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Posts Tagged ‘legal’

Facebook has been making their own rules since they came on the scene. Although they’ve taken more and more heat for their almost-constant privacy changes, it seems like we find a new low every few months. Meanwhile, even the courts are beginning to side with Facebook on advertising issues. Facebook gained a partial victory in the US District court last week in a case on click fraud. Judge Jeremy Fogel decided that advertisers could sue Facebook for charges resulting from “invalid” clicks&madsh;but not “fraudulent” ones. A clause in Facebook’s advertising contract, tentatively upheld by the court, actually protects them from any suits about fraudulent clicks. A fraudulent click might include a competitor’s click campaign designed to drive up the advertiser’s costs. Click fraud is a felony in California (where the case was decided). This class-action suit was originally filed last July . The decision does mean that advertisers can subpoena click information to look for “invalid” clicks they were charged for, and sue Facebook for those. The court did not agree with Facebook’s argument on invalid clicks, though it was quite similar to their argument for fraudulent ones: Facebook argued that the litigation should be dismissed because all cost-per-click advertisers were required to agree to the company’s terms and conditions, which allegedly included the following language: “I understand that third parties may generate impressions, clicks, or other actions affecting the cost of the advertising for fraudulent or improper purposes, and I accept the risk of any such impressions, clicks, or other actions.” Facebook’s latest new venture, a Like button for the whole Internet, may also bring them some serious grief. Developers have revealed that Facebook’s new Graph API had at least one serious privacy loophole : the API allowed developers to see and display all public events a person has said they’d attend, regardless of whether that person is a friend or not. Ka-Ping Yee, a software engineer for Google.org (Google’s charitable arm, as the Guardian describes it), discovered the vulnerability . He was especially concerned that there was no way to block or opt-out of this setting, especially since respondents to events have no control over whether the event is listed as private or public. Although you could see non-friends who have RSVP’ed to a public event on the event’s page, the API loophole allows everyone to see a full list of a single user’s public events, regardless of their connection to you. This vulnerability may have actually been inherited from an old API. However, late last night, Facebook corrected the vulnerability. Shades of Google Buzz, anyone? Ultimately, I think the Graph API will probably face at least a few more privacy challenges, even before the watchdogs, federal government and litigators start in on it. What do you think?

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Facebook: Where Fraud Isn’t Frauduldent and Privacy Isn’t Private

The online world is interesting for all of us when it comes to defining who we are. While it’s easy to call yourself a blogger what does that actually mean from a legal standpoint? How is a blogger truly defined when it comes to the legal side of the coin? A case in New Jersey has brought attention to the rights and protections provided to someone but whether it is about a blogger is something that seems to be up for debate. MediaPost’s report is titled “Jersey Court Rules Blogger Not Protected By Shield Law, Must Divulge Source ”. A pretty astounding headline but after reading the report I am not convinced this ruling is about bloggers at all. An appellate court in New Jersey has ruled that a woman who slammed the software company Too Much Media on a message board isn’t a “journalist” for purposes of the state’s shield law. The controversial ruling means that the post’s author, life coach Shellee Hale of Washington state, can be ordered to divulge her sources for her online remarks about Too Much Media, which is suing Hale for defamation. New Jersey’s reporter shield law broadly allows journalists to protect the identity of their confidential sources. But the appellate court ruled that not all writers are entitled to claim the benefits of that law “lest anyone with a webpage or who posts materials on the Internet would qualify.” Now, this whole case is around a message board “post” on a site called Oprano which calls itself the “Wall Street Journal for the online adult entertainment industry”. Oh yea, the plot thickens, doesn’t it? The credibility of all involved is starting to really come to light. Nevertheless, how any court defines a journalist can be important to any online “reporter” or “blogger” because if brought to the courts legal precedence will often help determine which way a case will go. So the NJ court has basically decided that this message board rant that eventually created a charge of defamation (that’s rich considering the industry, huh?) suit is not protected under the state’s Shield Law. These laws are designed to allow reporters etc to protect sources. The ruling was upheld in an appellate court as well. The bottom line is this A trial judge rejected Hale’s argument and an appellate court upheld that ruling this week. The appellate court said that Hale’s posts to the message board were more akin to a letter to the editor than a work of journalism. “Although any attempt at defining ‘news’ would ultimately prove illusory, some delimiting standards must pertain lest anyone with a webpage or who posts materials on the Internet would qualify,” the court stated. The judges then went on to outline specific reasons why Hale didn’t qualify as a journalist: “Defendant has produced no credentials or proof of affiliation with any recognized news entity, nor has she demonstrated adherence to any standard of professional responsibility regulating institutional journalism, such as editing, fact-checking or disclosure of conflicts of interest.” Too Much Media’s lawyer, Joel Kreizman, says that the court correctly decided that Hale wasn’t acting as a journalist when she made the posts. “A journalist would issue a report,” he says. “These posts were on a message board as opposed to any kind of blog.” Well, now the blogging world may want to be concerned if there is a need for credentials and standards to have some protection under the law. Those aren’t exactly commonplace in the world of blogging. If they are please update me. Hale’s lawyers, of course, don’t think this ended the way it should But Hale’s lawyer, Jeffrey Pollock, criticized the decision. He says that New Jersey doesn’t require that journalists have credentials or work for established news outlets to qualify for the shield law. Instead, he says, the only criteria is whether people gathered information for the purpose of publication. “If she doesn’t qualify, who the hell does?” he asks. “How do you decide who’s in and who’s out?” Interesting question really. As a blogger, how covered or how exposed you are in any legal case will be more a subjective matter than objective depending plenty of variables. Where you live, where a case is filed and more. As a result, what do you think are the protections afforded someone who has a blog rather than just posts to a forum? Should there be journalistic “rights” for bloggers? If so, how far should they go? Any thoughts?

