Slashdot Mirror

"The European Commission's decision will come after a seven-year investigation into the world's most popular internet search engine was triggered by scores of complaints from both U.S. and European rivals." Most of who are fronting for the Microsoft organization. You don't have to look far to find the Micrsoft connection:

CompTIA

Computing Technology Industry Association

Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace (ICOMP)

Association for Competitive Technology (ACT)

FairSearch

TradeComet

'Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism' .. that's a real organization .. spends most of the time defending MICROS~1 :)

Pretty sure that you're wrong. Because it's been tried before, multiple times.

Also, you can't file civil suits based upon "supporting terrorist organizations" or "aiding the enemy." Only the U.S. government and the states can bring criminal charges, and note that they're not doing so...

I don't see a blanket statement releasing them from liability for what they publish...

That's funny, because you've quoted it.

47 U.S.C. 230(c)(1)
Treatment of publisher or speaker No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Not liable for publishing third party content
over
and over
and over again

I don't see a blanket statement releasing them from liability for what they publish...

That's funny, because you've quoted it.

47 U.S.C. 230(c)(1)
Treatment of publisher or speaker No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Not liable for publishing third party content
over
and over
and over again

I don't see a blanket statement releasing them from liability for what they publish...

That's funny, because you've quoted it.

47 U.S.C. 230(c)(1)
Treatment of publisher or speaker No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Not liable for publishing third party content
over
and over
and over again

I don't see a blanket statement releasing them from liability for what they publish...

That's funny, because you've quoted it.

47 U.S.C. 230(c)(1)
Treatment of publisher or speaker No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Not liable for publishing third party content
over
and over
and over again

Are you talking about this case of a sex offender getting his case reconsidered because the examiner hated Arial?

http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2013/11/facebook-rant-against-arial-font-helps-reverse-sex-offender-determination.htm

You can bet the farm that because of this all major online retailers have already started work to change their registration and ordering systems to implement a clickthrough rather than ticking a checkbox that says 'I agree'.

From reading the article linked to in tfa, a checkbox would work. Zappos's problem is that they just buried a link to the tos at the bottom left-hand corner of the page where no sane user would click.

Wasn't there any actual *coverage of the case* somewhere on the web that could have been linked to, Ray?

Yes of course. Here's an article by excellent law professor/law blogger Eric Goldman, who as an amicus curiae in the case:

Technology & Marketing Law Blog

(Should I be offended that jra doesn't consider my blog post actuall "coverage"?")

See what Venkat Balasubramani says about this [1], in detail

An injunction requiring Google to "de-list" sites is one remedy which SOPA expressly makes available, and ordering the registry to transfer domain names to GoDaddy and ordering GoDaddy to update the DNS records is in effect achieving another remedy which SOPA creates. The fight against SOPA may be a red herring in some ways, since IP plaintiffs are fashioning very similar remedies in court irrespective of the legislation. Thus, even if SOPA is defeated, it may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory--opponents may win the battle but may not have gained much as a result.

[1]: http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2011/11/court_oks_priva.htm

The line is pretty obvious:

NOBODY who is a government employee has any business reading private facebook or emails w/o first obtaining a warrant issued by a judge, and naming the reason for the search, backed by articulatable evidence why said person is a suspect.

Get over yourself. The courts have already held that not only are facebook posts are public, but also that even deleted posts can be turned over. Besides, you agree as part of your terms of use that facebook can reveal all sorts of crap. Don't like it - don't use facebook.

And having at least a dozen other students posting comments shows the posts in question were far from a "private communication" (who knows how many other students viewed the posts w/o commenting).

After a little research, it seems to me that Israel is the first (and only) nation in the world where "fair use" is possibly a "right" (see the section titled ' New User "Rights" ').

This is since Sept. 2009. My impression is that the decision has been appealed but hasn't been heard yet. I wouldn't be surprised if Obama's administration wouldn't have a few (unofficial) things to say to the Israeli government when the appeal comes up in the Israeli courts.

