Technology & Marketing Law Blog

A section from my Internet Law casebook’s chapter on online contracts is titled: “Uber’s TOS Formation Madness. An entire chapter could be dedicated solely to Uber’s TOS dramas!” Here’s another dramatic entry in the annals of Uber’s TOS history. The opinion summarizes: As part of its ubiquitous ride-hailing service, Uber permits a user to order “guest rides” for third parties remotely. Guest riders can travel unaccompanied by the user and need never have downloaded Uber’s app orcreated an…

The record labels sued Vimeo for user-caused copyright infringement in 2009. The case is still ongoing in 2026. How old is this lawsuit? If it were a person, it would be GenZ and thus older than every Gen Alpha person on earth. This case was part of a broad-based copyright owner litigation campaign that included Viacom v. YouTube and UMG v. Veoh. All of these lawsuits were designed to permanently shut down the video hosting category by finding a hole in the Section 512(c) online safe harbor so…

This case involves Project Bluebird, a social media service previously named “twitter.new” and renamed to tweet.app immediately after this ruling (for reasons this post makes obvious). Project Bluebird’s service is designed to reimagine the Twitter service that Musk imploded when he morphed Twitter into X. Project Bluebird claims X has abandoned the TWITTER, TWEET and Bird Logo trademarks. In 2025, Project Bluebird filed ITU applications for TWITTER and TWEET. Citing the following evidence, the…

The plaintiff is Guangzhou Tinpod Electronic Technology Co. The plaintiff initially sued under the XYZ pseudonym and hasn’t updated the case caption, even though its identity is no longer sealed. I presume the plaintiff and many of the 44 defendants are Chinese entities. This case appears to be another example of how the SAD Scheme has become one of the U.S.’s most popular exports to China. The plaintiff claims that the defendants infringed its copyright, including registration #VAu 1-517-249,…

In my previous blog post on this case, I wrote: This lawsuit raises one of the venerable but surprisingly vexing copyright law questions: when is a price copyrightable? That might sound like a stupid question because “facts” aren’t copyrightable and a price seems like it should be characterized as a “fact.” And yet…the copyright law jurisprudence is littered with cases saying or implying that individual prices could be copyrightable (e.g., the abysmal CDN v. Kapes opinion), as wacky as that may…

This SAD Scheme case ended up before Judge Buchwald, who shreds it. Judge Buchwald recaps the scheme’s fundamental corruptness: if all of plaintiff’s requested ex parte relief were to be granted, plaintiff would at the outset be entitled to broad discovery with serious consequences to defendants. Plaintiff would first be authorized to serve expedited discovery on the Financial Institutions, who would be obligated to provide all known e-mail addresses and mailing addresses for defendants, as…

[I have so many Section 230 cases backlogged in my blogging queue, but this one is jumping the queue because of its comparative novelty.] This is a defamation case between a professor and a student in the Emory School of Medicine. It is one of the countless lawsuits related to the Gaza war, Palestinian rights, and Zionism/anti-Zionism. In this case, the student publicly and repreatedly criticized the professor for serving in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and in response the school suspended…

Katie Sedgwick is a former client of LS Carlson Law. It sounds like she didn’t love working with them. She negatively reviewed the firm on Yelp. I had difficulty finding the original review. In response, the firm sued her for defamation and breach of contract. The firm enumerated seven allegedly defamatory statements, including “They are either scam artists or complete crooks” and “They are not tough, they are not effective and they will rob you blind.” The lower court held these statements…

The court describes the case: Plaintiff Channel 781 News (“Channel 781”) is a YouTube-based news outlet focusing on local affairs in Waltham, Massachusetts. Channel 781 posted clips from Waltham municipal government meetings that it believed to be newsworthy. Channel 781 took these clips without permission from recordings of the meetings produced by Defendant Waltham Community Access Corporation (“WCAC”) for the city’s public access channel. The clips Channel 781 posted were accompanied by…

This case naturally raises some questions that Musk might choose to pose to Grok, like: “Grok, is it bad when TOS formation fails?” “Grok, what are best practices for TOS formation and does our current TOS formation process satisfy those?” * * * The plaintiff claims Grok “disclosed private and confidential information.” Grok sought to transfer the case to N.D. Tex. per its TOS forum selection clause. Everyone agrees the case should transfer if the TOS was properly formed. It was not. The Wrap…

