A scam requires victims who trust in the basic honesty of others. The more trustworthy the perpetrator appears, the larger is the pool of potential victims. Following are the unbelievably contemptible facts alleged in the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Complaint filed against the Office Depot and Support.com on March 27, 2019. Settlements were executed on March 29, 2019, whereby Office Depot agreed to pay $25 million and Support.com  $10 million to settle the allegations. Per the settlement terms, neither party admits nor denies the allegations ..read more

On August 7th at 12:48pm, Elon Musk tweets: “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.” Tesla is the highest valued car company in the U.S. If the tweet is true, this would be one of the largest privatizations in U.S. corporate history ..read more

Even on the surface, this is a remarkable case, just decided at the end of June. Davidson v The United States (U.S. Court of Federal Claims, No. 13-942C, 6/29/18) The Facts: A sculptor is hired to create a Statue of Liberty replica for the New York New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The sculptor’s net profit from the project was $233,000. The U.S. Postal Service obtains a photo of the replica and mistakenly believes it’s the real Lady Liberty located in New York Harbor and produces a Forever Stamp using the photo. The sculptor sues the U.S. Postal Service for copyright infring ..read more

High tech leaders traditionally vigorously lobby for limited government regulation of technology and instead promote the benefits of self-regulation. However, in an unusual turn of events, Microsoft president Brad Smith wrote a lengthy blog post on July 13th urging Congress to implement regulations for artificial intelligence (AI) powered facial recognition software. Why? One reason might be that Microsoft was recently broadly criticized for its contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the recent controversial process of separating of illegal immigrant parents from t ..read more

Several recent suits have tried to find Amazon liable as a seller under state strict liability laws where defective products sold by third party merchants on Amazon have resulted in property damage or personal injury. So far the courts have found Amazon not liable as a seller under applicable state law and under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA ..read more

A legally binding agreement is a meeting of the minds with sufficient detail to allow for enforcement of its terms. For instance, for a sale, you need price and quantity terms agreed. The law views certain agreements as more significant and has added a requirement that these agreements must be evidenced by a signed writing. This requirement is known as the Statute of Frauds. Examples of these more significant agreements are transfers of land, prenuptial agreements, agreements where performance will extend more than one year, and agreements over a specified value ($500 for a sale of goods unde ..read more

Good customer reviews are gold. Bad customer reviews are poison. The negative effect of bad customer reviews can be painful. The proper solution is to provide great products and services that garner good reviews. However, some businesses would like to not make such efforts and just use scare tactics in order to limit negative reviews. Not exactly a good business practice ..read more

Bots, which provide automated processes, are well-known denizens of the Internet. What is not as well-known is when you are communicating with a human online or with a bot. As artificial intelligence progresses, being able to identify a bot impersonating a human will become more and more difficult. