The South Australian Full Court decided against Google Inc. in the recent case of Google v. Duffy. See http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/sa/SASCFC/2017/130.html
Google's search results included defamatory material. Google was found to be a secondary publisher.
Case note here.
A blog relating to Internet legal issues by Professor John Swinson, University of Queensland
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AirBNB Hell
An interesting website that points out the risks of using AirBNB for both hosts and guests, www.airbnbhell.com
Digital Watermarks on Printed Documents
"The question is how the government identified her so quickly, and the answer may be that she was inadvertently outed by the Intercept itself. That’s because the website posted an image of the leaked document containing an almost-invisible code applied by the printer that produced the document sent to the Intercept. The digital watermark identified the printer model and serial number, along with the time and date then document was printed out."
See LA Times
See LA Times
Meriton found guilty of manipulating TripAdvisor Reviews
Serviced apartment and hotel operator Meriton was found to have engaged in illegal conduct by manipulating TripAdvisor reviews. The ACCC sued Meriton and won. The ACCC brought actions under s18 and the little used s34 of the Australian Consumer Law.
See judgment at: http://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2017/2017fca1305
According to the judgment, Meriton manipulated TripAdvisor in two ways:
See judgment at: http://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2017/2017fca1305
According to the judgment, Meriton manipulated TripAdvisor in two ways:
"The respondent (Meriton) conducts a business of offering serviced apartment accommodation at (at least) 13 properties in Queensland and New South Wales. These properties appear on the TripAdvisor website. During the period November 2014 to October 2015 (the relevant period), Meriton participated in the Review Express service offered by TripAdvisor. On a weekly basis, Meriton provided TripAdvisor with the email addresses of guests who had stayed at its properties and TripAdvisor sent email invitations to these guests to post a review. However, rather than sending TripAdvisor the email addresses of all guests who had stayed at its properties (other than those who had requested that their details not be provided), Meriton adopted the following two practices:
(a) The first practice was to add the letters “MSA” (which stand for Meriton Serviced Apartments) to the front of the email addresses of certain guests. This rendered the email address invalid. This practice was applied to guests who had made a complaint or were otherwise considered likely to have had a negative experience at a Meriton property. I will refer to this practice as the MSA-masking practice.
(b) The second practice was to withhold from TripAdvisor the email addresses of all the guests who had stayed at a property during a period of time when there had been a major service disruption (such as the lifts not working, no hot water, etc). I will refer to this practice as the bulk withholding practice."
Alleged Illegal Conduct by Apple
Apple is being sued in Australia by the ACCC in relation to the Error 53 software fault in iPhones. When this fault bricked iPhones and iPads, Apple refused to fix the problem where third parties had done prior repairs.
The latest judgment on a procedural motion is http://www.judgments.fedcourt .gov.au/judgments/Judgments/ fca/single/2017/2017fca1329
The latest judgment on a procedural motion is http://www.judgments.fedcourt
Regulation of Automated Vehicles in Australia
The Australian National Transport Commission has released a discussion paper
Regulatory options to assure automated vehicle safety in Australia. The paper identifies 4 regulatory options for a safety assurance system for automated vehicle technology.
Submissions for this discussion paper are open until 4pm, Friday, 28 July 2017.
The NTC expects to present it preferred regulatory option to the Minister in November 2017.
Full
media release.
Metatags and Google advertisements found to be trademark infringements
In an appeal decision handed down on Friday, the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia has affirmed a trial judge's decision that metatags and Google advertisements were trademark infringements.
The case is Accor Australia & New Zealand Hospitality Pty Ltd v Liv Pty Ltd [2017] FCAFC 56.
The case concerned a real estate agent advertising short term accommodation, using the name of a nearby Accor hotel (which was a registered trademark) to attract Internet users to the real estate agent's booking website.
The court confirmed findings of the trial judge that the following were trademark uses and trademark infringements: use of of the trademark in the domain name, use in metatags for the website, use in headings for the website, use in email addresses, and use in Google advertisements.