This case generally follows the SAD Scheme template, but with several twists: it’s in the Western District of Texas, not the more typical N.D. Ill. it’s a copyright claim rather than the more typical trademark claim it’s against a single defendant, not dozens or hundreds of defendants it’s filed by the Valley & Summit Law firm, a relatively new firm (formed 2024) I haven’t encountered before. The firm’s principal says in her bio: “Ms. Ouyang started her IP practice by helping cross-border…

This opinion is an offshoot of the multitudinous Meta Pixel cases. LinkedIn offered its own tracking technology called the Insight Tag. Prior blog post. In this case, two healthcare entities, Covered California and Nevada Health Link, installed the Insight Tag, which alleged sent consumers’ sensitive health information to LinkedIn. The lawsuit over these implementations leads to a partially split ruling. Consumer Consent LinkedIn’s own disclosures may be sufficient (see LB v. LinkedIn in my…

The jurisprudence of parody dog toys and trademark dilution continues to grow. In this case, “JDPI argues that the Bad Spaniels toy dilutes its marks ‘by associating the famed whiskey with,’ as the Supreme Court put it, ‘dog excrement.'” However, “as JDPI concedes, the ‘Bad Spaniels’ mark ‘does not itself refer to defecation’ and therefore is not facially tarnishing.” On remand from the Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit concluded again that the Bad Spaniels dog toy does not dilute Jack Daniel’s…

This case involves two competitors in the vehicle-battery charger industry. The plaintiff calls its offering “Battery Tender” (based on the analogy of a ship’s tender) and claims trademark rights in the term. Believing that the term is generic, NOCO began using the term in reference to its own products. The plaintiff sued for trademark infringement and more. A jury found for the plaintiff and awarded $1.3M in actual damages and $5.75M in punitive damages. The judge added another $12M of…

Created by ChatGPT Dec. 2025 by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy I recently described the district court’s decision in the case of Amazon v. Perplexity as “a shockingly poor effort to grapple with CFAA applicability to agentic AI technology.” The Ninth Circuit appears to have agreed. This week, the Ninth Circuit panel published its opinion vacating the district court’s preliminary injunction and remanding for further proceedings. Amazon.com Services, LLC v. Perplexity AI, Inc., 2026 WL 2237587…

by Prof. Marketa Trimble UNLV Boyd Law School Last month, while sitting at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, a passenger typed www.annefrankmanuscripten.org on her laptop to look up the website at issue in the latest judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on geoblocking—the Anne Frank Fonds judgment. The retrieved webpage notified her that “due to copyright considerations,” the content, a scholarly edition of Anne Frank manuscripts, was not available to users connecting from…

Last week, I blogged the Moss v. GoDaddy decision holding that a key part of California’s Yelp Law doesn’t authorize a private right of action. If you didn’t read that post, go read it now because this post assumes you have. In short, California enacted the “Yelp Law” to restrict businesses from trying to stop their consumers from posting online reviews. The statute is divided into two main operative parts. (a)(1) targets TOS provisions that restrict consumer reviews. (a)(2) targets businesses’…

Starting in 2024, Harbor Freight deployed the following cookie banner: The court accepts Harbor Freight’s claim that the “2024 Cookie Banner was displayed on each page on the Website until the user interacted with it, even if the user had previously visited the Website and interacted with the prior cookie banner.” In 2025, Harbor Freight added an arbitration clause to the TCU. The TCU also contains a class action waiver. The named plaintiff, Alba, says he visited the website at least once a…

I’m pleased to announce the 2026 edition (17th edition) of my Internet Law casebook, Internet Law: Cases & Materials. The book is available in multiple formats: a PDF for $10, a Kindle ebook for $10, a softcover version for $20, and a hardcover version for $28. [All printed versions come with a free PDF on request.] For my thoughts about self-publishing an ebook casebook, see this article. If you’re an academic and would like a free evaluation PDF, email me. I can also share my course slide…

Created by ChatGPT May 2026 In a prior post, I surveyed the rates at which consumers do not complete online age authentication processes, what I call the “balk” rate. There is no single canonical balk rate. It varies by destination behind the authentication wall, the method of authentication, demographics, and many other factors. In my prior post, I mentioned a study from a mostly Carnegie Mellon team. I had seen a summary of the study, but the full study has now been posted. It’s worth digging…

