Operators of public-facing websites are typically concerned about the unauthorized, technology-based extraction of large volumes of information from their sites, often by competitors or others in related businesses. The practice, usually referred to as screen scraping, web harvesting, crawling or spidering, has been the subject of many questions and a fair amount of litigation over … Continue Reading
On November 12, 2014, the California Supreme Court denied review of the California Court of Appeals decision in Demetriades v. Yelp, Inc., 2014 WL 3661491 (Cal. App. July 24, 2014), which allowed a restaurant owner to proceed with false advertising and other claims against the consumer review site Yelp based upon Yelp’s marketing claims regarding … Continue Reading
It’s no secret that local directory/consumer review websites are popular among consumers looking for recommendations before dining out, hiring a contractor, or even picking a dentist or day spa. Yelp reported around 138 million monthly unique visitors in the second quarter of 2014, searching among over 61 million local reviews. The bottom line is that … Continue Reading
Many commercial websites rely on “browsewrap” agreements to bind visitors to commercial terms. A recent decision by the Ninth Circuit suggests that a review of how those terms are presented may be in order to ensure enforceability. A browsewrap agreement is a set of terms which is accessible via a hyperlink located on the pages … Continue Reading
Bitcoin remains fixed on the front pages of the business and technology news for both the salacious and the positive. Much attention has been paid to the collapse of the former top bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, stemming from the purported theft of nearly $500 million in bitcoins. The temporary suspension of trading in the securities … Continue Reading
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
Let’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
In 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
The 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
Disputes 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
The 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
