E-Commerce Law

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of February 15, 2010

Google has donated $2 million to Wikipedia.  Though Wikipedia has been criticized for uneven quality and reliability, a 2005 study concluded that it was just as reliable as Encyclopedia Britannica.  In a statement announcing the donations, Google co-founder Sergey Brin called Wikipedia “one of the greatest triumphs of the Internet…this vast repository of community-generated content is an invaluable resource to anyone who is online.”

40 percent of people in the United States have no high speed Internet access.

A United States Magistrate Judge has held that a high school student's Facebook page criticizing her teacher is protected by the First Amendment.

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

Photo Credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/bastique/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of February 8, 2010

Facebook is getting new competition from a familiar source.  With Buzz, Google has entered the social networking space.

Florida's Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee says that judges should not be Facebook "friends" with attorneys who may appear before them.  "When judges 'friend' lawyers who may appear before them, the committee said, it creates the appearance of a conflict of interest, since it 'reasonably conveys to others the impression that these lawyer 'friends' are in a special position to influence the judge.'"

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 January 25, 2010

A federal judge has reduced the verdict in the only file-sharing case to have gone to trial in the United States.  The case has now been tried twice.  In 2007, a $222,000 judgment was awarded against a Minnesota woman who shared 24 songs over the Internet.  Last year, another judge awarded recording companies $1.92 million.  Now, a judge has reduced that judgment to $2,250 per song, or about $54,000.

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