…is the title of this expose (from personal experience), in Vox. A telling passage: In most cases like this [i.e. attempting to collect a deceased's debt from his family], the family is not liable for the debts, something we informed them of — that is, if they asked. But if a family without an estate […]
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by Paul Alan Levy A dozen years ago, when I had just made the transition from doing union democracy law to cyberlaw, I took on the representation of an IT professional named Hank Mishkoff who modeled his work by creating a web site praising a shopping mall that was being built near his home, using […]
As explained in this article by Daniel Fisher, Seventh Circuit judge Richard Posner recently had some tough questions for proponents of a class-action settlement in which the plaintiff-consumers got coupons (that's right, $10 coupons to purchase the defendant's products!) and the plaintiffs’ lawyers got cash (a million bucks in fees). That's nothing new — that's […]
We've written extensively about the problem of non-disparagement clauses in consumer contracts, and we've discussed the possibility of a legislative fix in California, proposed by former Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez. Public Citizen has supported and assisted in this and other ongoing legislative efforts to address the problem. I'm pleased to report today that the […]
Late last week, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a class action against Yelp by four local merchants who claimed that Yelp employees were themselves writing false and defamatory reviews, and removing positive reviews, to coerce the merchants into buying the advertising that provides Yelp with its main source […]
Second Circuit judge Guido Calabresi has written A Broader View of the Cathedral: The Significance of the Liability Rule, Correcting a Misapprehension. Here is the abstract: Recent years have seen a resurgence of Torts viewed as a purely private legal arrangement: whether described in terms of compensatory justice — the right of an injured party […]
Guest post by Deborah Kopald [Deborah Kopald (BA, Harvard; MBA, MIT Sloan School of Management) is an environmental health and public policy consultant and author who has developed and overseen the passage of legislative initiatives and has served as a guest expert at various media outlets. In 2013, she organized and moderated The Conference on Corporate Interference with Science and Health in New […]
Eric Goldman of Santa Clara and Rebecca Tushnet of Georgetown have written Featuring People in Ads (2014 Edition) from Advertising & Marketing Law: Cases and Materials (2014 edition). Here's the abstract: This is a book chapter from the 2014 edition of a casebook, Advertising & Marketing Law: Cases and Materials, by Rebecca Tushnet and Eric […]
That's the topic of Alan Morrison's wide-ranging article entitled Saved by the Supreme Court: Rescuing Corporate America.
Yesterday, Google agreed with the Federal Trade Commission to pay $19 million to consumers whose children allegedly were misled into making purchases in the Android "app store." As this article by Cecilia Kang explains: Google made it too easy for children to use Android phones to buy items ranging from 99 cents to $200 in […]