A Wall Street Journal article today touts an upcoming book by Harry Hurt III, which recounts a cross-country road trip with an impressive list of encounters with notable figures including former President Bush. But more notably, this book includes a plethora of product-placement deals and other sponsorships. This approach, while…
The US Attorneys for the SDNY and the FBI unsealed an indictment against the three largest online poker sites on Friday, alleging an elaborate scheme to circumvent the federal law prohibiting certain gambling related activities (UIGEA). The Indictment and Civil Complaint seek at least $3 billion in civil money laundering…
A court dismissed claims against online discount program Webloyalty.com and MovieTickets.com alleging that they deceptively enrolled plaintiff in a program that he would not have joined had he know the terms. The court distinguished these companies’ disclosures from those recently held actionable in the Keithly case. After the disclosures were…
Some say Gamification has become the buzz word du jour. Others believe it is a powerful business tool that cannot be overlooked. A recent Gartner report will undoubtedly fuel the fires in that debate. The Gartner report states that by 2015, more than 50 percent of companies that manage innovation…
A UK charity recently did a survey to look at how people deal with idea of death and digital music, photography and online bank accounts. Their research found that although 80% of those surveyed have such things, fewer than 10% have given any thought about what should happen to those…
We have previously posted about some of the often overlooked requirements of the FTC Endorsement Guidelines. Recent actions show that the FTC and other regulatory authorities are getting serious about enforcement. In March 2011, a company selling a popular series of guitar-lesson DVDs agreed to $250,000 to settle Federal Trade…
On March 28, 2011, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California held in Facebook, Inc. v. MaxBounty, Inc. that messages sent by Facebook users to their Facebook friends’ walls, news feeds or home pages are “electronic mail messages” under the CAN-SPAM Act. The court, in denying MaxBounty’s…
There are a number of people out there who are warning us that there needs to be more awareness of how much information we’re disclosing via social networks. Some of them, like the now-shuttered PleaseRobMe.com, were doing it intentionally. Others, like Facebook Breakup Notifier (FBN), do it by implication. FBN…
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has held that a company’s alleged use of an employee’s Facebook and Twitter pages without her permission to post marketing messages that looked like they were written by the employee may be liable under the Illinois Right to Publicity Act…
American Express today unveiled Serve, a digital payment and commerce platform that gives consumers a new way to spend, send and receive money with services that go beyond the existing global payment networks. Some interesting points from the press release issued today include the following: With Serve, consumers can make…