Congress has taken a step toward protecting consumers’ rights to post negative reviews on websites like Ripoff Report or Yelp with the introduction, by Representative Darrell E. Issa of California, of the Consumer Review...more
In This Issue:
- Court Protects Anonymity of Yelp Users
- FTC Issues Landmark Report on Internet of Things
- Who Will Update My Status When I’m Dead?: The Biggest Social Media Platforms’ Policies on...more
5/15/2015
/ Anonymity ,
Copyright ,
Digital Assets ,
DMCA ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Internet of Things ,
Mobile Devices ,
Online Reviews ,
Social Media ,
Social Networks ,
Terms and Conditions ,
Web Scraping ,
Web Tracking ,
Yelp
Hashtags have become ubiquitous in social media, but their status as intellectual property—particularly as trademarks—is still developing. First adopted by Twitter users to link user posts, hashtags are character strings...more
In This Issue:
- Good Rep: Social Media Assets in M&A Transactions
- Narrow Vision: Did Anti-Glass Hysteria Contribute to the Demise of Google Glass?
- Forced to Cyber-Spy: Court Rules Parents Can Be Held...more
2/6/2015
/ Business Assets ,
Cloud Computing ,
Contract Negotiations ,
Facebook ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Google ,
Google Glass ,
Intangible Property ,
Minors ,
Social Media ,
Social Networks
Snap decision. The National Arbitration Forum has refused to transfer the domain name snapchatcheck.com to the company behind the popular messaging app Snapchat. The NAF panel decided that the respondent, Dreamhost, the...more
Pupils, passwords and privacy. A law that went into effect on January1st has the parents of some Illinois school children asking themselves how much of their children’s privacy they’re willing to forgo to keep cyberbullying...more
Social drinkers. The founder of the Lagunitas Brewing Company decided to drop a lawsuit that he’d filed against Sierra Nevada for trademark infringement after beer drinkers expressed their disapproval of the suit on Twitter. ...more
1/19/2015
/ Beer ,
Copyright ,
Music ,
Reputation Management ,
Social Media ,
Social Networks ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademarks ,
Twitter ,
Video Recordings ,
YouTube
As we previously reported, a company’s social media pages and profiles, and the associated followers, friends and other connections, may constitute valuable business assets. In our experience, however, social media assets...more
Poster’s remorse. It’s official – as of Jan 1, social media sites accessible in California had to begin allowing users younger than 18 “to remove, or to request and obtain removal of” posts they regret. The legislation, known...more
Implementing and Enforcing Online Terms of Use -
Operators of social media platforms and other Web sites must manage a large number of risks resulting from their interactions with users. In an effort to maintain a...more
In This Issue:
- What’s in a Like?
- R.I.P.: The Facebook “Like” Gate
- Facebook Dislikes Fake Likes
- Privacy in the Cloud: A Legal Framework for Moving Personal Data to the Cloud
- Click...more
12/17/2014
/ Advertising ,
Clickwrap Agreements ,
Cloud Computing ,
COPPA ,
Counterfeiting ,
Data Protection ,
EU ,
Facebook ,
Infringement ,
Internet ,
Mobile Apps ,
Social Media ,
Terms of Use ,
UK ,
Websites
Instagrowth. Instagram’s relationship with Facebook is turning out to be mutually beneficial. Since Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, the photo sharing platform has passed the 300-million-user mark, surpassing...more
Block party. Twitter has revamped its anti-harassment policies to make it easier to report harassment on the network or to block another account. The change follows recent highly-publicized instances of “Twitter harassment,”...more
Invisible hits. What could possibly be meant by the following tweet? “CA-40/43-44/49-44/44-50/36-44/49-10/16/14-52–>49/476-10s.” According to a recent CNN report, GOP groups tweeted such seemingly meaningless gibberish in...more
..Lyfted documents? Uber and Lyft, two ride-sharing companies that are both expanding rapidly and trying to take business away from traditional taxis in cities across the nation, have never been on the best of terms. Their...more
11/7/2014
/ Advertising ,
C-Suite Executives ,
Confidential Information ,
Facebook ,
Former Employee ,
Lyft ,
Native Advertising ,
Online Advertisements ,
Social Media ,
Twitter ,
Uber
..Unfree speech? In the United States, the First Amendment would likely prevent the prosecution of someone who posted racist or anti-Semitic messages on a social media platform. But social media platforms operate worldwide,...more
..Time change. Until now, Twitter has made a clear distinction between people you follow and people you don’t follow: You only saw tweets from those whom you followed. Now, the service, in what it calls a “timeline...more
..Doctor in the mouse. What if you could input a list of your current symptoms to Google, and quickly be connected with a doctor for a brief consultation? For a limited trial period, Google seems to have set up such a system...more
Operators of social media platforms and other websites must manage a large number of risks arising from their interactions with users. In an effort to maintain a degree of predictability and mitigate some of those risks,...more
10/6/2014
/ Barnes and Noble ,
Browsewrap Agreement ,
Clickwrap Agreements ,
Contract Formation ,
Disclaimers ,
Dispute Resolution ,
Facebook ,
Risk Mitigation ,
Social Media ,
Terms of Use ,
Websites
..Filling a gap. Gap Inc., the clothing retailer, is using social media to establish a web presence focused on feminism, equal pay for equal work, and progressive values. For example, the company produced an Instagram video,...more
..Where are the CEOs? According to a new study, fully two-thirds of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 have no personal social media presence at all. And of the ones who do participate in social media, two-thirds use only one of the...more
Status check. In the recently released Corporate Directors Survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers, 41% of corporate board members reported that their companies monitor social media for adverse publicity. That’s up from 32% in...more
..Ahead of the law? In Hidalgo County, Texas, a former sheriff has been sued civilly over allegedly illegal campaign contributions. (He was also criminally convicted of money laundering.) At a civil deposition in the case, a...more
In This Issue:
- European Court of Justice Strengthens the Right to Be Forgotten
- California AG Offers Best Practices for Do Not Track Disclosures; Crucial Compliance Questions Left Unanswered
- Snap...more
7/11/2014
/ Data Protection ,
Do Not Track ,
EU ,
European Court of Justice (ECJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Internet ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Privacy Policy ,
Right to Be Forgotten ,
Snapchat ,
Social Media
In This Issue:
- Employer Access to Employee Social Media: Applicant Screening, ‘Friend’ Requests and Workplace Investigations
- Driving Under the Influence (of Google Glass)
- U.S. Courts’ Evolving Approaches to...more