Articles & Reports – Internet Law Committee – Practically Pocket Sized Guide to Internet Law
Litigation Arising From the Use of AdWords
John C. Greiner* I. INTRODUCTION When a user types words into a search engine, such as Google, ads often appear above the main search results or to the right, in a section entitled “Sponsored Links.” Google refers to these purchased Keywords as “AdWords” because they trigger the advertisements. These ads are not random. Advertisers pay…
The Google Library Settlement Agreement
By Samuel Fifer* Google has long aspired to being, and will very soon be the most powerful and most popular library in the United States – if it can renegotiate a Settlement Agreement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers that can withstand fairness scrutiny from the court. The agreement may grant…
Online Behavioral Advertising Concerns and Industry Self-Regulation
By Katherine Surprenant* Consumer information has always been valuable to companies engaged in marketing and selling products and services. In the Digital Age, industry has invested substantial resources in technological innovations that facilitate the collection and use of such information online. Given the increasing ease with which companies can obtain, organize and store personal information…
WikiJurisprudence – References to Wikipedia in the Law
By Wade A. Thomson* Virtually everyone who uses the Internet has used Wikipedia to quickly find answers to questions large and small. In fact, Wikipedia is currently the 5th most visited Web site worldwide.[1] So it should come as no great surprise that Wikipedia has increasingly appeared in legal work product, including briefs and judicial…
U.K. Privacy Law: Where the Public Interest Is the Missing Party
By Mark Stephens* Your client’s photographer takes a picture of Kate Moss with her child on Rodeo Drive with a long lens camera from approximately 50ft away. Is this safe to publish? Media organisations across America have been receiving letters threatening to bring proceedings in the Courts of England and Wales and continental Europe for…
Internet Libel: The ‘Get-Message’ From London
By Mark Stephens* London has developed the reputation as the libel capital of the globe, with crooks, brigands and minor businessmen & celebrities jetting-in to launder their reputations before a Court which finds for claimants in about 90% of cases. Notoriously, the media bears the burden of proving truth, and is mulcted in damages for…
Keyword-Based Online Advertisements: Targeting With Others’ Trademarks
By Mark Sableman* The use of others’ trademarks, in Internet searches, as a trigger for targeted advertisements has become ubiquitous on the Internet. The Google AdWords program is built on ads based on search words, and often those words are the trademarks of another party. While courts are advancing toward a resolution of this issue,…
Courts Conflict Over Trademark Usage In Meta Tags
By Jack Greiner What once appeared to be a split between the Second Circuit and the Eleventh Circuit over the issue of trademarks in meta tags may not be a big split after all. But issues concerning initial interest confusion spawned by the use of trademarks in meta tags continue to occupy federal courts. Meta…
Mom Beats Prince: DMCA Takedown Notice Bites Back
By Jeremy D. Mishkin* The Artist-formerly-and-once-again-known-as-Prince has made no secret of his disdain for user-generated Web content that incorporates his music. Prince believes it is wrong for YouTube, or any other use-generated site, to appropriate his music without his consent. That position has nothing to do with any particular video that uses his songs. It’s…
Music Webcasting – The Basics
By Jeremy D. Mishkin* As more entertainment is created online, gets carried by more networks, both wired and wireless, and gets delivered by more devices to more people, it’s helpful to stop for a moment and remember that intellectual property rules still apply. While the Web certainly enables anyone to be a publisher or broadcaster,…
Employee “Authorization” Under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
Download Publication By John C. Greiner, Graydon Head & Ritchey* I. INTRODUCTION – HISTORY OF THE CFAA The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA” or “Act”) is a criminal statute that prohibits certain activities involving unauthorized access to computers.[1] Congress enacted it in 1984 in response to the growth of computer use and availability and…
Data Breach Notification Laws
Since January, 2005, there have been at least 261,774,380 data records containing personal information – the type of information useful to identity thieves, such as Social Security numbers, account numbers and driver’s license numbers – involved in security breaches in the U.S.[1] For example, on August 1, 2008, in Columbus, Ohio, a flash drive containing…
Access to Government E-mails
By Steven D. Zansberg* A review of the growing body of case law addressing whether public employees’ emails are subject to states’ public records laws reveals a general trend: it is the content of the email (i.e. is it of a personal nature or does it discuss public business) not its location (public computer vs….
The Federal Trade Commission’s Online Behavioral Advertising Inquiry
By Lydia A. Jones[1] Introduction In December 2007, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) released a set of proposed principles to guide the development of industry self-regulation of online behavioral advertising (“OBA”). In publishing these proposed principles, the FTC acknowledged that while behavioral advertising may provide benefits to consumers, including in the form of free content…
Online Disclosure of Obscure or Private Material
By Jeffrey P. Hermes and James P. Bair[1] The Internet provides a ready forum for those who seek to disclose private or otherwise obscure information and material, whether out of a profit motive (e.g., by offering paid access to celebrity “sex tapes” and other such personal material), out of a desire to protect the public…
Consumer Data Privacy and the First Amendment
By Bruce E.H. Johnson* I. INTRODUCTION Technology continues to change American consumers’ definition of, and expectations about, their privacy rights. In recent years, privacy advocates have been pushing for broader protections for personal information, beyond the sector by sector (e.g., health care, higher education, video and cable, financial institutions, etc.) system of privacy regulations that…
Lori Drew Conviction: Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in New Territory
Lori Drew, a Missouri mother and alleged cyber-bully, was convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) on November 26, 2008 of three misdemeanor counts of accessing MySpace’s computers without authorization. Nearly one year later, on August 28, 2009, a federal judge overturned the conviction on constitutional grounds, holding that the mere act of…
The Single Publication Rule on the Internet
Download Publication By John C. Greiner* The Single Publication Rule was first established in the case of Gregoire v. G.P. Putnam’s Sons.[1] It provides that a cause of action for defamation ensues on the date that the material is first published. Subsequently distributed issues of the newspaper or magazine do not trigger the running of…
Responding to Demands to Correct or Remove Dated Online Material
By Thomas R. Burke and Ambika K. Doran[1] What should an online news publisher do in response to demands to correct, update or remove an article archived online because it includes facts about the individual that, while accurate when the article was first published, have since changed? Internet search engines are spawning these situations—for example,…
Online Retractions: How to Correct Libelous Errors On a Web Site
By Thomas R. Burke and Jeff Glasser[1] While news web sites have proliferated online, many of the publishers of these web sites have neglected to implement procedures to correct substantive errors on the Internet. Website owners may reduce their potential liability from defamation claims for original content they publish simply by publishing corrections or retractions…
The Impact of Ninth Circuit’s Roommates.com Ruling on Websites
By Thomas R. Burke and Ambika K. Doran1 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, this Spring issued its widely anticipated decision in Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com addressing the scope of immunity afforded by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 to mixed content websites.2 Although…
Practically Pocket-Sized Internet Law Treatise
Concise articles on a wide-range of Internet law questions that come up in day-to-day media law practice.