E-Commerce Law

Website’s Hosting of Pay Per Click Advertisements Satisfies Interactivity Requirement for Personal Jurisdiction

Last week, in Chicago Architecture Foundation v. Domain Magic, LLC, 2007 WL 3046124 (N.D. Ill. 2007), the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied a Motion to Dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, holding that pay per click advertisements found on the Defendants’ website made the site sufficiently interactive for the court to exercise personal jurisdiction over Defendants.

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of October 22, 2007

Comcast Corporation admits to "delaying" some subscriber Internet traffic to improve Internet performance for other users. According to Mitch Bowling, senior vice president of Comcast Online Services, "During periods of heavy peer-to-peer congestion, which can degrade the experience for all customers, we use several network management technologies that, when necessary, enable us to delay -- not block -- some peer-to-peer traffic. However, the peer-to-peer transaction will eventually be completed as requested."

(Link: Comcast Acknowledges Delaying Some Internet Traffic at NBC10.com)

An Indiana woman has sued popular social networking site Facebook, alleging that it profits from unauthorized text messages sent by its users to mobile phone owners whose numbers previously belonged to other people. The plaintiff seeks class action certification and unspecified damages. Her attorney says "he hopes to force Facebook to take steps so its roughly 47 million members won't be able to send text messages to recycled phone numbers."

(Link: Suit alleges Facebook profits when users send unwanted messages at SilliconValley.com)

In the meantime, Microsoft is going to pay $240 million for a 1.6 percent interest in Facebook. "The investment values Facebook, which is three and a half years old and will bring in about $150 million in revenue this year, at $15 billion."

(Link: Microsoft Buys Stake in Facebook at NYTimes.com)

E-Commerce Law Briefs is a weekly feature appearing each Friday afternoon on E-Commerce Law. Each week, E-Commerce Law Briefs will provide a brief summary and commentary on recent legal news affecting e-commerce businesses.

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of October 15, 2007

Social networking site Facebook has "agreed to immediately post sterner warnings about the dangers to children using the site and to respond more speedily to complaints from users about inappropriate sexual messages." The changes are being made as part of a settlement with the New York Attorney General, who had initiated an investigation of whether the site mislead users by promoting itself as a place where minors were protected from sexual predators.

(Link: Facebook Agrees to More Safeguards at NYTimes.com)

"Two men who sent millions of unsolicited pornographic e-mail messages have been sentenced to more than five years in federal prison as part of a prosecution under a federal antispam law."

(Link: Two Are Sentenced to 5 Years in Pornographic Spam Case at NYTimes.com)

E-Commerce Law Briefs is a weekly feature appearing each Friday afternoon on E-Commerce Law. Each week, E-Commerce Law Briefs will provide a brief summary and commentary on recent legal news affecting e-commerce businesses.

Technorati Tags:  Facebook, spam

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of October 8, 2007

The owner of the copyrights in recent recordings by pop singer Britney Spears has filed an infringement suit against gossip site perezhilton.com. Music label Zomba alleges that the site and its operator, Mario Lavandeira, illegally obtained and posted at least ten completed songs and unfinished demos from Spears’s new album. The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages, attorney’s fees, and costs.

(Link: Site sued over Britney Spears songs at LATimes.com)

E-Commerce Law Briefs is a weekly feature appearing each Friday afternoon on E-Commerce Law. Each week, E-Commerce Law Briefs will provide a brief summary and commentary on recent legal news affecting e-commerce businesses.

Technorati Tags:  Perez Hilton, Britney Spears, copyright

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of October 1, 2007

Last week, we noted that the New York Attorney General subpoenaed Facebook after the company failed to respond to complaints by investigators who were solicited for sex while posing as teenagers on the social networking site. Now, "The social networking Web site Facebook has been warned that it could face a consumer fraud charge for failing to live up to claims that youngsters there are safer from sexual predators than at most sites and that it promptly responds to concerns . . . ."

(Link: N.Y. warns Facebook it could face consumer fraud charge for safety claims at SilliconValley.com)

E-Commerce Law Briefs is a weekly feature appearing each Friday afternoon on E-Commerce Law. Each week, E-Commerce Law Briefs will provide a brief summary and commentary on recent legal news affecting e-commerce businesses.

Technorati Tags:  Facebook

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of September 24, 2007

"The New York Attorney General has subpoenaed Facebook after the company did not respond to ‘many’ complaints by investigators who were solicited for sex while posing as teenagers on the social-networking site." Social networking sites have increasingly become the focus of state attorney general investigations into the solicitation of minors for sex, as we noted here and here.

(Link: Facebook subpoenaed for not responding to sex predator complaints at SilliconValley.com)

E-Commerce Law Briefs is a weekly feature appearing each Friday afternoon on E-Commerce Law. Each week, E-Commerce Law Briefs will provide a brief summary and commentary on recent legal news affecting e-commerce businesses.

Technorati Tags:  Facebook