• Lawsuit panned by Court. The popular ratings app Yelp has been cleared by a federal appeals court of allegations in a class action lawsuit that the company extorted advertising dollars from businesses by threatening to remove positive user reviews or to highlight negative ones. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, affirming a District Court ruling, found that the plaintiffs failed to present sufficient evidence that any such coercion had occurred. Yelp says it has never altered a business review for money. The appeals court said that, in any case, the conduct alleged by plaintiffs amounted only to “hard bargaining,” not to extortion under federal law.
  • Shuttered images. Not long ago, Twitpic was the best-established third-party image-sharing service on Twitter. But Twitpic just announced that it is shutting down in the wake of a drawn-out trademark battle with Twitter. Twitpic’s founder said that Twitter threatened to cut off Twitpic’s access to its application programming interface, or API, if Twitpic did not abandon its trademark. The API involves the software tools that allow developers to tap into Twitter’s platform. Twitter responded that while Twitpic could use that name, “we have to protect our brand, and that includes trademarks tied to the brand.”
  • Drinking and posting don’t mix. In St. Joseph, Missouri, the local police have informed bar owners that, under state law, not only are they prohibited from sponsoring “all-you-can-drink” specials, but they cannot advertise on social media the prices associated with drink specials. The police take the position that the applicable state law, which reportedly restricts the advertising via traditional media of the exact prices of drink specials, applies to social media as well. The bar owners have objected, and the St. Joseph city attorney is seeking clarification from the state as to the scope of the statute.