FTC Seeks to Clarify -- and Justify -- Its Blogger Endorsement Guidelines

(cross posted at the Citizen Media Law Project)
The Federal Trade Commission recently issued a factsheet in response to questions it reeceived about its revised guidelines requiring disclosure of compensated endorsements.

Teenage Taunts Are Not Defamation, Court Rules

A New York judge has dismissed a teenage girl's defamation claims against five fellow members of a private Facebook group, accessible only to members of the group.  Finkel v. Dauber, No. 012414/09, 2010 NY Slip Op 20292 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., Nassau County  order July 22, 2010).

10th Circuit Revives Criminal Libel Suit

In a decision released on Monday (July 19), the federal 10th Circuit Court of Appeals revived a civil rights lawsuit brought by a student whose home was searched and computer was seized after he mocked a university professor on a parody website.  By reviving the suit, the appeals court also questioned the validity of applying Colorado's criminal libel statute to satire and parody. Mink v. Knox, No. 08-1250 (10th Cir. July 19, 2010).

Ninth Circuit Weighs In On Internet Anonymity, Consumer Griping At Risk

(cross posted at the Citizen Media Law Project; written with CMLP Assistant Director Sam Bayard)
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision last Monday in In re: Anonymous Online Speakers, No. 09-71265 (9th Cir. July 12, 2010), a case that could be influential for future courts deciding whether to order the identification of anonymous or pseudonymous Internet speakers.

7th Circuit Holds Blogger Can Be Prosecuted For Threatening Juror

(cross posted at the Citizen Media Law Project)
An alleged white supremacist can be prosecuted under a federal solicitation statute for posting on his blog the name, address and photograph of a juror who helped convict the "leader of a white supremacist organization" of soliciting the murder of a federal district court judge and obstruction of justice, the federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held in a ruling in late June. U.S. v. White, No. 09-2916 (7th Cir. 2010).

More Media

I'm quoted in another AP story about how courts are dealing with use of social media by jurors.