In a ruling that is being hailed as a victory for web scrapers and the open nature of publicly available website data, the Ninth Circuit today issued its long-awaited opinion in hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp., No. 17-16783 (9th Cir. Sept. 9, 2019). The crucial question before the court was whether once hiQ Labs, … Continue Reading
In the swirl of scrutiny surrounding the big Silicon Valley tech companies and with some in Congress declaiming that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) should be curtailed, 2019 has quietly been an important year for CDA jurisprudence with a number of opinions enunciating robust immunity under CDA Section 230. In particular, there … Continue Reading
UPDATE: On August 23, 2019, the Third Circuit granted Amazon’s petition for rehearing en banc in the Oberdorf case. As per the order, the opinion dated July 3, 2019 is vacated. In early July, an appeals court ruled that Amazon should be considered a “seller” of goods under Pennsylvania products liability law and subject to strict liability … Continue Reading
In recent years, there have been a number of suits filed in federal courts seeking to hold social media platforms responsible for providing material support to terrorists by allowing members of such groups to use social media accounts and failing to effectively block their content and terminate such accounts. As we’ve previously written about, such … Continue Reading
Two recent web scraping disputes highlight some important issues regarding whether a website owner may successfully allege a breach of contract action against a commercial party that has scraped website content contrary to “clickwrap” and “browsewrap” website terms of use. In Southwest Airlines Co. v. Roundpipe, LLC, No. 18-0033 (N.D. Tex. Mar. 22, 2019), a … Continue Reading
Three recent court decisions reaffirm the expansive immunity awarded to online providers that host third-party content under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”), 47 U.S.C. § 230(c): California’s Superior Court decision in Murphy v. Twitter, Inc., No. CGC-19-573712 (Cal. Super. June 12, 2019), and the Northern District of California’s decisions Brittain v. Twitter, … Continue Reading
In the past few months, there have been a number of notable decisions affirming broad immunity under the Communications Decency Act (CDA), 47 U.S.C. §230(c), for online providers that host third party content. The beat goes on, as in late May, a Utah district court ruled that the Tor Browser, which allows for anonymous communications … Continue Reading
The District of Utah ruled in late May that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. §230 (“CDA”) shields The Tor Project, Inc. (“Tor”), the organization responsible for maintaining the Tor Browser, from claims for strict product liability, negligence, abnormally dangerous activity, and civil conspiracy. The claims were asserted against Tor following an … Continue Reading
During the 2016 election, certain Russian operatives used fake social media profiles to influence voters and also created bot accounts to add likes to and share posts across the internet. And more recently, in January 2019, the New York Attorney General and Office of the Florida Attorney General announced settlements with certain entities that sold … Continue Reading
UPDATE: On December 31, 2019, the Ninth Circuit released an amended opinion in Enigma Software Group USA, LLC v. Malwarebytes, Inc., No. 17-17351 (9th Cir. Dec. 31, 2019). The case also involves competing providers of filtering software and issues concerning the scope of CDA §230(c)(2). In reversing the lower court’s dismissal of claims under the CDA, … Continue Reading
UPDATE: On January 22, 2019, the Supreme Court denied review of the California Supreme Court decision. In a closely-followed dispute, the California Supreme Court vacated a lower court order, based upon a default judgment in a defamation action, which had directed Yelp, Inc. (“Yelp”), a non-party to the original suit, to take down certain consumer … Continue Reading
Today, the President signed H.R. 1865, the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017” (commonly known as “FOSTA”). The law is intended to limit the immunity provided under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (“CDA Section 230”) for online services that knowingly host third-party content that promotes or facilitates … Continue Reading
UPDATE: On March 19, 2018, the district court granted the defendant’s motion for certification of the court’s February 15th partial summary judgment decision for interlocutory appeal to the Second Circuit. In allowing immediate appeal, the court agreed that its prior order “has created tremendous uncertainty for online publishers” and “given the frequency with which embedded … Continue Reading
A Canadian appellate court ruled that a lower court had jurisdictional authority to issue a production order to craigslist based upon its virtual (but not physical) presence in British Columbia. The production order requested that Craigslist produce to Canadian officials documents relating to a user post in connection with a criminal investigation. (British Columbia (Attorney … Continue Reading
In a blog post last month, Google announced that it would extend certain commitments it made to the FTC in 2012 that were set to expire relating to, among other things, the scraping of third-party content for use on certain Google “vertical search” properties such as Google Shopping. The announcement came days before the commitments … Continue Reading
In a brief, unpublished opinion, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of right of publicity and privacy claims against a host of self-publishing platforms and service providers for distributing an erotic (and purported “less than tasteful”) book whose cover contained an unauthorized copy of the plaintiffs’ engagement photo because the plaintiffs failed to plead more … Continue Reading
In a decision that clarified aspects of the video privacy landscape, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of an action alleging a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) based on an assertion that ESPN’s WatchESPN Roku channel had shared a user’s Roku device number and video viewing history with a third-party analytics company … Continue Reading
UPDATE: In a subsequent opinion, the court dismissed the plaintiffs’ third amended complaint. (See Gonzalez v. Google, Inc., 335 F.Supp.3d 1156 (N.D. Cal. 2018)). Following the reasoning of several past decisions, a California district court dismissed claims against Google under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), 18 U.S.C. § 2333, for allegedly providing “material support” to ISIS by allowing … Continue Reading
UPDATE: On April 16, 2018, the British Columbia Supreme Court denied Google’s request to amend the Canadian delisting injunction based on the argument that the injunction would “require it to violate the laws of another jurisdiction, including interfering with freedom of expression.” (Equustek Solutions Inc. v. Jack, 2018 BCSC 610 (Apr. 16, 2018)). The Canadian … Continue Reading
The controversial consumer gripe site, RipoffReport.com, is at it again. The First Circuit recently affirmed a lower court’s ruling that RipoffReport.com was entitled to immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. §230(c)(1) (the “CDA” or “Section 230”) for defamation-related claims based on certain user posts on its site. (Small Justice LLC … Continue Reading
This past week, the Supreme Court denied the petitions for certiorari in two noteworthy Ninth Circuit decisions that had interpreted the scope of liability under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) in the context of wrongful access of company networks by employees and in instances involving unwanted data scraping from publicly available websites. … Continue Reading
On May 16, 2017, the Ninth Circuit rejected a petition for cancellation of the GOOGLE trademark based on a “genericide” theory that claimed Google should lose its trademark protection because the word “google” has become synonymous to the public with the term “search the internet.” (See Elliott v. Google, Inc., 2017 WL 2112311 (9th Cir. … Continue Reading
With summer concerts and music festivals in full swing, many fans will be surprised to find $145 face value tickets reselling online for $3,000 to $11,000. On May 11, 2017, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman took the most recent step in dealing with this problem, and announced seven settlements in “ticket bot” enforcement actions, … Continue Reading
Screen scraping is a problem that has vexed website owners since the early days of e-commerce – how to make valuable content available to users and customers, but prevent competitors from accessing such content for commercial purposes. Even in the advent of social media, mobile commerce, and advanced software, the issue remains relevant to today’s … Continue Reading
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