A blog relating to Internet legal issues by Professor John Swinson, University of Queensland
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Fake Consumer Reviews
On the consumer protection front, the FTC settled charges that a public relations agency engaged in deceptive advertising “by having employees pose as ordinary consumers posting game reviews at the online iTunes store, and not disclosing that the reviews came from paid employees working on behalf of the developers. This activity was in violation of the FTC's Revised Endorsement Guidelines which require disclosure. The PR firm, Reverb Communications, is required to take down the fraudulent postings and bars them from making similar postings in the future without appropriate disclosures.
Press release: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/08/reverb.shtm
Links to Complaint and Consent Order: http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/0923199/index.shtm
Information on the FTC's Revised Endorsement Guidelines (16 CFR Part 255): http://ftc.gov/multimedia/video/business/endorsement-guides.shtm
Google and Privacy
A video cartoon featuring Google's chief giving away ice-cream to snoop on children aired on a giant screen in Times Square today as a privacy group continued to hound the internet giant.
Consumer Watchdog took its gripes with Google to the centre of Manhattan, where it paid to have a "Don't be evil?" animated clip shown on a "Jumbotron" screen above the masses coursing through Times Square.
New Californian Privacy Law: CPRA to effectively replace CCPA
On U.S. Election Day, 3 November 2020, voters in the State of California overwhelmingly voted in favour of Proposition 24—a ballot measure t...

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The United Nations intellectual property agency (WIPO) is the latest front in the US-China trade war. http://www.theage.com.au/world/sad-am...
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Carly Long, an expert in domain name litigation, will teach the first half of the class this Tuesday evening. You may wish to have a look a...
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This website has some useful links and references: http://www.epiphanysolutions.co.uk/article-index/rights-and-laws-of-the-internet/
