Pay Attention, Counsel!
September 28, 2010
As students returned to school recently, many may have been looking ahead to their next day off. And today, there are so many online schools that e-commerce executives are turning the chorus of Alice Cooper's classic 1972 schoolboy anthem "School's Out" ' "School's out forever" ' into reality by turning school into another form of e-commerce.
Plaintiff in Casino Suit Craps Out in Venue Decision
September 28, 2010
A New Jersey resident unsuccessfully sought to keep his slip-and-fall case in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court by arguing that an Atlantic City casino's Internet advertising within Pennsylvania established the state's personal jurisdiction over alleged negligence by the casino.
Are Your Web Site's Privacy and Terms of Use Policies Up to Snuff?
September 28, 2010
In 2009, the online policies of Sears, Overstock.com and Blockbuster each came up short. Alarmingly, there was nothing atypical about the terms, conditions or disclaimers these Web sites used, or the manner in which the policies were presented to and accepted by online users. The lessons learned from these companies' troubles are that material information should be disclosed more prominently and online visitors should affirmatively accept the terms. If your company's online policies have not been re-examined in the last year, now is the time to do so.
All That Twitters Is Not Gold
September 28, 2010
Who remembers the practice of law before e-mail and computers? I do. In those "good old days," bar association activities, law clubs, and Martindale-Hubbell were about as adventurous as many attorneys would become when it came to social networking. Today, sites like Facebook and LinkedIn are used by lawyers of all ages, and not merely for socializing purposes.
Are Legal Blogs Dead?
September 28, 2010
I am now hearing murmurs that blogs are dead ' or at least dying ' within the legal profession. The universe of blogs has become too crowded, too noisy, and too cluttered with spam to have any value, some say. Services such as Twitter and Facebook are easier, more direct and more personal, they contend. So I come today to declare blogging alive, well and thriving within the legal profession.
Is a Web Site's Look and Feel Protected?
September 28, 2010
In recent years, a growing debate has emerged over whether the overall look and feel of a Web site can be protected. To be sure, online content, videos, and other media are copyrightable, but the law remains unsettled when it comes to using trademark law to protect a site's distinctive interface and design elements. This article discusses trade dress generally, the issue of copyright preemption, and recent decisions that have wrestled with the issue of Web site trade dress infringement.
Crowdsourcing the Law
September 27, 2010
The Internet's completely over, the musician once-again known as Prince declared this summer. If so, I am at a loss to explain the ongoing emergence of innovative Web sites such as Spindle Law, a new site that is reconfiguring the traditional legal treatise to make it better fit a "Web 2.0" world.
Oh, Data, Where Art Thou?
September 27, 2010
The ability to convert capital expenditures to operating expenses, tax considerations and other cost-savings benefits are sending businesses to the cloud with glee, while the legal profession is lagging behind but getting the hint. As the evolution of security measures becomes more imperative, tales of international disagreement regarding security regulation make the location of a vendor's servers a question of paramount importance in selecting a cloud provider. For lawyers, this question of location is compounded by jurisdictional considerations.
Prognostication Is a Mug's Game
August 31, 2010
What are reasonable assumptions about the future of the legal profession in this dynamic society? Here, we can surmise ' if not predict ' a future by extrapolating two things from the past.
Lessons from Twitter's Settlement with the FTC
August 30, 2010
The announcement that social-networking phenomenon Twitter has agreed to settle FTC charges that it had engaged in inadequate privacy and information security practices illustrates some simple mistakes that social media and other online companies can make. If the consent decree is approved, Twitter will have to live with the oversight that accompanies an FTC consent decree for 20 years (or more than four times the length of time that the company has existed).
