Balough
December 14, 2013
A California resident who sent over 100 emails to Idaho to recruit executives from a competing marketing firm can be sued in Idaho for violating the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (Can-Spam Act). Daryl Hansen filed a motion to dismiss the case. He argued that he could not be […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
A woman who gained instant fame after being selected for the Guinness Book of World Records can recover a domain name using her name that was registered days after she became famous. Rachel Aldana won a contest run by the British tabloid “The People” for having the “biggest breasts in Britain.” After publication of the […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
A city violated a police officer’s privacy rights when it retrieved and reviewed text messages on a city-issued pager in spite of a written policy that the messages were public. The police officer, as well as the recipients and senders of other text messages on the officer’s account, sued the City of Ontario, Calif., after […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
A trial court erred when, prior to trial, it restrained a former wife from posting on the internet allegedly defamatory statements about her former husband. The California appeals court found that to obtain an injunction before trial, “a proponent has a heavy burden to show the countervailing interest is compelling, the prior restraint is […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
A law firm that believes it was defamed has the right in discovery to find out if the defendants have any knowledge about the internet posting. The Seventh Circuit found that the district court erred in not ruling on a request to compel the defendants to disclose if they had any information in their possession […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
A roommate-matching website that uses drop down menus and requires users to identify the user’s sex, sexual orientation and whether he would bring children to a household is not entitled to immunity for its actions, the Ninth Circuit ruled. Under the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA), an internet service provider is immune against liability […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
The three-count conviction of spammer Jeremy Jaynes has been upheld by a 4-3 vote of the Virginia Supreme Court. Jaynes was convicted for forging the header information on thousands of unsolicited commercial electronic messages that he sent out from his Raleigh, N.C. home. The Virginia statute criminalizes forging headers and makes it a felony to […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
Agreeing with the trial court’s finding that the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet’s “promotion has been thoroughly dishonest,” the Seventh Circuit has upheld a $16 million judgment and injunction against the promoter. The court agreed that the Federal Trade Commission provided sufficient evidence to require the company to disgorge the $16 million in profits that the Defendants […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
A website that ranks attorneys is publishing only protected opinions, not facts, a Washington federal district court found. Two attorneys who were ranked by Avvo, Inc. claimed they were damaged by the website’s rating and that the ranking violated the Washington Consumer Protection Act. They also alleged that because of the ranking, clients may not […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
A Florida-based website that targeted the Chicago market and received payment based on the number of clicks on each hyperlink can be sued in Illinois. U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Norgle found Domain Magic, LLC’s website www.chicagoarchitecturefoundation.org misappropriated the website of an Illinois corporation for its own gain. “By purposefully reaching out to the […]