The case is Accor Australia & New Zealand Hospitality Pty Ltd v Liv Pty Ltd [2017] FCAFC 56.
The case concerned a real estate agent advertising short term accommodation, using the name of a nearby Accor hotel (which was a registered trademark) to attract Internet users to the real estate agent's booking website.
The court confirmed findings of the trial judge that the following were trademark uses and trademark infringements: use of of the trademark in the domain name, use in metatags for the website, use in headings for the website, use in email addresses, and use in Google advertisements.
First Amendment and Social Media
Social media and First Amendment issues were debated in oral argument before the US Supreme Court in Packingham v. North Carolina.
See: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/packingham-v-north-carolina/
Issue: Whether, under the court’s First Amendment precedents, a law that makes it a felony for any person on the state's registry of former sex offenders to “access” a wide array of websites – including Facebook, YouTube, and nytimes.com – that enable communication, expression, and the exchange of information among their users, if the site is “know[n]” to allow minors to have accounts, is permissible, both on its face and as applied to petitioner, who was convicted based on a Facebook post in which he celebrated dismissal of a traffic ticket, declaring “God is Good!”
In oral argument on 27 February 2017, Justice Kennedy drew an analogy between social media and the public square. Justice Ginsburg said restricting access to social media would mean being cut off from a very large part of the marketplace of ideas. The First Amendment includes not only the right to speak, but the right to receive information.
See: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/packingham-v-north-carolina/
Issue: Whether, under the court’s First Amendment precedents, a law that makes it a felony for any person on the state's registry of former sex offenders to “access” a wide array of websites – including Facebook, YouTube, and nytimes.com – that enable communication, expression, and the exchange of information among their users, if the site is “know[n]” to allow minors to have accounts, is permissible, both on its face and as applied to petitioner, who was convicted based on a Facebook post in which he celebrated dismissal of a traffic ticket, declaring “God is Good!”
In oral argument on 27 February 2017, Justice Kennedy drew an analogy between social media and the public square. Justice Ginsburg said restricting access to social media would mean being cut off from a very large part of the marketplace of ideas. The First Amendment includes not only the right to speak, but the right to receive information.
It is hard to control where your ads will appear online
Advertisers are leaving YouTube, because their advertisements are being placed in close proximity to hate speech and other offensive material.
See NY Times story, Perils of Online Ads
See NY Times story, Perils of Online Ads
Book - The Last Days of Night
An interesting book, a novel, about a new lawyer in New York, Paul Cravath, who founded one of NY's best law firms, and his representation of Westinghouse against Edison in patent disputes. The Last Days of Night. It shows that patent disputes have been going on for 100 years whenever new technology suddenly blossoms.
GST Tax obligations for non-Australian offshore sellers
Recently, the Australian Taxation Office released a draft GST ruling (GSTR 2016/D1)
to
assist foreign suppliers of digital and other intangible products to
determine when they will be liable to Australian GST (an indirect tax like VAT) on supplies they
make to Australian consumers.
The
draft GST ruling explains what steps suppliers should take to collect
evidence to establish whether or not the recipient of a supply is an
Australian consumer.
Assaults on Privacy in the USA
A good article in Harvard Magazine titled "How surveillance changes people's behaviour: assaults on privacy in America." See article here.
EU ePrivacy
On 10 January 2017, the European Commission published a
Proposal for a Regulation could have significant implications for Internet-based services and technologies.
The Proposal seeks to revise the current EU ePrivacy Directive. It creates strict new rules
regarding confidentiality of electronic communications, including
content and metadata. In addition, the Proposal amends the current rules
on the use of cookies and similar technologies, and direct marketing.
The rules apply to EU and non-EU companies providing
services in the EU, and are backed up by significant enforcement
powers—fines of up to four percent of a company's global turnover.
The Proposal is the next major step in the EU's review of its data protection legal framework and follows the adoption of the
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in April 2016.
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