Dozier Internet Law, by John W. Dozier

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Kids Indicted, Parents Need To Step Up, by John W. Dozier

February 05, 2009

At Dozier Internet Law we battle "extortionists" all the time. In one way or another, an attack is initiated against a business or person. In almost every instance, the motivation is to extract something, usually money, from the target. This "business model" is employed much more often than most people realize. Without understanding or appreciating the economic motivation, netizens often come to the defense of these culprits claiming "free speech" and launching support for the scofflaw. Has extortion become a way of life? This isn't an isolated incident. It happens often, just not to this seemingly sadistic extreme. That's why at Dozier Internet Law we look for the motivation of attackers and the great majority of time it comes back to a direct benefit...money, or in this case sex:

An 18-year-old male student is accused of posing as a girl on Facebook, tricking at least 31 male classmates into sending him naked photos of themselves and then blackmailing some for sex acts. The boy was charged with five counts of child enticement, two counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child, two counts of third-degree sexual assault, possession of child pornography, and repeated sexual assault of the same child. The social networking site Facebook was used. The boys reported that they were tricked into sending nude photos or videos of themselves. They were told that if they didn't have sex with a male friend, "she" would send the nude photos or movies to their friends and post them on the Internet, according to the complaint. Seven boys were identified as successful targets. The maximum penalty if convicted on all charges is nearly 300 years in prison.

And just today it's reported that "sexting" through cell phones resulted in child porn criminal charges against both the school age senders and recipients. You can look up the definition of "sexting" if you want.

How is this type of thing becoming a pervasive plague? Because parents of today for the most part don't understand social networking, Web 2.0, or the role of the web in the life of kids. Many have never been on Myspace or Facebook, don't know about Twitter, can't appreciate the power of the web or digital images in our new world order, and are out of touch.

Here's an idea. Instead of spending our resources exclusively on educating the kids, why not invest in educating the parents? If mom and dad get it, then maybe by the time these kids grow up they won't be looking for their next target...an ex-friend, a former teacher, that local business...and expecting to live off the proceeds and benefits of cyber-stalking, cyber-smears, or "Google Bomb" threats.

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Amend Section 230 Immunity Today, by John W. Dozier

February 09, 2009

Dozier Internet Law has to often remind la wyers that there is no absolute right to online anonymity. The courts have long recognized the need to unmask those who hide behind false identities on the Internet. Those who defame, those who spam, those who hack, and in some circumstances those who use commercial speech…their anonymity is rarely protected. Legal subpoenas to a website will net the IP address of the offender, and a follow up subpoena to the ISP will identify the user of the IP address at the time of the “anonymous speech”. This usually works well when Dozier Internet Law takes this approach.

But ISPs usually only hold onto their records for short periods of time. And log files may get destroyed. Log files contain the IP addresses of those posting. The virtual "disappearance" of the records used to identify thieves, crooks and scofflaws is openly encouraged on the free speech organization websites of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Citizen through Paul Allen Levy, a First Amendment lawyer:

Levy says: Another approach to preserve anonymity of posters is to adopt a “no-logging” policy, whereby storage of identifying information about visitors to the web site (and about posted(sic) to online discussions) is kept to a minimum. Technical advice effecting such limitations can be found on EFF’s web site at …

An amendment to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act would seem to be in order. Let's ask Congress to require log file record retention in order for an interactive service provider to avail itself of the immunity. That seems particularly reasonable given the advice to destroy the records. By the way, the EFF guidance is even grosser than Levy's comments.

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Jones Day Law Firm Wins, by John W. Dozier

February 11, 2009

Dozier Internet Law continues with its suit against Ronald J. Riley over the use of anchored text links of our law firm name pointing to Riley's commercial website, and Public Citizen continues to defend Riley. A similar but far less egregious issue arose with Jones Day, one of the biggest law firms in the world, who sued BlockShopper.com for using anchored text links of the law firm name. Of course, anyone with an understanding of search engine optimization knows that an anchored text link is seen as a valuable tool used by the Google search engine to identify a page. It's Google bombing when intentionally deceptive. And Dozier Internet Law still believes strongly that when it convinces Google to return a misleading and confusing and irrelevant commercial result for a commercial purpose and benefit it is trademark infringement.

