E-Commerce Law

Identity of Anonymous Wikipedia Editors Not Protected by First Amendment

In Faconnable USA Corporation v. John Does 1-10, 2011 WL 2015515 (D. Colo. May 24, 2011), the United States District Court for the District of Colorado rejected a ISP's motion to quash a subpoena issued to discover the identity of anonymous editors of Wikipedia.  Plaintiff alleges that the anonymous editors violated the Lanham Act and comitted trade libel and commercial disparaging by falsely posting that plaintiff is a support of Hezbollah, a Shiite Islamist militia and political party which has been designated as a terrorist organization.

Tenth Circuit Addresses Limits of Internet-Based Personal Jurisdiction

In the on-going struggle for courts to clearly define the limits of personal jurisdiction for content posted and transmitted over the Internet, the Tenth Circuit reigned in the breadth of such non-territorial activities by requiring an Internet user to "intentionally direct" activities or content to a particular state to sufficiently confer personal jurisdiction on the forum.  Shrader v. Biddinger, 633 F.3d 1235 (10th Cir. 2011).  In doing so, the Court dismissed a pro se plaintiff's complaint for defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress filed against a former business associate who authored an allegedly defamatory email about the Plaintiff and sent the email to the Plaintiff's customers.

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of March 7, 2011

Chrysler fired its social media representative after the representative used the f-word in a company Twitter post.  The full post read, "I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f---ing drive."

There's another Twitter virus making the rounds.

View is like Foursquare, but different.

Not surprisingly, you can be held accountable for what you say online . . . even if you say it anonymously.

At least one judge has used Facebook to research a party appearing before her.

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 February 28, 2011

A school superintendent has filed a lawsuit against a parent whose child attends school in the superindent's school district.  The superintendent seeks $225,000 in damages for comments the parent made on her Facebook page.

A Republican candidate for Congress has filed suit against Facebook for costing him the election.  "Majed Moughni finished fourth in the Republican primary in August in the 15th District, getting just 4 percent [of the vote]. In a 10-page, class-action suit in Wayne County Circuit Court, the Dearborn attorney blames Facebook [for removing his campaign page]."  Accordingly to Facebook, the page was removed for suspicious behavior.

A class action lawsuit alleges that Groupon deals expire too quickly (also here).

Amazon may soon collect sales tax.

70% of people think piracy is OK.

Courtney Love will pay $430,000 to settle defamation case resulting from her Twitter comments.

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of February 7, 2011

After a hiatus of several months, today marks the return of E-Commerce Law Briefs.  Each weekend, E-Commerce Law Briefs provides a brief summary and commentary on recent legal news affecting e-commerce businesses.

A woman has sued her cousin over allegedly defamatory comments posted to his Facebook page.  She seeks $50,000 in damages and alleges that the defendant falsely accused her of taking “cheap shots” at people, being “promiscuous” and fixing “papers for illegals as a job.”

In response to a class action lawsuit allging that its taco meat isn't really meat at all, Taco Bell is giving its Facebook fans coupons.

Most Popular E-Commerce Law Posts of 2010

Happy New Year!  In no particular order, these were the most popular E-Commerce Law posts in 2010:

Student’s Off-Campus Cyber-Bullying Protected by the First Amendment

Plaintiff Granted Expedited Discovery to Subpoena Social Networking Sites for Identity of Defendants

Court Holds "No Legitimate Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" in "Private" Facebook or MySpace Postings

Operating Website with Name Similar to Plaintiff's Registered Trademark is Insufficient to Subject Defendant to Jurisdiction Under Calder Effects Test

Roger Clemens, Defamation, and Personal Jurisdiction for Interviews Given in Foreign Jurisdictions

Law Firm that "Cut and Paste" Section from Competing Firm's Website Properly Sued in Plaintiff's Home Forum

For Jurisdiction Purposes, A Website May Not Be Doing Business Where It Claims

Legal Issues Involved in Blogging

My This Week In Law (Episode No. 78) Companion

Roger Clemens, Defamation, and Personal Jurisdiction for Interviews Given in Foreign Jurisdictions

On August 12, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a defamation action brought by controversial major league baseball pitcher Roger Clemens against his former trainer, Brian McNamee.  The action was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction.

New York Court Dismisses Internet Defamation Case

Findlaw is publishing a two-column series on a recent decision by a New York court dismissing a defamation case arising from statements made by teenagers on their private Facebook group page.  On the Facebook group page, the teenagers stated that the plaintiff had contracted AIDS and paired these statements with "ridiculous, obscene, and mutually-contradictory claims about how the plaintiff" had contracted the disease.  Part one of the series, "Defamation on Facebook:  Why a New York Court Dismissed a Recent Suit," was published yesterday; part two will be published later this month.

Federal Court Dismisses Internet Defamation Lawsuit for Lack of Personal Jurisdiction Where Defamation Was Not “Expressly Aimed” at the Forum State

On February 3, 2010, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona dismissed a defamation complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction where the defendant published on a website an allegedly defamatory article about the plaintiffs, who reside in Arizona.  Xcentric Ventures LLC v. Bird, ___ F. Supp. 2d ___, 2010 WL 447759 (D. Ariz. Feb. 3, 2010).  Even though the defendants intentionally published the article and it could perhaps be proven that defendants were aware that the plaintiffs resided in Arizona, the Arizona court was unable to exercise specific personal jurisdiction over the defendant because the allegedly defamatory act was not “expressly aimed” at the state of Arizona.

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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