E-Commerce Law

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.

Sports Brandjacking Generates Millions of Dollars and Tens of Millions of Web Visits Each Year

Savvy Internet marketing allows thousands of individuals and companies to peddle more than a million counterfeit sports shirts and jerseys annually, according to the 2011 Special Edition of the Brandjacking Index published today.  The online sale of counterfeit sports apparel is a multi-million dollar industry that generates tens of millions of visits to the websites selling such products.

MarkMonitor, which provides Internet brand protection services to companies, began publishing its Brandjacking Index in 2007.  The index analyzes trends and statistics about brand abuse online, and addresses the business and technical methods used by brandjackers, by applying proprietary algorithms to publicly available information.

According to the most recent edition of the index, MarkMonitor identified more than 6,000 suspects selling more than 1.2 million shirts and jerseys bearing counterfeit sports league and team logos.  The e-commerce sites selling these counterfeit goods attract 56 million visits annually and generate more than $25 million in revenue.

The operators of sites selling counterfeit sports apparel use sophisticated Internet marketing techniques to drive traffic to their sites.  They invest heavily in paid search advertising,  "black hat" SEO techniques, cybersquatting, and typosquatting.  They also use affiliate marketing programs and pay-per-click advertisements.  

MarkMonitor has identified more than 1,300 of these sites selling some 800,000 units of suspicious sports apparel each year.  Most of these sites are associated with a Chinese registrant or registrar.

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

On May 28, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of the defendant’s motion to dismiss for improper venue in a copyright infringement action.  Brayton Purcell LLP v. Recordon & Recordon, 2010 WL 2135302 (9th Cir. Mar. 28, 2010).  The original action stemmed from a copyright suit brought in the Northern District of California, alleging that Appellant copied verbatim material on Appellee’s website without proper attribution.

Injunction is No Great Leap for Court in “Skydive Arizona” Case

On April 29, 2010, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona granted, in part, Plaintiff’s request  to enjoin the Defendants' use of certain trademarks and domain names related to skydiving in Arizona.  Skydive Arizona, Inc. v. Quattrocchi, 2010 WL 1743189 (D. Ariz. April 29, 2010)

Plaintiff operates a skydiving business in Arizona (“Skydive Arizona”) with numerous jump centers in the state.  Defendants operate a website that offers information on skydiving and skydiving gift certificates that are redeemable at participating skydiving centers across the country, but does not operate any actual skydiving centers.  In fact, the Defendants operated various websites implying that Defendants owned skydiving centers in numerous cities in Arizona, where none existed. 

"No Meat" in Quiznos' Motion for Summary Judgment

On February 19, 2010, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut denied Quiznos’ motion for summary judgment on Subway’s suit for false and deceptive advertising in violation of the Lanham Act, along with state law claims for commercial disparagement and violation of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.  Doctor's Associates, Inc. v. QIP Holders, LLC., 2010 WL 669870 (D. Conn.). The case arises out of Quiznos’ advertising campaign to introduce their “double meat” line of sandwiches. The advertising campaign involved an internet-based contest and two national television commercials that compared certain “double meat” Quiznos sandwiches to certain Subway sandwiches.  Quiznos claimed that its new line of sandwiches had “two times the meat” of comparable Subway sandwiches.

Among the Experts: Online Marketing for Lawyers

This week, I'll be speaking at seminars entitled Among the Experts:  Online Marketing for Lawyers.  The seminars, held tomorrow in Washington, D.C. and Wednesday in Baltimore, Maryland, will cover:

Core Web Presence - discussing how to develop a strategy around your online presence and get the most out of Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Avvo.

Google Analytics - addressing how to track online performance with Google Analytics.

Search Engine Optimization - discussing SEO basics.

Other speakers include Mark Britton, the founder and CEO of Avvo, Conrad Saam, Avvo's Senior Marketing Manager; and Carolyn Elefant, a solo practitioner in Washington, D.C.

You can register for the Washington, D.C. seminar  here.

Forcing E-Commerce Companies to Collect Sales Tax from Online Marketing Affiliates is Flawed Policy, Experts Say

SNLFinancial recently published an article discussing the efforts of some states to force Amazon, Overstock, and other e-commerce companies to collect sales tax on transactions conducted through online marketing affiliates in those states.  The article addresses the constitutional challenge to a similar New York law passed in 2008 but also emphasizes the fact that the effect of these laws may be the opposite of what was intended.  States may be in lose-lose spot with e-commerce companies on sales tax, SNLFinancial, July 24, 2009.

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.