The Federal Trade Commission has finalized a new rule aimed at curtailing false, misleading, and otherwise fraudulent reviews on online retail sites. Fake reviews are a significant problem for the big e-commerce platforms,...more
8/28/2024
/ Cybersquatting ,
Defamation ,
Domain Names ,
E-Commerce ,
Endorsements ,
Fake Reviews ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Google ,
Instagram ,
Microsoft ,
Online Reviews ,
Reddit ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Social Media
In this second installment of our six-part series examining Section 230, the section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) that immunizes online service providers from liability stemming from the publication and...more
11/15/2023
/ Communications Decency Act ,
Defamation ,
Distributors ,
Immunity ,
Online Platforms ,
Publishers ,
Safe Harbors ,
Section 230 ,
Third-Party ,
User-Generated Content ,
Website Owner Liability
In this second installment of our six-part series examining Section 230, the section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) that immunizes online service providers from liability stemming from the publication and...more
In Ganske v. Mensch, a defamation suit stemming from a “battle by Tweet,” a federal district court in New York held that the allegedly defamatory statements in the defendant’s Tweet were nonactionable statements of opinion...more
In Elliott v. Donegan, a federal district court in New York held that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act does not warrant the dismissal of a defamation claim where the plaintiff’s complaint did not “foreclose[] the...more
8/25/2020
/ Allegations ,
Communications Decency Act ,
Defamation ,
Dismissals ,
Immunity ,
Interactive Process ,
Internet ,
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) ,
Media ,
Section 230 ,
Sexual Assault ,
Third-Party ,
Websites ,
Willful Misconduct
A federal district court in California has added to the small body of case law addressing whether it’s permissible for one party to use another party’s trademark as a hashtag. The court held that, for several reasons, the 9th...more
An advertising executive who lost his job after being named on an anonymous Instagram account is suing the now-defunct account for defamation. The suit names as defendants not only the account—Diet Madison Avenue, which was...more
Based on copyright infringement, emotional distress and other claims, a federal district court in California awarded $6.4 million to a victim of revenge porn, the posting of explicit material without the subject’s consent....more
In a decision that has generated considerable controversy, a federal court in New York has held that the popular practice of embedding tweets into websites and blogs can result in copyright infringement. Plaintiff Justin...more
As we have noted previously, YouTube users sometimes object when the online video giant removes their videos based on terms-of-use violations, such as artificially inflated view counts. In a recent California case,...more
A defamation suit brought by one reality television star against another—and naming Discovery Communications as a defendant—could determine to what extent (if any) media companies may be held responsible for what their talent...more
8/9/2017
/ Alphabet Company ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Defamation ,
EU ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Free Speech ,
Google ,
Influencers ,
Marketing ,
Social Media ,
UK
As we noted in our recent post on the Ninth Circuit case Kimzey v. Yelp! Inc., in the right circumstances, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) still provides robust protection against liability for website...more
2016 has been a challenging year for Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) and the website operators who depend on it for protection against liability stemming from user-generated content. An unusually large...more
Instagram now allows celebrities to block trolls. The rest of us will have to continue trying to ignore Instagram trolls.
While Facebook reached new highs last quarter, Twitter continued to stumble. Will adding more live...more
8/1/2016
/ Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) ,
Defamation ,
Emoji ,
Facebook ,
Instagram ,
LinkedIn ,
Pinterest ,
Snapchat ,
Social Media ,
Trolls ,
Twitter ,
Yelp
The Newspaper Association of America has filed a first-of-its-kind complaint with the FTC over certain ad blocking technologies.
Is it “Internet” or “internet”? The Associated Press is about to change the capitalization...more
Five social media law issues to discuss with your clients -
The explosive growth of social media has clients facing legal questions that didn’t even exist a few short years ago. Helping your clients navigate this...more
10/15/2015
/ Anonymity ,
Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Blogging Platforms ,
Browsewrap Agreement ,
Class Action ,
Clickwrap Agreements ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Customer Lists ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
Defamation ,
Discovery ,
Discrimination ,
Electronically Stored Information ,
Employee Privacy Rights ,
Employee Training ,
Enforceability ,
EULA ,
Evidence ,
Facebook ,
Facebook Friends ,
False Advertising ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Internal Investigations ,
Job Applicants ,
Mobile Apps ,
Motion to Compel ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Online Endorsements ,
Online Reviews ,
Passwords ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Popular ,
Privacy Policy ,
Protected Class ,
Protected Concerted Activity ,
RadioShack ,
Representations and Warranties ,
Screening Procedures ,
Section 5 ,
Social Media ,
Social Media Account Ownership ,
Social Media Policy ,
Subpoenas ,
Terms and Conditions ,
Terms of Use ,
Third-Party ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices ,
Workplace Investigations
In a precedent-setting ruling, the Washington Court of Appeals in Thomson v. Doe refused to grant a motion to compel brought by a defamation plaintiff who had subpoenaed the lawyer-review site Avvo.com seeking the identity of...more
Are parents now liable for what their kids post to Facebook? According to a recent decision in the Georgia Court of Appeals, they are.
The Georgia Court of Appeals held that the parents of a seventh-grade student...more
Status check. In the recently released Corporate Directors Survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers, 41% of corporate board members reported that their companies monitor social media for adverse publicity. That’s up from 32% in...more
..Completely liable? A Hong Kong court has found that Google may be liable for defamation based on the words that it used to “auto-complete” a person’s name in a search. In this case, the words that were added implied that...more