E-Commerce Law

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of June 22, 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 in 2005 and 2006.

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

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of June 15, 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 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.

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

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. The URL was just a randomly assigned number like "id=592952074." That soon will change.  We're planning to offer Facebook usernames to make it easier for people to find and connect with you. When your friends, family members or co-workers visit your profile or Pages on Facebook, they will be able to enter your username as part of the URL in their browser. This way people will have an easy-to-remember way to find you."

Facebook will begin permitting its users to obtain these new vanity URLs at 12:01 a.m. tomorrow.

According to PC World, "[v]anity URLs are becoming an important part of one's online social life, as it makes it easier for others to find you by just typing your name after the service's URL (i.e. http://www.twitter.com/pcworld)."  Twitter and LinkedIn have always offered plain-language user names and its become something that social networkers now expect.

Despite the ubiquity of vanity URLs, Facebook's announcement has apparently caused a number of law firms and news outlets to sound the trademark protection alarm.  (See here, here, here, here, and here). 

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of June 1, 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 feeds as part of a new communication effort. Officials said this would help the military reach those who get their information online rather than via printed materials."

Investors think Facebook is worth $10 billion.

Apparently, a brothel in England has begun advertising on Twitter.

Wikipedia has banned the Church of Scientology from contributing to the site.

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

Starting an Online Business: Licensing Requirements

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.  (Apparently, the link now leads to a restructured About.com Online Business / Hosting site which does not include our post.)  So, we decided to republish the post below: