The lame duck Congress that reconvened following the November elections wasn’t expected to do much, but some legislation got pushed out at the eleventh hour (or perhaps, the one-hundred-and-eleventh hour), including the "Restore Online Confidence Act," S. 3386 (111th Cong., 2d Sess. 2010), sponsored by Sen. John D. Rockefeller, IV. The Act was introduced following… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Online Commerce
Subscribe to Online Commerce RSS FeedWhat If I Told You Somebody Was Scribbling on Your Web Site?
Posted in Online CommerceLet’s say that anybody could write comments on your Web site that were visible to third parties and that you couldn’t prevent it. Those comments might include links to competitive Web sites or products, defamatory statements, or just unwelcome negative comments. And let’s say that your only recourse, if you felt the comments were inappropriate,… Continue Reading
Sixth Circuit Enforces Disclaimers in Consumer Online Clickwrap Terms of Service
Posted in Contracts, Online CommerceIn Doe v. SexSearch.com, Inc., the Sixth Circuit considered the appeal of a user of the SexSearch online dating service from dismissal of his breach of contract, fraud and other state law claims (based on Ohio law) against the service for its failure to screen out underage minors. Doe was arrested and charged with unlawful… Continue Reading
UCC, Not Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, Governs Formation of Contract by Exchange of E-Mails
Posted in Online CommerceThe Uniform Electronic Transactions Act was adopted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in 1999. Both the UETA and its companion federal enactment, the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, Pub.L. 109-229 (June 30, 2000) were adopted during a flurry of concern about the enforceability of electronic contracts that… Continue Reading
Between Commercial Parties, Online Agreement with “No Notice” Modification Clause Held Enforceable and Not Unconscionable
Posted in Online CommerceDisputes over the enforceability of Web site modifications to an agreement, based on claims of unconscionability, typically involve a consumer opposing the enforcement efforts of commercial party. An example of such a case is Comb v. PayPal, 218 F.Supp. 2d 1165, 1174 (N.D.Cal. 2002), in which the district court refused to enforce a provision in… Continue Reading
eBay Real Estate Auction Listing of Elvis’s Former Home Deemed a Non-Binding Advertisement
Posted in Online CommerceThe subject of the auction being a former home of Elvis Presley, and one of the plaintiffs being "celebrity psychic Uri Geller," the district court’s ruling in Gleason v. Freeman, No. 06-2443 (W.D. Tenn. June 16, 2008) is getting a lot of press. (And prompts one to wonder how it is that Geller didn’t foresee… Continue Reading