Jones Day, after a string of early victories including the Judge refusing to consider legal briefs filed by Public Citizen and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has won. In addition to other provisions, the settlement requires the defendant to remove the anchored text links. Of course, the "digital rights" lawyers, from Public Citizen to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, had very publicly attacked the lawsuit as "frivolous", with Paul Alan Levy as the lead blogger ridiculing the law firm.

The Judge in the Ronald J. Riley case has kicked Public Citizen out of federal court twice, without even allowing oral arguments, and when Paul Alan Levy tried to convince the Federal Court to reconsider, the motion was thrown out before we even had a chance to respond. While Public Citizen has publicly chastised our law firm for refusing to go forward because it claims we don't want to lose the case, they have thrown up every roadblock imaginable to avoid...well...having the case move forward. This pervasive refusal has precipitated a hearing at which the Judge will consider entering default judgment for Dozier Internet Law in the case. Public Citizen Litigation Group has a tendency (I'm being a bit charitable) to embrace the ill-conceived notion that if you don't like the facts of a situation, change them to meet your needs. And in these cases, Public Citizen also does not like the law. So it decides what it would like the law to be, and then publicly pronounces it as if they have a monopoly on wisdom.

Let's be clear about the lawsuit we have filed. Riley's use of our law firm name in a link is just one of many, many commercial uses. I am not sure Public Citizen even understands SEO or the business processes of the web adequately to distinguish between commercial use and free speech. What they won't blog about is that after Public Citizen got involved, Riley changed the links we were complaining about in the lawsuit. They have already caved in. But there are many, many other improper commercial uses of our name still on the site. We haven't had the chance to educate Public Citizen yet on all the other problems, but I expect once they learn of these, they'll continue to blog about how outrageous our lawsuit is, and continue to attack our law firm, but privately and behind closed doors continue to accede to our demands.

Here's a classic quote from Paul Alan Levy about the Jones Day case: "The fact that they had to make any concession at all is mind-boggling, because this is a meritless case."

That spoken as he and his client have done exactly the same thing in our case. The sheer audacity of misleading the press and netizens to make it look like Public Citizen is fighting the "good fight" is what is "mind boggling". The motivation? Just look at Public Citizen's fund raising efforts. Their foundation has launched a web page focused solely on our case, trying to make money by soliciting contributions from their constituents to keep fighting us, publicly proclaiming our case is meritless and outrageous and on and on. But all the while rolling over on its own constituents.

Oh, by the way, the claims that Riley needs free lawyers and financial assistance? He operates as a not-for-profit, tax free educational organization. They have to file public tax returns. And it looks like the pauper that is Ronald J. Riley netted almost $250,000 in 2007. Who knows what his profits will be in 2008. We'll all find out shortly. If it wasn't for Public Citizen's prominent advertising soliciting members and contributions on the website that is the subject of our lawsuit, one might wonder why Public Citizen sees the need to spend contributor's resources to defend this guy. Free speech? No. It's all about the money.

That's a commercial use.

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Internet Lawyer Comments on $12.5 Million Judgment, by John W. Dozier

March 23, 2009

Reports show that in the first major commercial internet defamation case tried to jury verdict in Texas a $12.5 Million judgment has been returned. The defendants had launched a website critical of the plaintiff, ORIX Capital Markets, at the "Predatorix" domain name. Signficantly, the suit included allegations of conspiracy to defame, a basis for recovering that Dozier Internet Law has been supporting as a viable basis for extending liability to all involved in a mobosphere attack. All defendant participants involved are potentially liable under this theory even if the individuals themselves did not publish the defamatory comments.

The case was tried for two weeks before a jury, and the judgment was for $2.5 Million in compensatory damages and $10 Million in punitive damages. Needless to say, ORIX now owns the website.

I wonder where Public Citizen was in this case? This is the second judgment in excess of $10 Million a jury has returned for online defamation against individuals. Public Citizen picks its cases very carefully from the looks of things and likes to publicize little victories that have little significance in the grander scheme of things. You'll hear more about Public Citizen, Paul Levy, and Greg Beck in "Google Bomb", my upcoming book set to hit the shelves in the coming months.

[admin]

Free Copyright Lawyer Warning Notice, by John W. Dozier

March 29, 2009

Traverse Internet Law has just received very interesting feedback on the use of the Internet Law Copyright Infringement Warning. A high volume "publisher" of web sites reported a 50% reduction in copying of its website copy with the placement of the warning on its homepages. If you are looking for a way to cut down on copyright infringement, you may want to consider the free copyright attorney warning button. Pick up the code for copyright law firm infringement warning button and simply paste it into your html.

