Legal Niches

Starting, Operating, and Exiting an Internet Business: Common Mistakes and Internet Marketing

Posted on April 19, 2013
Please join me tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. for Power of Attorney, which airs every Saturday on Federal News Radio (1500 AM and 820 AM in the D.C. Metro Area and everywhere at www.federalnewsradio.com). The next four episodes of the show will be devoted to starting, operating, and exiting an...

Starting an Internet Business: Licensing and Common Mistakes

Posted on April 10, 2013
On April 9, Jon posted a blog on the upcoming Power of Attorney radio show this Saturday at 10:00 am on Federal News Radio, that will feature Eric Horvitz and me discussing licensing requirements for Internet entrepreneurs. The show is intended to break down many of the steps that a...

The Admissibility of Electronic Evidence Under the Federal Rules of Evidence

Posted on February 03, 2011
Most information is now communicated, generated, or stored electronically so "it can be expected that electronic evidence will constitute much, if not most, of the evidence used in future motions practice or at trial." See Lorraine v. Markel Am. Ins. Co...

Law Firm that "Cut and Paste" Section from Competing Firm's Website Properly Sued in Plaintiff's Home Forum

Posted on June 09, 2010
On May 28, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court?s denial of the defendant?s motion to dismiss for improper venue in a copyright infringement action. Brayton Purcell LLP v. Recordon & Recordon, 2010 WL 2135302 (9th Cir...

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Injunction is No Great Leap for Court in ?Skydive Arizona? Case

Posted on May 18, 2010
On April 29, 2010, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona granted, in part, Plaintiff?s request to enjoin the Defendants' use of certain trademarks and domain names related to skydiving in Arizona. Skydive Arizona, Inc. v. Quattrocchi, 2010 WL 1743189 (D...

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of May 10, 2010

Posted on May 17, 2010
Facebook has unveiled some of the details of EdgeRank, the algorithm the popular social media site uses to display relevant content in user's News Feeds. To avoid overwhelming a user, Facebook's News Feed displays only a subset of stories generated by that user's Facebook friends...

?Read and Understood? But Not ?Agreed? ? A Forum Selection Clause and Changing Venue for the Convenience of the Parties

Posted on May 12, 2010
On April 27, 2010, the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Washington granted a Motion for Change of Venue to transfer a case to the Eastern District of Virginia, after finding that a forum selection clause was never ?agreed? to by the party to be bound...

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of May 3, 2010

Posted on May 12, 2010
"Doctors at a California children's hospital have found the first evidence that using an electronic system to communicate their orders may save lives."

Connect to E-Commerce Law on Facebook

Posted on May 05, 2010
We've added another way to connect to E-Commerce Law: Facebook. If you press the "Like" button at the top of the right side column, E-Commerce Law updates will be included in your Facebook newsfeed. Please let us know how you like this new feature.

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of March 22, 2010

Posted on March 29, 2010
The recent alleged Chinese cyber attacks on Google have prompted the U.S. government to consider establishing an ambassador-level cybersecurity post and to tie foreign aid to a country's ability to curb cybercrime. A new government report concludes that taxpayer data held by the IRS may be at risk...

"No Meat" in Quiznos' Motion for Summary Judgment

Posted on March 22, 2010
On February 19, 2010, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut denied Quiznos? motion for summary judgment on Subway?s suit for false and deceptive advertising in violation of the Lanham Act, along with state law claims for commercial disparagement and violation of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices...

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of March 15, 2010

Posted on March 22, 2010
More states are considering forcing e-commerce sites to collect sales tax. Since we last addressed the issue, Maryland legislators have taken testimony relevant to a bill that would require websites who employ local marketing affiliates to collect sales tax in the state...

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of February 22, 2010

Posted on March 01, 2010
Last week, Microsoft sent a DMCA notice to Network Solutions complaining about cryptome.org, a website which "welcomes documents for publication that are prohibited by governments worldwide, in particular material on freedom of expression, privacy, cryptology, dual-use technologies, national security, intelligence, and secret governance -- open, secret and classified documents --...

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of January 25, 2010

Posted on February 01, 2010
A federal judge has reduced the verdict in the only file-sharing case to have gone to trial in the United States. The case has now been tried twice. In 2007, a $222,000 judgment was awarded against a Minnesota woman who shared 24 songs over the Internet...

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of January 18, 2010

Posted on January 25, 2010
We're fairly certain that New York Times Company Chairman Arthur Sulzberger doesn't read E-Commerce Law, especially after hearing the he planned to announce that the New York Times will soon begin charging for its online content. As we indicated last week, 77 percent of Internet users say they would not...