Gordon v. Virtumundo (PDF)
Reading to the very bottom, it was signed by John C. Coughenour, United States District Judge.

http://www.wawd.uscourts.gov/CourthouseInformation/DistrictJudges.htm#JCC:

Judge John C. Coughenour
U.S. Courthouse
700 Stewart Street
Seattle, WA 98101-9906

        * Chambers: 206-370-8800
        * Courtroom Deputy: 206-370-8805
        * Docket Clerk: 206-370-8450
        * E-mail Address (proposed orders only):
        coughenourorders@wawd.uscourts.gov

Following a visit to her hometown of Coalinga California in 2005, Cynthia Moreno wrote "An ode to Coalinga," and posted it in her MySpace page. The Ode opened with "the older I get, the more I realize how much I despise Coalinga" and made a number of negative comments about Coalinga and its inhabitants. The entry was posted for six days before Moreno removed it but that was long enough for the principal of Coalinga High School to find the ode and forward it to Pamela Pond, editor of the Coalinga Record, who published it in the newspaper's letters section. Local reaction was swift. Moreno's parents say they received death threats, a gun shot was fired at their home and her father's 20-year-old business lost so much money that it was closed and the family moved out of town. Moreno and her family responded by suing for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Now a Fresno based appellate court says Moreno had no grounds for her claim of invasion of privacy even if she meant her thoughts for a limited audience. "Cynthia's affirmative act made her article available to any person with a computer and, thus, opened it to the public eye," wrote Justice Levy. However, the claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress was not dismissed and a jury will get to decide if the defendants' conduct was extreme and outrageous. In the meantime the editor who republished the essay has been fired and lawyer Eric Goldman, Associate Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law, wonders "if the violent and ostracizing community response to Moreno's post didn't in fact validate some of her critiques."

Unfortunately, the opinion is vague about whether AOL's initial contract with Douglas had a provision whereby he agreed that AOL could amend the user agreement simply by posting changes to its website...even if the court was willing to accept this method as a valid amendment process, there would be strict limits on the substantive changes that a website can make unilaterally...I expect courts will aggressively police these unilateral amendments using unconscionability and other limiting doctrines.

So from the sounds of it, it's probably not a slam dunk, but particularly egregious changes would most likely get struck down.

State attempts to regulate the Internet have been tried in many states, for many years, in many guises. Take a look at Utah's Trademark Protection Act. The state government eventually realized that (drumroll) states can't control the Internet. As others here have noted, it's simply not feasible. In the case of the proposed Kentucky legislation, this dooms it before analysis even gets to Constitutional protections on speech, not to mention the Federal government's objections on Dormant Commerce Clause grounds.

Your link is A: to Dozier (who had nothing to do with my case, but writes like he did) and B: just to his homepage, which will gradually become less useful in finding the judgment itself or any other detailed info on this case. I suggest starting at the FAQ I'm (finally) writing as I work thru this thread: http://www.43rdstateblues.com/?q=melaleuca-43sb-faq Or go straight to Harvard's Citizen Media Law Center or Eric Goldman's blog entry: http://www.citmedialaw.org/threats/melaleuca-v-43sbcom-llc http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2007/12/takedown_letter.htm

nasty blogspam and hijacking using frames the original is here http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2007/10/blogger_wins_la.htm

1. After she sent the Internet Archive an email demanding payment of $100,000, the Internet Archive sued to have their actions declared legal.
2. She is proceeding pro se, most likely because she got caught off-guard by the Internet Archive's legal action. Still, you can't go around demanding $100,000 without expecting a legal response.
3. One of her counterclaims was for copyright infringment. However, the Internet Archive did not move to have that counterclaim dismissed.

You need to read the legal judgements rather than TFA as MSM rarely gets this stuff right.

This is unlikely to have a direct impact on spidering at large as archive.org reproduces websites en masse, which is a big part of the judgement. Very few spidering systems do this and it is likely that is reasonable that they do not have a legal right to.

Also, does robots.txt have a method for declaring what you're allowed to do with the contents you spider?

http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/waybackshell. pdf

"Shell contends that Internet Archive formed a contract with her when it reproduced her website contents, and then breached this contract when it failed to pay her the prescribed fees. Internet Archive argues that it never entered into a contract with Shell. It is undisputed that the parties did not form an explicit contract. Rather, Shell states that Internet Archive entered a contract with her by its conduct in reproducing her web materials."

