E-Commerce Law

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 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.

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of December 29, 2008

Online sales reports from November and December reveal that Amazon.com had its best sales season ever.  Amid one of the worst holiday seasons in history, e-commerce sales were an "area of relative strength" and down only 2.3% from last year.

Wikipedia has raised $6.2 million necessary to operate the site through June.

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.

Copying Another Website's Terms of Use Can Lead to Trouble

Public Knowledge has highlighted a number of instances (most notably, instances involving Twitter and Adobe) in which e-commerce companies have failed to undertake the analysis and thoughtful drafting required to develop customized Terms of Use and, instead, used generalized terms or simply "borrowed" the Terms of Use posted at another company's website.  Unfortunately, it's a trend we've observed for some time. 

E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of March 31, 2008

Surprise, surprise:  A recent article suggests that children are using social networking sites designed for adults.  "Research into internet use has found that, among children with internet access, more than a quarter of eight to 11-year-olds claimed to have a profile page on a social networking website. This is despite nominal age restrictions aimed at preventing pre-teens from using such sites."

(Link:  Adult social networking sites attract young users at guardian.co.uk)

Equally surprising is the suggestion that social networking sites don't generate large amounts of revenue when compared to other equally popular websites.  Fox Interactive, the Internet division of News Corp., may fall $100 million short on its $1 billion revenue forecast.  Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook have tens of millions of users but generate relatively little revenue.  For example, the 80 million unique monthly visitors to MySpace generate well under $1 billion in revenue for News Corp. whereas Yahoo! has just over 50% more visitors and generates more than seven times the revenue.  Virtual communities don't generate substantial revenue, e-commerce sites that sell real-world products and services do (e.g., Amazon).

(Link:  News Corp. (NWS) Finds Out Social Networks Are Bad Business at 24/7 Wall St.)

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 5, 2007

"A handful of police departments have utilized YouTube as a law enforcement tool, putting up video of suspects and eliciting help from the Internet-using public in identifying them. Experts say the idea has promise, but it's too soon to tell whether it will have staying power amid constantly evolving technologies and the difficulty of making a video stand out among millions. Some also see a risk of fruitless tips, misidentifications or privacy problems."

These criticisms could just as easily apply to the broadcasting of surveillance camera video on the local evening news, a practice which is commonplace in many jurisdictions when police require community assistance to identify suspects. YouTube may reach a different audience but the concept is the same.

(Link: Police Turn to YouTube to Catch Suspects at washingtonpost.com)

Two independent sources estimate that U.S. consumers spent more than $33 billion online last quarter. Though online spending is still a fraction of total consumer spending, it is growing at a rate of more than 25 percent annually.

The e-commerce industry is growing at a substantial pace. As it does, law schools and firms must adapt to serve the unique legal needs of these clients.

(Link: New numbers show e-commerce spending tops $33 billion at Washington Business Journal)

Wikipedia plans to ask contributors who claim particular expertise on a subject to verify their credentials. The change in policy follows the discovery "that a high-ranking member of Wikipedia's bureaucracy used his cloak of anonymity to lie about being a professor of religion."

After his fraud was discovered, the contributor seemed to blame the whole incident on Wikipedia’s liberal concept of collaboration, which permits anyone to submit or edit site information. In an apology written to the Wikipedia community, he is quoted as saying: " ‘It was, quite honestly, my impression that it was well known that I was not who I claimed to be, and that in the absence of any confirmation, no respectible (sic) publication would print it.’ " 

This is yet another example of why courts should not rely on Wikipedia as authority for any disputed fact that is material to a case.

(Link: After flap, Wikipedia wants ID from self-proclaimed experts at SilliconValley.com)

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.

Technorati Tags:  YouTube, Wikipedia

No One is Safe From E-Commerce

After breaking into the mobile market, e-commerce businesses are finding ways to reach the only potential customers to which they are not already connected:  airline passengers.  According to a post at engadget, companies that develop in-flight entertainment systems for airlines have been in discussions with Apple which may result in the integration of iPods and iTunes into those systems.