E-Commerce Law

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of May 4, 2009

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating the close ties between the boards of Apple and Google.

Attorneys general from Connecticut, Illinois, and Missouri plan to meet with Craigslist executives representatives to begin negotiations toward eliminating advertisements from the site which feature prostitution and other illegal activities. 

South Carolina's attorney general has taken a different approach.  He has threatened to prosecute the chief executive officer of Craigslist unless the site removes all sex-related postings from its South Carolina sites by May 15th.

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 April 13, 2009

"A Texas couple who say Internet posters made their lives "torture" after they were charged with rape are closer to stripping away their tormentors' anonymity.  A judge in California turned down a motion by Topix.com to quash a subpoena for identifying information on 178 anonymous posters, ABC News reported. The judge ordered the Web site to discuss with the plaintiff couple which documents are relevant to the case."

The Better Business Bureau has identified nearly 23,000 YouTube videos advertising Ponzi schemes.  The videos have been viewed nearly 60 million times.

Amazon says that it has fixed the error that removed the sales rankings for gay and lesbian themed books.

"Forensics investigators at Verizon Business, a firm hired by major companies to investigate breaches, responded to roughly 100 confirmed data breaches last year involving roughly 285 million consumer records. That staggering number -- nearly one breached record for every American -- exceeds the combined total breached from break-ins the company investigated from 2004 to 2007.  In all, breaches at financial institutions were responsible for 93 percent of all such records compromised last year, Verizon reported. . . . [M]ore than 90 percent of the records compromised in the breaches Verizon investigated in 2008 came from targeted attacks where the hackers carefully picked their targets first and then figured out a way to exploit them later."

Facebook crossed the 200 million member mark.

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 April 6, 2009

Cyberbullying affects one in ten teachers.

More than 97% of all emails are spam.

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 March 30, 2009

"The U.S. Supreme Court . . . declined to consider reinstating Virginia's tough anti-spam law, leaving in place a lower court ruling that threw out the measure as unconstitutional . . . [Virginia's Attorney General has] vowed to draft a new anti-spam law for the General Assembly to consider that 'addresses any potential constitutional concerns. We are dedicated to protecting all Virginians from unscrupulous spammers who fraudulently send millions of unsolicited garbage e-mail messages.'"

Reports of Internet crime increased 33% in 2008.

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 February 9, 2009

"A statistical analysis of 28,000 passwords recently stolen from a popular US website and posted on the Internet reveals that people often" select weak or easily guessed passwords.  The study found that 16 percent "took a first name as a password, often their own or one of their children, according to the study published by Information Week.  Another 14 percent relied on the easiest keyboard combinations to remember such as '1234' or 12345678.' For those using English keyboards, "QWERTY", was popular. Likewise, "AZERTY" scored with people with European keyboards."  The word "password," or variations such as "password1," accounted for four percent of the stolen passwords.

Identity theft is up.

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 February 2, 2009

Cybercrime is up.

MySpace has booted 90,000 sex offenders.

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.

Most Popular E-Commerce Law Posts of 2008

Happy New Year!  Here are the most popular E-Commerce Law posts of 2008:

"David Lat Has a Stupid Fat Face" (January 24, 2008)

Take Control of Your Online Reputation (January 28, 2008)

JuicyCampus May Be the Next Internet Defamation Battleground (February 19, 2008)

Ninth Circuit: Roommates.com Not Entirely Protected by Section 230 (April 4, 2008)

Defending a Criminal Case in a Cyber World (April 23, 2008)

Copying Another Website's Terms of Use Can Lead to Trouble (June 2, 2008)

Our Internet Evidence Series (July 2008)

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of October 6, 2008

Google and Yahoo are delaying their controversial search advertising partnership.

In a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Public Citizen seeks an injunction against John Dozier of Dozier Internet Law prohibiting Dozier from pursuing defamation and trademark claims against Ronald Riley, who runs the Web site CyberTrialLawyer-Sucks.com.  The suit also seeks attorney's fees and punitive damages.  "In the past month, three successive Internet hosting companies have taken down Riley’s Web site after each company received a warning letter from Dozier. Among Dozier’s complaints was that Riley used his firm’s name to link to an unrelated Web site, which Dozier claimed was a trademark infringement."

Now Congressmen can post on YouTube.

Spam is down.

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 September 15, 2008

After the Virginia Court of Appeals affirmed the spamming conviction of Jeremy Jaynes, the Virginia Supreme Court has struck down Virginia's anti-spam law on constitutional grounds.  The case has lead some to question the willingness of the Virginia legislature to pass aggressive measures that may not pass constitutional scrutiny.

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 June 9, 2008

• Finally, three of country's largest Internet service providers have agreed to block access to child pornography sites.  The move was part of an agreement reached with the New York Attorney General.

• Google and Yahoo have reached an agreement by which Google would deliver ads next to some of Yahoo's search results and some of its websites in the United States and Canada.

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.