Investment Bank Fails In Attempt To Quash Discussion Of Its Telemarketing Efforts

from the calling-streisand dept

As courts across the country have endorsed the rule that, under section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. § 230, the hosts of blogs and message boards are immune from suit for content that others post to their sites, companies that want an easy way to suppress such criticisms have struggled to find ways to bring suit anyway.  Especially among commercial litigators with limited exposure to intellectual property law, the trendy way to evade section 230 is to allege that criticism using the name of a company “tarnishes” its trademark, or that criticism using the name of an individual violates the right of publicity.  Another popular way to evade section 230 is to charge the web host with being an “information content provider.”

In its recent attempt to enjoin Julia Forte, the operator of 800Notes.com and whocallsme.com, from carrying posts that criticized its telemarketing techniques as well as it s business model, Houlihan Smith & Company tried both tacks — it claimed tarnishment and right of publicity violations, and it pointed to Google search results that included negative statements about it in the search snippets for the two web sites and alleged that Forte must be putting its name, and derogatory words such as “fraud” and “scam,” into her title tags and description meta tags.  Houlihan actually got a temporary restraining order (TRO) at first, by coming into court without any notice and bamboozling the state court judge with a long sworn complaint and supporting affidavits.  But when Forte found a lawyer (me) and removed to federal court, the judge quickly saw through Houlihan’s bluster and refused to give an injunction.  But how it lost is of particular interest.    (I discuss the oral opinion and the plaintiffs’ arguments in greater detail on the Consumer Law and Policy Blog, with links to the relevant documents from both sides)

In part, Houlihan lost because the federal judge, Virginia Kendall, could actually read the HTML code and could see that the complaint was based on lies.  (Not one of those judges who “don’t know technology” as Mike recently discussed).   As she remarked at the outset of the preliminary injunction hearing, one of her specialties as federal prosecutor was child pornography, and because porn purveyors are champions at manipulating code, she had to learn about it.  So, although Forte had supplied an affidavit explaining how to read the HTML code, Judge Kendall just pulled up the code herself and read it, told plaintiffs’ counsel that she couldn’t see any trademarks or defamatory words in the code that was before her, and asked if they had any other proof.  They didn’t.

On the trademark claims, Judge Kendall also rejected the motion for a preliminary injunction, but interestingly she did it without mentioning the First Amendment or the doctrine of prior restraint.  She first noted that under trademark law, just as a trademark may be used by a reseller to truthfully identify the name of the product that is being sold, so a critic may use the name of the trademark holder to truthfully identify the name of the company being criticized.  And as defined by the federal trademark “dilution” statute, dilution law only forbids uses of trademarks that injure the reputation of the trademark; it does not apply to uses that injure the reputation of the business.  Otherwise, any plaintiff could evade section 230 immunity just by changing the label of a defamation claim and calling it a trademark claim.

Representing Forte, we were sorry not to have won on First Amendment and prior restraint grounds, but Judge Kendall’s ruling may actually have a broader impact, protecting other hosts of interactive discussion sites, for her discussion of trademark law.  At this point, Judge Kendall has only given an opinion from the bench, explaining why she was not granting a preliminary injunction (we have ordered the transcript).  But she indicated that she would be issuing a written opinion.  It could be worth waiting for.
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Filed Under: free speech, section 230, telemarketing
Companies: 800notes.com, houlihan smith


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  • icon
    John Duncan Yoyo (profile), 13 May 2010 @ 6:05am

    Hmmm the actual decision seems to be heading off the consideration a first amendment claim. This is a great decision in that it adds another club to the defense attorneys bag.

    If a lawsuit can be defeated on the facts of the law without an extraneous first amendment claim it may deter even more silly lawsuits.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    BBT, 13 May 2010 @ 6:29am

    I'd really like to see that affidavit that "explains how to read HTML code". It's always impressive to see a talented liar in action, and coming up with an explanation that somehow gives the reader the ability to read a word that isn't actually there.

    Shouldn't there be punishments against lawyers who blatantly lie like this? I know lawyers are experts at stretching the truth and framing issues in the most favorable way possible, and there's nothing that can or should be done about that. But saying words are included in an HTML tag's contents is a statement whose veracity can be objectively verified as false, and we know the speaker knows that it's false. It's a straight out lie. Why do we allow lawyers to lie like this?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      yes, 13 May 2010 @ 6:54am

      Re:

      disbarment

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2010 @ 7:07am

      Re:

      Forte was the defendent, and she's the one that submitted the affidavit. Presumably, it was intended to show tech-illiterate judges that those keywords weren't there.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2010 @ 7:09am

    i think it is very troubling that techdirt with give the lawyer for one side a chance to express themselves without soliciting a response from the other side. this is where you go from journalism or running a blog and instead moving on to one sided activism. shame.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2010 @ 7:31am

      Re:

      you must live in a troubling world!

      cool story bro!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      harbingerofdoom (profile), 13 May 2010 @ 7:33am

      Re:

      im sorry,
      did i miss the day that tech dirt turned into a foxnews catchphrase?

      did i miss the changes that would DISallow the other side to come waltz right in here and post a reply to this article?

      Mike, did you refuse (let alone receive) anything from the other side stating their point of view?


      perhaps, AC, you should be less of an idiot and try to inject some reality to your (non)critical thinking processes?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2010 @ 7:48am

        Re: Re:

        you need to use a little critical thinking yourself. what would you think of a blog with nothing but the riaa lawyers side of lawsuits? would you accept it as the truth, or hope to get some other point of view? its lazy and deceptive to allow the lawyers from one side to state their case without framing it as such. it moves techdirt from an insightful third party to an interested first party stand on the issue. it pretty much puts everything else posted on this site in question.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Dementia (profile), 13 May 2010 @ 8:13am

          Re: Re: Re:

          Perhaps you should read past posts. There are often dissenting opinions posted as replies. There is no reason that the opposing side couldn't post a reply to this article. On a blog done by RIAA lawyers, it would greatly surprise me if every post not in agreement with them wasn't immediately deleted.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Sneeje (profile), 13 May 2010 @ 8:40am

          Re: Re: Re:

          So if you acknowledge that a certain point-of-view is what we should expect from a blog, exactly what are you complaining about?

          Also, at least in my experience, most journalists write stories from a particular perspective, often to the point of extreme bias, so again, what are you complaining about?

          Better yet, please give us all an example of a pure, objective news source that never injects bias or points-of-view...

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Mike Masnick (profile), 13 May 2010 @ 11:13am

          Re: Re: Re:

          what would you think of a blog with nothing but the riaa lawyers side of lawsuits?

          I'd think, gee, that's the RIAA's blog:

          http://www.riaa.com/blog.php

          Which... by the way, doesn't allow comments.

          would you accept it as the truth, or hope to get some other point of view?

          I certainly hope no one accepts anything written here as the truth without researching the issues on their own. This is an opinion site, and as such, the posts *all* have a point of view.

          I'm sorta surprised you just noticed that, seeing as you seem to post a comment on every post complaining about our point of view.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      stevenw, 21 May 2010 @ 5:29pm

      Re: Anonymous Coward

      I seriously doubt the plantiff's attorney will want to say anything to anybody at this point. He may be looking at a bar ethics investigation.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Johnny Canada, 13 May 2010 @ 7:57am

    Who would think that a Judge could read HTML code & know the ins and out of Trademark Law.

    How did they get on the bench?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 13 May 2010 @ 9:34am

    *Drinks*

    What? Is nobody else still playing this game?

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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