E-Commerce Law

Plaintiffs Who Sued GoDaddy, Twitter, and Wordpress for Defamatory Content Written by Third Party Are About to Get Section 230 Lesson

On July 29, 2009, three plaintiffs filed suit in the Supreme Court of New York County, New York against a number of individual defendants (both known and unknown), website hosting company GoDaddy.com, micro-blogging site Twitter.com, and blog tool and publishing platform Wordpress.com.  The suit alleges that the individual defendants published defamatory statements about the plaintiffs (alleging their involvement in criminal conduct and corruption) on websites hosted by GoDaddy and Wordpress.  The same statements were also allegedly published via Twitter.

Late last year, I had the opportunity to carefully review all of the civil cases interpreting the limitations of the immunity afforded by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The simple rule emerging from those cases is clear: If the “essential published content” is willingly provided by a third-party, the interactive computer service provider publishing that content enjoys the full immunity afforded by Section 230. (See FAQ:  What is Section 230? & Craigslist Sues South Carolina Attorney General to Avoid Criminal Charges Against the Site and its Executives).  The broad immunity afforded by Section 230 should result in a quick dismissal of the claims against GoDaddy, Twitter, and Wordpress.

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E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of April 20, 2009

The Wikipedia Foundation has demanded that the artists responsible for Wikipedia Art surrender the domain name wikipediaart.org.  "Last February, [the artists], working with several collaborators, created a Wikipedia article and invited the general public to add to it, following Wikipedia’s standards of credibility and verifiability. The work was intended to comment on the nature of art and Wikipedia. [However, Wikipedia editors shut down the project]  within fifteen hours for being insufficiently 'encyclopaedic.'"  The artists obtained the domain name wikipediaart.org and created a website to document the project which the Foundation seeks to shut down because it uses the "Wikipedia" trademark.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas has applied traditional contract principles to find that Blockbuster Online's website Terms and Conditions are unenforceable.  "The crux of the Plaintiffs’ arguments were that since Blockbuster reserved the right to modify the Terms and Conditions at their “sole discretion” at “any time” to be effective immediately on their site, the contract was thus illusory.  The Court found the contract was illusory because Blockbuster had the power to unilaterally change the contract whenever they wanted to do so. The only 'limit' was the new terms would not be effective until posted online."

"Worldwide visitors to Twitter.com increased 95 percent in the month of March from 9.8 million to 19.1 million."

Google has upgraded a little-used feature that permits users to create profile pages with their name, photo, contact information, and other information.

"In February, a Texas jury awarded Orix Capital Markets, LLC $12.5 million in damages in a defamation case involving statements published on the . . . 'gripe site' Predatorix.com."

"Students have suffered another defeat in their legal fight against the company that runs a plagiarism-detection tool popular among professors.  A federal appeals court last week affirmed a lower court’s decision that the Turnitin service does not violate the copyright of students, even though it stores digital copies of their essays in the database that the company uses to check works for academic dishonesty."  The copyright infringment suit was brought by two Mclean, Virginia high school students after Turnitin was hired by their school to catch cheaters.

E-Commerce Law Briefs is a weekly feature appearing on E-Commerce Law. Each weekend, 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 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 March 2, 2009

"Operators of newspaper Web sites, blogs and chat rooms that allow readers to post anonymous comments using pseudonyms do not have to readily reveal the posters' identities in defamation suits, Maryland's highest court ruled yesterday, further shaping an emerging area of First Amendment law in the Internet age."  In balancing "the First Amendment right to anonymous speech on the Internet with the opportunity on the part of the object of that speech to seek judicial redress for alleged defamation" the court followed a five-factor test which closely resembles the tests followed by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in dismissing Larry Sinclair's defamation suit.

In California, a judge has ruled that "Comcast customers who posted potentially libelous statements about Korbel Champagne Cellars anonymously on the Internet will be alerted that their identities will be revealed to Korbel if they don’t file a legal challenge."

We recently posted about the live-tweeting of a surgery and now a federal judge has permitted a reporter to live-tweet a racketeering gang trial.

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.

Federal Court Dismisses Defamation Suit Brought by Man Who Claimed to Have Used Drugs and Had Sex with President Obama

On February 10, 2009, the United States District for the District of Columbia dismissed the defamation complaint of the man who posted a YouTube video alleging that he used cocaine with, and performed a sex act on, then-state senator Barack Obama. The matter came before the court on the plaintiff's motion to compel information identifying the individuals who posted anonymous responses to the video in which they alleged that the plaintiff was lying about his allegations and was actually a patient in a mental hospital at the time that he claimed to have encountered now-President Obama.  The court rejected the plaintiff's attempt to compel disclosure of the identities of the three anonymous posters and dismissed his complaint.

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of January 26, 2009

"An appeal filed with the Virginia Supreme Court this week claims that a Montgomery County judge erred in dropping a civil case developer Roger Woody brought against several Christiansburg bloggers" that the lawsuit claimed were critical of Woody's business practices.

"Wikipedia is apparently considering instituting a new editorial process that would put better safeguards in place and require all updates to be approved by a "reliable" user. The so-called Flagged Revisions process would allow registered, trusted editors to publish changes to the site immediately. All other edits would be sent to a queue and would not be published until they get approved by one of Wikipedia's trusted team of editors."  Perhaps the changes will improve Wikipedia's reputation for reliability amongst colleges and courts.

Worldwide spam has grown by 150% in two months.  "According to data compiled by Google, computer users can expect to receive more unsolicited emails this year than ever before."

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 January 12, 2009

If you live in New York, you can now order Subway sandwiches by text message.  Subway "restaurant owners have seen their average order sizes grow 50 percent since starting" the service.

"The lawsuit filed by a San Francisco chiropractor against a patient who wrote a negative review of him on Yelp was settled last week . . . [the chiropractor] sued [the patient] for defamation nearly a year ago over a posting in which [the patient] had suggested that [the chiropractor's] billing practices were dishonest because he had billed [the patient's] insurance company an amount that was four times what he had quoted . . . for two office visits in 2006, according to court documents. [The chiropractor] had allegedly told [the patient] that the price differential was due to the additional time and effort his office spends dealing with the insurers."

However, other litigation over Yelp reviews continues as a "pediatric dentist in Foster City has sued two people over negative comments about her practice that were posted on the review site Yelp, accusing them of libel.  The suit, filed in December in Santa Clara County Superior Court, asks for damages because of the posting, which complained about how Yvonne Wong treated a boy who visited her with cavities."

Update (1/19/2009):  Techdirt reports that the dentist also sued Yelp.  Apparently, her attorney was unaware of the protections afforded by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and, now that the law has been brought to his attention, he will probably dismiss the defamation claim against the website.

"A state judge has dismissed a lawsuit by Amazon.com Inc. challenging New York's law requiring some out-of-state Internet retailers to collect New York sales tax."

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 March 17, 2008

We thought JuicyCampus might be the next Internet gossip site to suffer from unwanted legal scrutiny and it turns out we were right:  New Jersey law enforcement officials have been investigating JuicyCampus for at least a month and claim that the site violates the state's Consumer Fraud Act.

(Links:  Gossip Gone Wild at ABC News and College gossip site under scrutiny at Yahoo! News)

A Vermont court has applied Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in dismissing a defamation suit brought against the operators of iBrattleboro.com.

(Link:  Libel Suit Tossed Against Local News Site at Media Law)

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.