Some reading for this class:
1. History
A blog relating to Internet legal issues by Professor John Swinson, University of Queensland
"There is no stopping Google selling trademark terms as keywords. That is the message from the US courts this week. A judge from the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has dismissed Rosetta Stone's case against the search giant, effectively killing off once and for all the conventional method of attacking the AdWords programme.
Rescuecom had already dropped its case against Google (in order to fight a suit on exactly the same issue but where it is the defendant). But the fact that a court has now dismissed this type of case is very surprising, as it shows that they cannot even get to court anymore. The message is that mark owners will be wasting their time suing Google for trademark infringement. The Court of Justice of the European Union recently said the same thing, although it left the door open for mark owners to sue those third-party advertisers that purchase competitors' trademark terms as keywords.
While the Best Buy v Rescuecom case will be tried from this particular angle, it appears that Google is off the hook. Users of the AdWords programme may sue each other, but the view of one US court at least is that there's no point suing Google. If trademark counsel want to stop the sale of their trademark terms to their competitors, they need to switch tactics. Fast."
Source: World Trademark Review
Australian Treasury Guidelines for e-commerce
Terms of use
What are the common clauses / differences between these Terms of Use?
Clickwrap / Shrinkwrap agreements
What can you do to try and make a clickwrap agreement enforceable?
How will unfair terms legislation affect these agreements?
Enforcing Click Wrap Agreements
EBay Inc did not engage in trademark infringement and dilution by selling counterfeit Tiffany & Co goods on its website, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday, but it ordered further review of the jeweler's claim of false advertising.
Tiffany and other luxury brands have long argued that counterfeit merchandise bearing their names is sold on eBay. The Web commerce company, which does not itself put the goods up for sale, says it has spent millions of dollars to track down counterfeiters and remove such listings.
The DC Circuit court recently vacated the FCC's order imposing sanctions on Comcast Corp. for its network management practices. It held that the Commission failed to tie its assertion of ancillary regulatory authority over Comcast's Internet service to any "statutorily mandated responsibility."
"In this case we must decide whether the Federal Communications Commission has authority to regulate an Internet service provider’s network management practices. ..."
Here is the opinion: http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/201004/08-1291-1238302.pdf
http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/
How I got sued by Facebook
...Their contention was robots.txt had no legal force and they could sue anyone for accessing their site even if they scrupulously obeyed the instructions it contained.
Pete Warden vs. Facebook: a case of too much data access
... Pete Warden had a really great idea: to map the friendship interactions of Facebook users to aid with geospatial analysis of user relationships. Facebook's lawyers had a different view.
"Breathing some new life into the “hot news” doctrine, Judge Cote of the Southern District of New York recently issued a permanent injunction requiring the Internet-based financial news site TheFlyOnTheWall.com (Fly) to delay its reporting of stock recommendations from Wall Street research analysts. ..."
Listen to this podcast where I discuss how damages should be assessed in privacy and cybersecurity lawsuits. The Lawyers Weekly Show host J...