Well, look who became one of the internet’s most-hated women. I introduce to you Lindsey Stone of Plymouth, MA, who thought it would be gut-busting hilarious to be “loud and disrespectful” in one of the nation’s most hallowed ground, The Arlington Cemetery. After taking this fine photo, she decided to post it on Facebook at the beginning of November for all the world to see because, hey, isn’t mocking dead soldiers funny? “Whoa whoa whoa…wait,” [...]
Read MoreLegal Category
-
Facebook Antics and Your First Amendment Rights
Dec 03 2012 -
KitchenAid Whips Up a Good Social Media Crisis Response
Oct 09 2012Last week, while the Presidential candidates were duking it out on stage in Colorado, another battle was waging behind the scenes on Twitter. During the debate, President Obama attempted to rebut Romney’s healthcare voucher program by analogizing a story from his dear, sweet grandmother’s life. Immediately, amongst the many people exercising their free speech rights on Twitter, someone posted: What normally would have been passed off as a tasteless joke by some rude Tweeter, received [...]
Read More -
Facebook Gives the FTC an Earful on Privacy
Oct 03 2012Privacy issues are all the rage lately when it comes to social media use on both a personal and professional level. Yet another issue has reared its head against Facebook. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently published a notice to seek public comments on proposed modifications to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (aka the “COPPA” Rule). For the past year or so the FTC has been leaning towards creating rules that further protect children from [...]
Read More -
Staffers Gone Wild – Protecting Your Business from Damaging Social Media Content
Dec 20 2011Recently, an episode of “Staffers Gone Wild” played out on the internet with the unbelievable tweets of government staff members being broadcast for all to see. Isn’t it comforting to know that your hard earned tax dollars are being spent to fund the watching of Nirvana videos or support drinking while on the job? I’m not here to talk about the politics of this behavior, as I will leave that up to the political pundits [...]
Read More -
Mediation, Arbitration, or Litigation?
Aug 12 2010As an attorney, I am often asked my opinion as to how people should go about resolving legal disputes. This info-graphic created by Nielsen & Senior (a Utah law firm) does a good job of walking one through the pros and cons of the three legal dispute resolutions (mediation, arbitration, and litigation). Now you know!
Read More -
My WPN Interview – The FTC's New Internet Endoresement Guidelines
Jul 23 2010Back in February I was asked to sit down with Mike McDonald of WebproNews to discuss the FTC’s new Internet endorsement guidelines. We also got into some of the new state “privacy laws” being passed (by Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Nevada) requiring encryption of sensitive personal data and more informative privacy policies. I haven’t heard anything from the crew at WPN since our interview, but woke up today to a picture text message from Mat Siltala [...]
Read More -
New .co top level domain will soon be available!
Mar 30 2010As you know, “co” is the standard abbreviation for company and .co will soon be available as a top level domain (“TLD”)! Up until now, this TLD has only been available within Colombia as the country’s ‘code’. This new TLD will provide a big traffic opportunity for business owners and search marketers as .co is a very common misspelling of .com. Dates for registration From April 26 to June 10 registered trademark owners will have [...]
Read More -
SMX West Session Notes: Legally Speaking
Feb 11 2009Follow me on Twitter for micro updates: @atraine. Legally Speaking: Recent Legal News About Search – What’s up with legal issues and search engines? That’s what this session is about – filling you in on the always changing developments. From click fraud to copyright to privacy, this session will hit all the major areas that are seeing legal action. Sit back – court is in session! Moderator: Sarah Bird, General Counsel, SEOmoz.org, Inc. Q&A Moderator: [...]
Read More -
Do you use social media sites? How does that effect your privacy rights?
Jan 26 2009The question is: Do individuals who post personal information on publicly available Web sites have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their identity? This same question was asked earlier this year in Sandler v. Calcagni, a case out of the District Court of Maine. The facts condensed Two high school friends/cheerleaders have a falling out that turns nasty. Their bickering leads to school suspensions, criminal mischief conviction, and eventually Calcagni enters a consent degree for [...]
Read More -
Policing and preventing copyright violations on the Internet
Jan 16 2009Last night, DSM had the unfortunate experience of learning that an independent contractor we were using for content creation was allegedly pirating other writers work. This incident has caused me to spend some time training the DSM staff as to what they can do to both prevent copyright violations and to police intellectual property use on the Internet. I thought I would pass on some of the tips I have shared with them. Let’s start [...]
Read More