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NJ Court Says Determines Whether Woman Is A Journalist or Not

One day you’re up, the next day you’re down. Just yesterday, we were gushing over the rapid rise of online coupon provider Groupon . Frank pointed out that Groupon had managed to achieve a $1 billion valuation, despite the many copycats in the marketplace. Well, one of those copycats is not prepared to go quietly into the night. According to GigaOm , Tippr picked up a boatload of patents that could put a serious dampener on Groupon’s capital raising efforts. [Tippr CEO Martin Tobias] saw the rise of Groupon. He happened to know that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who’d invested something like $90 million in the failed Groupon of the late ’90s, Mercata, still owned that company’s patents. In exchange for equity in Tippr, Tobias picked up 12 patents which cover everything from “ Attaining product inventory groupings for sales in a group-buying environment ” to “ Demand aggregation through online buying groups .” Of course, Tobias is quick to distance himself from any speculation that he’ll use the patents for anything other than as a “defensive weapon,” but simply owning the patents puts Tippr in an offensive stance. A stance that all of a sudden doesn’t quite make Groupon look so golden. Will we see a patent infringement suit from Tippr? Perhaps, but certainly that will come AFTER Groupon earns its $1 billion valuation. And it may not even come until Groupon is either acquired by [fill in the blank] or files for an IPO.

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Tippr Patently Going After Groupon

Apple finally officially made the leap into advertising on apps on its iPhone and iPad last week with the announcement of iAd . Of course, we’ve all been expecting that since they acquired Quattro Wireless —but it looked like no one was as excited as soon-to-be-full-on-rival Google . As rumored, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt is already telling the US government what iAds mean for the mobile ad market. And the bottom line for him? iAds mean the FTC should approve Google’s acquisition of AdMob . Well, of course. Google’s acquisition was announced in November. The next month, consumer groups lobbied the FTC , saying the deal would stifle competition in the mobile app ad market. Last month, the FTC turned to rival app advertising companies for feedback on the pending deal. According to Reuters , Schmidt thinks iAds pretty much make his case for him: Apple’s plan to make a foray into the advertising market with iAd, was “evidence of a highly competitive market.” “It just seems obvious to me,” said Schmidt. Of course, Quattro was already a player in the app ad market, so it’s not like Apple’s introducing a totally new entity. However, with Apple’s backing, Quattro may be positioned to truly compete with a giant like Google. It looks like Google definitely needs the help. According to Reuters: FTC staff have been canvassing app developers to try to line up support to fight the deal, said one developer, who asked to remain unidentified because he had been interviewed by FTC attorneys. “It’s been really interesting talking to them because they are so dead set against this,” said the developer. “They have been clearly positioning to try to stop this.” Google is edging closer and closer to government action. In 2008, Google dropped its search ad deal with Yahoo just hours before the DOJ was going to file antitrust charges . Last year, Schmidt resigned from the Apple board after FTC scrutiny of his involvement in the two companies (and also because they both wanted to buy AdMob ). What do you think? Will this finally be the time Google can’t escape the government’s scrutiny?

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Yep: Google’s Hoping iAd Will Get GoogleMob Approved

Last month, Google announced a new “ remarketing ” feature, allowing advertisers to later target people who’d visited their sites or YouTube channels. Retargeting like this is a popular marketing topic: an Advertise.com/SEMPO survey ( via ) found that slightly under 70% of marketers had never used it, but 46.3% of marketers thought retargeting was the “most underutilized marketing strategy.” With Google just getting in on the market, obviously the time is ripe for established companies to make bigger moves as well. However, as with all behaviorally targeted marketing, protecting consumer privacy is a big concern—especially for consumer privacy watchdogs. The Center for Digital Democracy has filed with the FTC asking for a probe into behavioral targeting by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, among others. This is just the most recent volley in that battle. Interestingly, a French company is also choosing now to enter the American retargeting marketing. Criteo is moving its HQ to Palo Alto (from Paris)—but they’re bringing with them the European standard of privacy, which thus far has proven to be higher than that of the US. CEO JB Rudelle says: We have been working in countries like Germany, which is probably the most demanding country in the world when it comes to privacy. We put a direct opt-out link on all retargeting display banners in Europe, and hope to bring this feature into the U.S. market. (I do have to say, though, that the CDD’s director might be taking this a bit far when he says “Online marketers have made what was science fiction in ‘Minority Report’ now a reality.” Maybe it’s been a while since he’s seen that movie, but last I checked we’re not talking about iris-scanning identifying and tracking technology—or even technology that requires or uses your name (necessarily). There’s a debate over whether an IP address constitute personally identifiable information in the first place—though tracking consumers from site to site without their consent does feel like it’s crossing a line.) I don’t know if directly opt-out links would be enough to assuage some of the privacy critics. What do you think? Can retargeting and privacy peacefully coexist?

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Retargeting Picking Up—And So Are Privacy Concerns