds. The 9th Circuit held that some foreign defendants were subject to jurisdiction. On remand, the court…
Everything You Wanted to Know About the Moody v. NetChoice Supreme Court Opinion
Normally, when a major Internet Law development occurs, I write two posts. First, I write up a quick hit for the media. See my short statement on the Moody v….
Competitor Isn’t Responsible for Google Knowledge Panel’s Contents–International Star Registry v. RGIFTS
This lawsuit involves competitors in the “star registry” niche 🙄. The incumbent is the International Star Registry of Illinois. The challenger is RGIFTS. The incumbent doesn’t like the competition and…