LJN Newsletters

  • Web-Tracking Data: An Under-Utilized Legal Resource

    Several years ago, businesses like WebSideStory began offering dedicated Web-tracking services. These services can capture and analyze many aspects of Web traffic and create a multitude of customized reports. Such digital market research has become indispensable to many online businesses. (Its use has also raised many concerns about privacy, which are beyond the scope of this article.) On the other hand, it offers significant, yet largely unrecognized, benefits to trademark attorneys in their efforts to assist clients. This article briefly outlines some of the ways that trademark attorneys can utilize this data.

    March 01, 2004Stephen W. Feingold, Gerry A. Fifer, and David H. McDonald

  • DMCA Abuse?

    After someone electronically lifted embarrassing e-mails from Diebold Inc. and posted them online, the company responded with a tactic that more and more companies are using to put a lid on Internet distribution of sensitive information: Diebold sent cease-and-desist notices to organizations hosting Web sites and forums that had published, or even linked, to the e-mails. The messages portrayed participants in Diebold's electronic voting business confirming their critics' worst nightmares about security vulnerabilities. Information may want to be free. But specialists say that sending such notices under the 5-year-old DMCA succeeds, in the vast majority of cases, in promptly curtailing online distribution. The technique is so effective, critics contend, that it is often abused in situations where no copyright protection applies or ' as with the Diebold case ' there would be a strong fair use defense.

    March 01, 2004Louis Trager

  • e-Commerce Sales Rise ' Again

    U.S. retail e-commerce spending continued rising ' in total volume of e-sales and as a percentage of all retail transactions ' in the fourth quarter last year.

    March 01, 2004Michael Lear-Olimpi

  • Developments of Note

    Recent developments in e-commerce law and in the e-commerce industry.

    March 01, 2004Julian S. Millstein, Edward A. Pisacreta and Jeffrey D. Neuburger

  • Coping With COPPA

    While the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) was designed to rein in commercial Web sites that target children as buyers of goods, it has caused legal difficulties for those who provide services such as camps, schools, after-school activities and sports clubs. COPPA, the only law specifically to target online information privacy, applies only to Web sites that collect information from children. The providers of such services must regularly wrestle with the ways they collect prospects from their sites. COPPA requires commercial Internet sites to refrain from collecting personal data from children under the age of 13 without parental consent.

    March 01, 2004By Jonathan Bick

  • e-Commerce Docket Sheet

    Recent court rulings in e-commerce.

    March 01, 2004Julian S. Millstein, Edward A. Pisacreta and Jeffrey D. Neuburger

  • IM: Plenty of Benefits, But Risks Too

    Like many other businesses, the financial sector has embraced e-commerce as a way of expanding. Today, online banking is fairly common. Many financial institutions offer a variety of products and services for commercial and retail customers. And the finance market is mirroring wider use of all things "e" by taking e-business a step farther with the use of instant messaging (IM) to provide faster customer-inquiry responses. But although IM use often allows them to provide better customer service, it also exposes institutions to a variety of potential risks.

    March 01, 2004By Marie Flores

  • Recognizing and Managing Serial Litigation

    Among the challenges facing product manufacturers in the 21st century are recognizing and managing the legal threat posed by multiple, individual product liability lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions.

    March 01, 2004John L. Tate

  • Online: Web Site Provides Information on Gun Control Issues

    If you need to research gun control issues, check out The Violence Policy Center (VPC) at www.vpc.org. The VPC, based in Washington, DC, is a national nonprofit educational foundation that conducts research on violence in America and works to develop violence-reduction policies and proposals. The VPC examines the role of firearms in America, conducts research on firearms violence, and explores new ways to decrease firearm-related deaths and injuries. As a gun control think tank, the VPC analyzes a wide range of current firearm issues and provides information to policymakers, journalists, public health professionals, grassroots activists, and members of the general public.

    March 01, 2004ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |