Web/Tech

Subscribe to Web/Tech via RSS

One of the primary purposes of the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”) is to limit liability for certain internet content providers specifically protecting websites from liability for material posting on their website by a third party. In Jane Doe No. 14 v. Internet Brands, Inc., the operator of a networking site in the modeling industry sought to use the CDA as a defense to a negligence claim based on a failure to warn.  The facts of the case are horrific.

Jane Doe was an aspiring actress who posted her information on the networking site Modelmayhem.com.  In February 2011, she was contacted by two men Lavont Flanders and Emerson Callum, about a modeling audition in Florida.  Jane Doe traveled to Florida to meet with the two men and was given a drug that caused her to pass out after which she was raped and the assault made into a pornographic film.   (Flanders and Mr. Callum were convicted of numerous crimes by a federal jury in Florida and sentenced to life in prison for this and other similar assaults.)

Jane Doe claimed that the owner of the Modelmayhem.com website, Internet Brands, Inc. knew of the two men’s unlawful conduct but took no steps to warn her or other users of the threat.  Prior to the 2011 assault, Internet Brand, which had purchased the Modelmayhem site in 2008, had apparently sued the seller of the site in 2010 for failing to disclose the potential civil liability arising from the criminal deeds of Callum and Flanders.  She brought a claim against Internet Brands, Inc. for negligence under California law which recognizes a cause of action for failure to warn. Internet Brands moved to dismiss the claim asserting that the CDA immunized it from liability as to Jane Doe’s claims.  The trial court agreed and dismissed the complaint.  Jane Doe appealed to the Ninth Circuit which reversed the trial court’s decision in an opinion dated September 17, 2014.Continue Reading Model Mayhem – The Communications Decency Act is Not a Defense to Negligent Failure to Warn Claim

By: Dale Campbell & Brittany Shugart

The Federal Civil Rules Advisory Committee (the “Committee”) has proposed numerous rule revisions, several of which are designed to address discovery problems related to electronically-stored information (“ESI”). ESI discovery has become extremely complex and expensive as technology continues to expand into numerous and varying communication devices and data storage. ESI is located not only on the client’s main computer servers but also on each employee’s desktop, smart phone, and tablet device.

The complications of ESI discovery have led to what this writer considers to be a disturbing trend in commercial litigation. Litigation is frequently no longer focused on the facts of the case but, instead, on burdensome discovery fights frequently related to ESI, where one side or the other hopes to win the suit by trapping their opponents in an expensive discovery quagmire, unintentional deletion of historical ESI, or a simple good faith oversight in producing ESI.

Continue Reading PROPOSED RULE CHANGES REGARDING E-DISCOVERY

 By: Scott Hervey

Once again, California leads the nation in passing online privacy consumer protection legislation. On September 30, 2013 Governor Jerry Brown signed into law A.B 370 which adds new provisions to California’s existing Online Privacy Protection Act (Business and Professions Code Section 22575).  These new provisions require the operators of websites, online services and  mobile applications to disclose how they respond to an electronic request not to track an individual consumer’s online activities over time and across different Web sites or online services. According to the bill’s author, Al Muratsuchi, since California passed CalOPPA in 2004, evolving technology and new business practices have raised new privacy concerns, including concerns over online behavioral tracking.Continue Reading California Passes New Privacy Law That May Require Revisions to Most Online Privacy Policies.

By Lisa Y. Wang

One usually thinks of a librarian as a calm and lawsuit-free job. However, a librarian in Canada is facing a $3.5-million lawsuit over a personal blog post he wrote three years ago. Dale Askey, an associate librarian at McMaster University, is being sued by Edwin Mellen Press Ltd., an international academic publishing company, who filed two lawsuits last June.

Mellen Press alleges that Askey accused them of “accepting second class authors” and urging “university libraries not to buy (their) titles because they are of poor quality and poor scholarship.” While this lawsuit will be heard in Canadian court under Canadian law, bloggers have been threatened with lawsuits in the US for articles they’ve written and opinions they’ve expressed. This brings up a whole slew of First Amendment issues and the SLAPP statute. 

If this lawsuit were filed in the United States, it might be considered a “SLAPP” (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) lawsuit. SLAPP refers to a lawsuit or legal threat intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition. Typically SLAPP lawsuits target ordinary citizens who cannot afford to pay the hefty legal fees it takes to defend such a lawsuit. They are a method used to intimate others from participating in debate and free speech and can be a strong method of silencing critics. SLAPP lawsuits often come in the form of a lawsuit claiming defamation or libel. The defining characteristic of a SLAPP lawsuit is that the plaintiff usually loses the case. However, a typical SLAPP lawsuit does not get to the trial phase as it is method used to chill the speech of citizens.Continue Reading Bloggers’ Rights and anti-SLAPP