Legal Niches

A federal judge has referred Facebook's lawsuit against spam king Sanford Wallace to the U.S. Attorney's office for possible criminal prosecution.

Microsoft has filed a click fraud suit against three individuals and several corporations they control.  "Microsoft said it's taking the action to crack down on click fraud, in which automated computer scripts or large groups of people click on online advertisements without having any interest in the services or product being advertised. The company alleges that the defendants engaged in "competitor click fraud," one form of the ruse in which a perpetrator seeks to exhaust a competitor's advertising budget while boosting the prospects of their own advertisements. Online advertisers pay based on how many users click on their advertisements."

The nation's only file-sharing case to go to trial has done so again.  At her first trial, in 2007, a $222,000 judgment was awarded against Jammie Thomas-Rasset.  Last week, a different federal jury found her liable for the willful infringement of copyrights on 24 songs and awarded recording companies $1.92 million.

Each weekend, E-Commerce Law Briefs provides a brief summary and commentary on recent legal news affecting e-commerce businesses.