The “Yelp Law,” California Civil Code 1670.8, has two main provisions: (a)(1) A contract or proposed contract for the sale or lease of consumer goods or services may not include a provision waiving the consumer’s right to make any statement regarding the seller or lessor or its employees or agents, or concerning the goods or services. (a)(2) It shall be unlawful to threaten or to seek to enforce a provision made unlawful under this section, or to otherwise penalize a consumer for making any…

The Jehovah’s Witnesses (the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania) sought to unmask a Doe who uploaded an archive of religious texts, along with some associated linguistic parsing tools, to a website (https://jws-library.one). [That URL now says: “This site has been taken offline out of an abundance of caution while we review relevant matters.”] The Jehovah’s Witnesses submitted a 512(h) subpoena to Cloudflare, which provided cybersecurity (proxy) services to the website. Doe…

Nomenclature note: This is an Annex A case, not a Schedule A case, but they are the same thing. Snarky note about design patents: This is a design patent case. I don’t mean any disrespect towards design patent aficionados, but design patent cases typically feel like Calvinball to me. This one does too. * * * Shenzhen Jisu has a design patent (D886,982) for a foldable fan: Shenzhen Jisu asserted the design patent against many online merchants in a SAD Scheme case. As usual, it got an ex parte…

This case involves Apple’s handling of user-uploaded files hosted in private iCloud storage. Instead of adopting PhotoDNA to scan hosted files for CSAM, Apple created its own proprietary alternative, NeuralHash, which apparently wasn’t as good. So Apple U-turned on its efforts to scan for CSAM in its cloud storage. Instead, Apple implemented end-to-end encryption for iCloud files. Apple’s manuevers confused the public and seemed like an embarrassing unforced error for Apple. It also ensured…

Feds for Freedom is an anti-COVID vax organization. It registered an Instagram account. F4F is upset that Instagram allegedly warned anyone who tried to repost their content that: This account has repeatedly posted false information that was reviewed by independent fact checkers or went against our Community Guidelines. Do you want to @mention this account? There was a more prominent “cancel” button than the option to proceed, implicitly nudging users to cancel. F4F claims that none of its…

Lee is enforcing music copyrights against karaoke machine makers that allegedly include copyrighted songs. He sent numerous NOCIs to eBay targeting the machines. eBay apparently honored the NOCIs. However, Lee really wanted staydowns, which eBay did not do. Lee claims his NOCIs conferred sufficient knowledge of infringement to warrant the staydowns. In the wake of Cox v. Sony, Lee’s pro se lawsuit goes nowhere (plus the court warns Lee not to rely on generative AI without double-checking the…

This blog post rounds up nearly 20 Section 230 cases (and adjacent cases), mostly from the past four months, that for whatever reason I didn’t cover in a standalone blog post. Section 230’s effects are waning overall, but this post will show that Section 230 still efficiently resolves many routine and pro se cases. Coomer v. Lindell, 2026 WL 817370 (D. Colo. March 25, 2026) Related post. This is more fallout from the efforts to deny the 2020 presidential election results. MyPillows huckster…

This is a copyright infringement lawsuit among pro se litigants. The dispute sideswipes YouTube, but YouTube is able to exit on a motion to dismiss. The plaintiff claims a copyright in a book, Drug Lords of Oakland. The defendants operate a YouTube channel, Evil Streets TV. The plaintiff says that the defendants posted 15 videos, each of which narrated a chapter from his book, plus some videos included copyrighted photos from the book. The court implies the dispute roughly followed a DMCA…

This is a very recent Emojico SAD Scheme enforcement (filed last week). I’ve blogged a few Emojico cases before (see the link list below). Indeed, my interest in the SAD Scheme started with an Emojico case, so I pay a little extra attention to their litigation pratfalls. Here, a court easily and instantly flyswats away their bogus case. Emojico started with the standard SAD Scheme argument that all of the defendants are counterfeiters, which necessarily proves they are infringers, res ipsa…

This is a putative class action lawsuit. The named plaintiff provided intimate images to her then-fiance, who (after the breakup) created fake Facebook profiles of the plaintiff and uploaded her intimate images without consent (turning the images into NCII). She requested Facebook remove the images, and when that didn’t happen, she got the local sheriff’s office to serve a search warrant on Facebook, allegedly demanding removal of the images. (That doesn’t sound like how search warrants work,…