Website Lauding Defendant's "Worldwide Expertise" and Facilitating One-Way Contact to the Defendant Too Passive to Confer Jurisdiction

Posted on January 24, 2010
In Jensen v. Modern Aero, Inc., 2010 WL 88229 (Minn. App. Jan. 12, 2010), the Court of Appeals of Minnesota held that a defendant's website, which lauded defendant's "worldwide" expertise," listed a toll-free telephone number for defendant, and provided an electronic form for customers to contact the defendant, was insufficient...

Happy New Year!

Posted on January 04, 2010
Happy New Year! E-Commerce Law Briefs will return next weekend.

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of September 14, 2009

Posted on September 21, 2009
Virginia's Workers Compensation Committee has backed off of its attempt to force Facebook to divulge the complete contents of a user's account. iStockphoto, a Getty Images subsidiary that licenses photos and other content, has begun promoting a guarantee by which the company will cover up to $10,000 of a licensee's...

Plaintiffs Who Sued GoDaddy, Twitter, and Wordpress for Defamatory Content Written by Third Party Are About to Get Section 230 Lesson

Posted on August 17, 2009
On July 29, 2009, three plaintiffs filed suit in the Supreme Court of New York County, New York against a number of individual defendants (both known and unknown), website hosting company GoDaddy.com, micro-blogging site Twitter.com, and blog tool and publishing platform Wordpress...

Nevermind, We're Back to FeedBlitz

Posted on August 17, 2009
Due to popular demand, we have ended our brief trial of FeedBurner to manage our email subscriptions. Subscribers prefer the FeedBlitz format and functionality, so we have switched back.

Email Updates Are Now Being Delivered by Feedburner

Posted on August 15, 2009
When we launched this blog in April 2006, FeedBurner, which provides the RSS feed for the site, did not offer email updates. Now it does. So, in an attempt to consolidate the source of our feed updates, we have changed email update providers from FeedBlitz to FeedBurner...

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of August 10, 2009

Posted on August 14, 2009
Not surprisingly, Best Buy has announced that it will not honor the $9.99 price which was mistakenly listed on its website for 52-inch Samsung HDTVs. Many colleges are outsourcing their email and Google and Microsoft are swooping in to manage the accounts for free...

Protecting Employers from New Media

Posted on August 13, 2009
Law.com has published an excellent article entitled "Protecting Employers from New Media," which discusses new issues facing employers as the use of electronic media (like email, instant messaging, blogs and micro-blogging sites, and social networking sites) increases...

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of July 13, 2009

Posted on July 19, 2009
The latest keyword advertising trademark infringement suit has been filed by language-learning software developer Rosetta Stone against Google. General Motors plans to experiment with auctioning its new cars on eBay. For the third time this year, Twitter has been hacked...

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of June 22, 2009

Posted on June 27, 2009
Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler announced that his Consumer Protection Division, along with consumer protection agencies from 40 other States and the District of Columbia, have entered into a settlement concerning security breaches which led to the theft of customer credit card data from 100 million credit card transactions...

E-Commerce Law Briefs: June 15, 2009

Posted on June 22, 2009
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...

The Sky is Falling! New Facebook Usernames Will be the End of Trademark Protection as We Know It

Posted on June 12, 2009
In just over six hours, Facebook will begin permitting its users to obtain "vanity" URLs for their Facebook profiles. According to the popular social networking site, "The one place [on Facebook] where your identity wasn't reflected was in the Web address for your profile or the Facebook Pages you administer...

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of June 1, 2009

Posted on June 08, 2009
Time spent on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn is growing. Since April 2008, time spent on Facebook has increased by 699%, compared to a 31% drop in time spent on MySpace. "According to the Associated Press, the U.S. military in Afghanistan is launching a Facebook page, a YouTube site, and Twitter...

Starting an Online Business: Licensing Requirements

Posted on June 04, 2009
Over the past few months, a number of people have visited E-Commerce Law looking for a link to our guest post on About.com's Online Business blog entitled "Starting an Online Business: Licensing Requirements." Unfortunately, our link to that guest post no longer leads to the correct article...

More Technology & Effective Advocacy

Posted on June 03, 2009
This morning, I came across bookmarks to a few of the articles I used in preparing for my "Technology & Effective Advocacy" presentation at the Maryland Partners for Justice Conference. Here are the links: Big brother is watching, more than ever before Google searches become evidence in sexual assault Social...

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