Laws of .com

Volume VII, Issue 15: October 22, 2009

NBA Star – The Robin Hood of Domain Names

Eolas Sues High-Profile Companies over Web Technology

Yahoo Settles Class Action Pay-Per-Click Advertisement Suit

Craigslist Sues Ad-automation Vendors

Apple Challenges Woolworth’s “W” Trade-Mark

Industry Association Opposes New Blogging Recommendations

The Canadian Marketing Association Seeks Alteration of Ottawa’s Anti-Spam Bill

NBA Star – The Robin Hood of Domain Names

Popular NBA player Chris Bosh recently won a court battle in California against a cybersquatter who had registered chrisbosh.com, along with the names of many other athletes and celebrities. In April, the Court granted Bosh custody of his own domain name, as well as a $120,000 USD award. Based on Bosh’s lawyer’s concerns that the cybersquatter would not pay the award, Bosh instead asked for the rights to the 800 other domain names owned by the cybersquatter. In October, he was awarded custody of these domains.

Bosh, a tech-savvy player with a popular Tweet and his own YouTube channel, has offered to return the domains to those players and celebrities to whom they belong, including NBA players, racecar drivers, celebrities’ children, and even promising high school athletes. Bosh is not asking for any payment for the return of these domains to their namesakes, and his offer has already been taken up by a number of athletes.

For additional information, visit:
http://tinyurl.com/yj27aa7

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Eolas Sues High-Profile Companies over Web Technology

Eolas has filed a suit against a long list of companies in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas for alleged patent infringement of two of Eolas’s patents. The suit seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions prohibiting the plaintiffs from using the patents, and payment of damages. The list includes high-profile companies in different business sectors, including Adobe Systems, Amazon, Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Frito Lay, JP Morgan Chase, Office Depot and Playboy Enterprises. The suit follows on a previous patent infringement case brought by Eolas against Microsoft, relating to the same technology, which was settled in 2007.

The Eolas patents describe technology that allows a browser to access and activate an embedded program on a webpage. The suit alleges that the defendants infringed the patents by allowing webpages and content to be interactively presented in browsers. Eolas seeks treble damages in the suit as Eolas alleges that the infringements were willful based on the fact that the validity of one of Eolas’ patents has been confirmed by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on three occasions in the past.

For additional information visit:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/pdfs/eolas.pdf

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Yahoo Settles Class Action Pay-Per-Click Advertisement Suit

A U.S. District Court in California has granted preliminary approval to a settlement in a class action suit brought against Yahoo! Inc. The 2006 suit was brought by several representative customers who contracted for pay-per-click search ads under the “Sponsored Search” or “Content Match” programs offered by Yahoo! or its predecessors. The suit alleges Yahoo! wrongly allowed the purchased ads to be displayed in spyware, domain name parking sites, pop-ups, pop-unders and typo-squatting sites.

While Yahoo! has admitted no wrongdoing, the settlement requires Yahoo! to establish a new option to allow customers to control where their Sponsored Search ads will appear. Customers may direct that such ads will appear only on websites and other Internet properties owned or operated by Yahoo!, and the websites of certain “Premium” distribution partners. Yahoo! will also pay attorney fees and settlement expenses, as well as refunds of $20 to class members who have gone out of business. If finalized, the settlement will apply to the “U.S. Marketplace”, namely, Yahoo!’s ad “marketplace” covering the United States and English-speaking Canada.

For additional information, visit:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10374093-265.html
http://tinyurl.com/techcrunch-yahoo-ad-settlement

For a copy of the settlement, visit:
http://tinyurl.com/yl7vc4c

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Craigslist Sues Ad-automation Vendors

Craigslist, Inc., owners of the Internet’s most popular classified ad service, has continued its campaign against those providing software to automate ad postings to its sites by filing four more lawsuits in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The suits generally allege violation or breach of copyright; trade-mark; the Craigslist terms of use; the Digital Millennium Copyright Act; the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act; and the California Penal Code. The thrust of the claim is that by devising means of circumventing each new anti-automation countermeasure which Craigslist implements, and by selling these circumvention tools to ad-spammers, Craigslist is harmed. However, many of the ten claims for relief in the Clbotpro.com et al. suit, for example, go much further, raising unconventional claims that breaches of the Craigslist terms of use are criminal or fraudulent, or that the circumvention tools or their development are derivative works of Craigslist’s copyright works in its access systems.

There is some irony and potential downside to Craigslist bringing these claims, as the Software & Information Industry Association uses Craigslist as an example of an Internet tool used by software pirates to facilitate sales, and a broad interpretation of copyright law in this context could ultimately backfire.

For additional information, visit:
http://tinyurl.com/yf6o63y

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Apple Challenges Woolworth’s “W” Trade-Mark

In a vigorous protection of its well-known trade-mark, computer and electronics giant, Apple, is challenging an application by Woolworths in Australia to register, as a trade-mark, a stylized green “W” with a stem that resembles the well known Apple logo. Woolworths’ trade-mark application includes a wide class of electrical technology that would encompass computers, music players and other devices that would compete directly with Apple’s products, a move Apple believes Woolworths is looking to make. Woolworths says that Apple is taking trade-mark protection “to the extreme”.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,26172444-462,00.html

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Industry Association Opposes New Blogging Recommendations

In response to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) recently published guidelines, “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released an open letter detailing its concern. The President and the CEO of IAB (Randal Rothenberg) cites that the new guidelines which require, inter alia, that bloggers disclose their affiliations with sponsors, marketers, and free giveaways are “punitive to the online world”. He continued by stating that the new guidelines are biased and offline media is not facing such rigorous scrutiny, stating that “clamping down on one medium but not another constitutes a First Amendment violation”.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.iab.net/insights_research/public_policy/openletter-ftc
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10376177-93.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10367464-93.html?tag=mncol;txt

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The Canadian Marketing Association Seeks Alteration of Ottawa’s Anti-Spam Bill

Marketers in Canada are raising concerns over a clause of proposed Bill C-27 (properly known as the Electronic Commerce Protection Act, “ECPA”) which, if passed, would require consumers to opt in before receiving commercial email messages, rather than opting-out, in order to not receive them. The Bill would thus require all senders of commercial email messages to obtain express or implied consumer consent before sending out an email message. The Canadian Marketing Association (“CMA”) argues that this provision will limit a companies’ ability to grow by not being able to gain new customers.

As a result, the CMA is currently lobbying MPs to ensure that the clause is changed before the Parliamentary committee convenes to examine the Bill. Once committee members decide which amendments are to be included in the draft Bill, it will return to the House of Commons for a third reading. Supporters of the Bill argue that if this clause is removed, it will render the anti-spam Bill “useless” as a major loophole will be in place.

If the Bill passes it will be enforced by three organizations including the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the Competition Bureau, and the Office of the Privacy Commission of Canada. The Bill also includes provisions that aim to address privacy and personal security concerns associated with spam, counterfeit websites, and spyware.

For additional information, visit:
http://tinyurl.com/yfs5ouh

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