Posts Tagged ‘facebook’

Why be concerned with social media estate planning?

The headline of this recent blog post by the U.S. government promises to answer the question of why you should do some social media estate planning. But the post falls short of providing a compelling reason to plan for how your social media accounts and other digital assets should be handled in the event of [...]

No restraining order against uncle posting family photos on Facebook

Court refuses to consider common law invasion of privacy tort to support restraining order under Minnesota statute. Olson v. LaBrie, 2012 WL 426585 (Minn. App. February 13, 2012) Appellant sought a restraining order against his uncle, saying that his uncle engaged in harassment by posting family photos of appellant (including one of him in front [...]

Teacher fired over Facebook post gets her job back

Court invokes notion of “contextual integrity” to evaluate social media user’s online behavior. Rubino v. City of New York, 2012 WL 373101 (N.Y. Sup. February 1, 2012) The day after a student drowned at the beach while on a field trip, a fifth grade teacher updated her Facebook status to say: After today, I am [...]

Six interesting technology law issues raised in the Facebook IPO

Patent trolls, open source, do not track, SOPA, PIPA and much, much more: Facebook’s IPO filing has a real zoo of issues. The securities laws require that companies going public identify risk factors that could adversely affect the company’s stock. Facebook’s S-1 filing, which it sent to the SEC today, identified almost 40 such factors. [...]

Megaupload takedown reminds us why website terms and conditions can be important

Kashmir Hill pointed out that at least one erstwhile file sharing service has changed its business model in response to the federal government’s action against Megaupload. She observes that: FileSonic users can’t be too happy to have one of the main features of the site taken away. But the company must be less worried about [...]

Employee’s Facebook status update was protected by the First Amendment

Mattingly v. Milligan, 2011 WL 5184283 (E.D.Ark. November 1, 2011) Plaintiff worked in the county clerk’s office. Her old boss, whom she had supported in the election, lost. Her new boss (the newly-elected county clerk) began cleaning house and laid off some of the staff. Plaintiff survived that round of cuts, but lamented those terminations [...]

Court requires fired social media employee to return usernames and passwords

Ardis Health, LLC v. Nankivell, 2011 WL 4965172 (S.D.N.Y. October 19, 2011) Defendant was hired to be plaintiffs’ “video and social media producer,” with responsibilities that included maintaining social media pages in connection with the online marketing of plaintiffs’ products. After she was terminated, she refused to tell her former employers the usernames and passwords [...]

Prosecutor’s Facebook postings did not warrant overturning conviction

State v. Usee, 2011 WL 2437271 (Minn. App. June 20, 2011) A jury convicted defendant of attempted murder and other violent crimes. He asked the court for a Schwartz hearing (which is what they call these things in Minnesota) to evaluate whether a posting by the prosecutor on her public Facebook page improperly influenced the [...]

Court dismisses unfair competition claim against Facebook over alleged privacy violation

This is a post by Sierra Falter.  Sierra is a third-year law student at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago focusing on intellectual property law.  You can reach her by email at sierrafalter [at] gmail dot com or follow her on Twitter (@lawsierra).  Bio: www.sierrafalter.com. In re Facebook Privacy Litigation, 2011 WL 2039995 (N.D.Cal. [...]

Court throws out Facebook’s lawsuit against Teachbook.com

Case dismissed because federal court in California did not have personal jurisdiction over Illinois resident. Facebook, Inc. v. Teachbook.com, LLC, 2011 WL 1672464 (N.D.Cal. May 3, 2011) Last year Facebook made us wonder if it had gone off its meds when it filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Illinois-based Teachbook.com. More than one commentator thought [...]

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