Cyberspace Law

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By Scott Hervey

In October, 1998 the EU enacted the European Commission’s Directive on Data Protection (“Directive”) which, among other things, established a comprehensive approach to the protection of various forms of data, and prohibits the transfer of an individual’s personal data to non-EU nations that fail to meet the EU’s “adequacy” standard for privacy protection. The U.S is one such nation. Continue Reading Transfers of Information From The EU to the USA Must Comply with Enhanced Data Protection Protocols

By W. Scott Cameron

The Ninth Circuit issued an interesting ruling last week regarding the ownership and status of a domain name as property. In Office Depot, Inc. v. Zuccarini, ___ F.3d ___, Feb. 26, 2010, the Ninth Circuit ruled that a judgment creditor can levy a domain name of a judgment debtor to satisfy his judgment. This ruling was interesting for a couple of reasons. First was the location where the domain name can be levied, and second the facts of the case make the result somewhat ironic.Continue Reading Need To Enforce A Judgment? Levy A Domain Name.

by Jeff Pietsch

A federal district court in Minnesota dismissed claims made under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030) (“CFAA”) for the receipt of unwanted text messages. The CFAA, which was originally adopted as criminal law to prohibit actions that damaged another’s computer system or stealing information from it, now permits a claim for civil damages. Continue Reading Unwanted Text Messages Does Not Equal Computer Fraud and Abuse

By Jeff Pietsch

On June 30, 2009, the Second District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles affirmed the judgment of a lower court and held that internet servers like MySpace cannot be held liable when minors are sexually assaulted by adults they meet through the website.   The plaintiffs representing the four minor “Julie Does” and their parents or guardians brought suit against MySpace for negligence, gross negligence, and strict product liability claims.  They contend that MySpace should have instituted “reasonable, basic safety precautions” such as using age-verification software or setting the default security on minor’s accounts to “private” to protect minors from sexual predators.  The court, however, found that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects MySpace from liability, and ruled that what the plaintiffs want—to restrict or make available certain material—is expressly covered by Section 230 and provides immunity to MySpace.Continue Reading MySpace Not Liable For Sexual Assault of its Users

By W. Scott Cameron

The Internet is a seemingly endless and ever-expanding collection of information. You can find almost anything on the Internet if you look for it, and look in the right place. To find it, however, you often need the “domain name,” or address, of the web site that has the information you want. Every web page has its own unique domain name, and only one company can maintain the database that keeps track of all the domain names on the Internet. That company, currently VeriSign, Inc., essentially controls the Internet. The way VeriSign got that control, and the way it keeps it, led the Coalition for ICANN Transparency, Inc. (“CFIT”), to file an antitrust lawsuit, CFIT v. VeriSign, Inc. The Ninth Circuit ruled this week that CFIT can go forward with its suit, reversing the district court which had dismissed the suit three times. This begs the question: Will the Ninth Circuit bring down the Internet?

 Continue Reading Will An Antitrust Lawsuit Bring Down The Internet? CFIT v. VeriSign, Inc.