And best of all, it's free of charge.

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New "Red Flag" Law Coming May 1, by John W. Dozier

April 08, 2009

New Data Transfer Laws that were originally set to go into effect Oct. 1 of last year. The date was moved to May 1, 2009. Traverse Internet Law reviewed the new laws as they might be applied by the Federal Trade Commission to the online world of affiliate marketing. But all e-commerce websites (and even passive sites capturing and transfering data) need to take a fresh look at the new landscape.

One of the things Traverse Internet Law has noticed is the potential ambiguity of the definition of covered parties. The analysis is convoluted and complex for some online sites, particularly affiliate marketers.

Seems like a good time to be reviewing privacy policies, data transfer practices, and legal compliance. I'll be speaking in Boston at the Internet Retailer conference in June on data loss and risk management. It's becoming a very hot topic. And with good cause.

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Domino's Pizza Video Outrage, by John W. Dozier

April 17, 2009

Every Internet lawyer has a take on the video some Domino's Pizza employees made in which they were tainting food for customer consumption. Public Citizen and Paul Alan Levy are at it again, this time criticizing the legal tool used to get it off the web. Public Citizen believes it should stay up for "fair use" reasons, once again ignoring the property rights of a business and failing to understand the basics of product disparagement and defamation.

The video is another sad example of harm a couple of derelicts can cause in the online world. While Public Citizen calls for a repeal of the DMCA, which is the copyright law used to get the video off of Youtube, as an Internet lawyer and not a biased, free speech expansionist, I suggest this is just another example of the out of control influence individual scofflaws can assert. Domino's has been harmed to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in all likelihood.

Amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act today. You can read about my thoughts on this issue of Section 230 changes in my upcoming book set to be released soon...."Google Bomb".

[admin]

Spam Liability for Affiliate Misconduct, by John W. Dozier

April 19, 2009

There is an article making the rounds in the affiliate marketing world written by someone who is not an attorney. Traverse TraverseInternet Law usually just ignores legal advice coming from non-lawyers. But this one caught our attention because the subject was liability of the advertiser for "affiliate spam", something Traverse Internet Law is actually litigating as we speak and something we have dealt with for many years.

The author explains that CAN-SPAM requires that the advertiser either know of the spam, or that the advertiser "should have known". The former is actual knowledge, and the later standard is constructive knowledge.

But that is definitely not what the law says. There is no constructive knowledge provision in the act. Liability arises when an advertiser is guilty of knowing, or "consciously avoiding" knowing, of the spam. The bottom line is that it is possible, even if an advertiser did not act reasonably and in accordance with standards of ordinary care, to avoid liability for affiliate spam. Negligence alone, which is required for constructive knowledge to arise, may very well exist, but it likely does not rise to the level of scienter (guilty knowledge) required by CAN-SPAM under many circumstances. Absent some intent to avoid learning of spam an advertiser knew, or at least should have known, was occurring, the advertiser is home free.

Back when the law was being passed, there was a battle about trying to get constructive knowledge into the language but Congress would not agree. So the watered down version requiring more than negligence and less than actual knowledge arose.

It still is amazing to me how many Internet industry publications and conferences have business people telling the industry what the law is. I guess that is part of the problem. Not part of the solution.

[admin]

Copyright Lawyer on Pirate Bay Convictions, by John W. Dozier

April 20, 2009

Just a quick comment from a copyright lawyer on the Pirate Bay convictions in Sweden. After gaining support from the Silicon Valley pundits, the video "search engine" aimed at making it simple to locate stolen (technically copyright infringing) movies and the like seemed to thumb its nose at the laws.

And the law fought back. The four individuals involved with Pirate Bay have been sentenced to a year in jail and fined over $3 Million.

I am sure the defendants will all appreciate the quality copyright lawyer advice which came their way from the law professors and liberal anti-intellectual property groups in Silicon Valley and San Francisco as they serve out their prison terms.

[admin]

Defamation of The Dead on NPR Monday, by John W. Dozier

May 05, 2009

Internet Lawyer John W Dozier Jr. will be on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" Monday. Tune in to learn about defamation of the dead...and how to deal with social network profiles of the deceased...interesting and timely topics. No doubt that the complexities of living life in a connected world are growing.