On July 14, 2009, Andrew Cuomo, the attorney general of New York, settled with Lifestyle Lift, a plastic surgery franchise, for false and deceptive trade practices. The case concerned the growing practice of “astroturfing,” which refers to flooding the Internet with false positive reviews about one’s goods or services. The case is believed to be

In the past two weeks, I’ve twice blogged about the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in Barnes v. Yahoo. This case split the Ninth Circuit from other circuits as to how the CDA should be applied – should it support a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, or should it be treated as an affirmative defense? In deciding that the

Using another’s trademark as a keyword for online search marketing purposes is a murky area of law. Is this trademark infringement? Is this a permissible action? Although one may assume that these questions are two sides of the same coin, in reality they are not. The case law on this issue – especially those cases

In what is likely to be seen as a watershed moment for the application of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (the “CDA”), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has released an opinion in Barnes v. Yahoo that has the potential to dramatically increase the cost of defending social media and computer service providers.

The