Google and Microsoft legal teams teamed up to fight a lawsuit that was brought on by a company called GeoTag. GeoTag originally was suing more than 300 companies that used either Google’s AdWords or Microsoft’s Bing Ads for local advertising. The suit claimed that the technology used by these companies was an infringement on their … Read more
Some of the largest tech companies in the world including Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe will have to go to civil court to defend themselves against charges of wage collusion. The companies are accused of attempting to limit the pay of employees by agreeing to not recruit engineers from one another. Several companies who were … Read more
Google has filed a request to have the US Supreme Court to hear and rule on the legality of the company’s sniffing of unencrypted Wi-Fi traffic. You likely recall the scandal that surfaced a couple years ago where the Google Street View vehicles were found to also be capturing small bits of internet traffic from … Read more
Earlier this month, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California held that clear evidence that a consumer could not have completed an online transaction without checking a box accepting the terms and conditions was sufficient to constitute notice and acceptance of the forum selection clause contained within. Moretti v. Hertz Corp., No. … Read more
Cole Haan, a shoe manufacturer recently ran a photo contest, titled “Wandering Shoe,” which offered $1000 for the ‘most creative entry.’ The contest required users to post photos on Pinterest, with a board titled “Wandering Sole” and then create five photos of the shoes, five photos of ‘places to wander’, and use the proper hashtag. … Read more
Crypto currencies, such as the popular BitCoin, have been going through some growing pains over the past few months. Between issues with hackers, the fraud and closing of the popular trading service, Mt. Gox, many people have had questions about how stable these currencies can actually be. Many experts suggest that these types of troubles … Read more
In what is widely considered to be one of the most restrictive laws on the planet dealing with commercial electronic messages, most of Canada’s long-awaited anti-spam legislation will take effect on July 1, 2014 (“CASL”). CASL regulates all commercial electronic messages that are sent or accessed by computer systems located within Canada. Therefore, covered businesses … Read more
SimpleAir’s US Patent No. 7,035,914, which covers a system and method used for data communication between network computers, was the subject of a patent infringement case against Google. SimpleAir first claimed that Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Nokia and other tech firms had violated the patent in 2011. All the companies settled with SimpleAir, except Google, which … Read more
LifeLock, an industry leading identify and data Protection Company, has recently confirmed that they are the subject of an active FTC. This may be of particular interest to the many affiliate marketers who are part of the LifeLock affiliate program. This is not entirely unexpected, as LifeLock filed a 10-K form learly this year, which … Read more
The FTC has approved a settlement against a total of twelve defendants who were running digital marketing campaigns which promised “free $1,000 gift cards” to people viewing their ads. They ran many websites running ads that attempted to get people to click in order to claim a gift card, which they supposedly had already won. … Read more
More and more companies, both online and off, are turning to performance marketing programs to help boost their sales. While this is certainly a good thing for both the companies and the affiliate marketers, it has also caused some significant problems related to fraud and other criminal activity. Honest marketers and businesses can agree that … Read more
Google has already had to pay $15.8 million in a lawsuit brought on by a company named Vringo (through a subsidiary called I/P engine) for patent violations. Vringo had acquired two patents from Lycos that are about the ranking and placement of ads in search engines. In 2012, courts ordered Google, Microsoft, AOL and others … Read more
You might be wondering what that title, or this topic, has to do with performance marketing. Well, as digital marketers we need to be well aware of any legal challenges going on that affects anything on the Internet. While I fully support this law (which I’ll explain shortly), it is important for us as marketers … Read more
12 companies have recently agreed to no-fault consent orders with the Federal Trade Commission, which is intended to settle charges that they falsely claimed that they were in compliance with the US-European Union and the US-Switzerland Safe Harbor Programs, even though their certifications had lapsed. The 12 companies come from virtually all industries, including mobile … Read more