I'm currently in a protracted legal battle over my BLOG with a local eBay dropoff who has accused me of using their logo within my story. Their claim is that I am not allowed to use the logo (which is a key illustration of their services) under the Lanham Act. They have placed several pendant issues such as defamation (in the suit called "impeachment of character") and brand dilution/tarnishment.

The first court rejected the suit and sent to a lower court, the second court denied an injunction, which is currently in a federal appeal by the Plaintiff. The opposing attorney has been completely unreasonable in his efforts to "punish me" - purely out of revenge (on his client's behalf).

I have received no support from communities like Slashdot, or the EFF because of my typical conservative political affiliation. The legal battle has pretty much cost me my local reputation, ruined my local business, and has caused me a lot of duress/stress over the last year. Since I don't have the money for a lawyer, I have represented myself Pro Se.

I can sympathize with this blogger, and I hope that once my case is resolved that it will help stand as a precedent (which it almost certainly will) as the decision from the lower court contains a formula for determining which bloggers qualify as journalism and which don't. This blogger will benefit greatly from such a decision.

The best analysis of my case can be seen here:

http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2006/11/blog_ lawsuit_ov.htm

According to the complaint, the local police have reportedly obtained information from MySpace that confirms the computers used to make/access the MySpace page are located at the homes of the two students named in the complaint.

The original complaint is here: http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/Draker%20Orig inal%20petition.doc. However, the student's statement (referenced in the complaint as exhibit 1) is not included in this copy.

for some reason, it's not in the headline.

Technology & Marketing Law Blog

I wonder why? Oh yeah: http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2006/02/craig slist_sued.htm/

Roomate.com was sued for the exact same thing and won handily. Why these lawyers would bring this suit with such a clear precedent case is beyond me.

Who wants to bet the newspaper industry is behind this?

Craigslist will be fine. Roommates.com was sued for the exact same behavior, supposedly violating the exact same statute, and they won an easy victory.

Without all the facts, I cannot be sure; but Amazon seems to be squarely covered by 47 USC 230 and has been covered in the past. "[P]laintiffs continue to bring these meritless cases that have no chance under 47 USC 230." from here.

Without all the facts, I cannot be sure; but Amazon seems to be squarely covered by 47 USC 230 and has been covered in the past. "[P]laintiffs continue to bring these meritless cases that have no chance under 47 USC 230." from here.

The case survived a motion to dismiss, that's all. But the judge indicated that he thought the plaintiff had a legitimate case.

The defendant, DirectRevenue, is going to have a tough time at trial. go here for videos of their drive-by installations and other data about their products. "All told, in my testing the single press of the "Yes" button caused the creation of 1,274 registry keys, 2,175 registry entries, 56 folders, and 711 files. PacerD also added two new web browser toolbars, and six advertisement icons on my Windows desktop." That's going to look like "trespass" and "exceeds authorized access" to a judge.

Question: How do you know that's fair use?
Answer: You don't.

And some very smart people think it isn't.

This is a blog entry by Mark Schultz (the legal expert Wired quotes) that came before this "discovery" and after the Grokster decision on June 28th. He talks at great length about how little BitTorrent has to fear from litigation.

This is a second entry from the same day saying pretty much what Wired magazine has just said in the article we got here on Slashdot today.

This is the blog entry by Ernest Miller, also from June 28th, which appears to be the original source for the resurfacing of Bram Cohen's little essay. He appears to be the first person in insinuate that Bram Cohen is not a good person. Thanks Ernest.

This is a blog entry by Mark Schultz (the legal expert Wired quotes) that came before this "discovery" and after the Grokster decision on June 28th. He talks at great length about how little BitTorrent has to fear from litigation.

This is a second entry from the same day saying pretty much what Wired magazine has just said in the article we got here on Slashdot today.

This is the blog entry by Ernest Miller, also from June 28th, which appears to be the original source for the resurfacing of Bram Cohen's little essay. He appears to be the first person in insinuate that Bram Cohen is not a good person. Thanks Ernest.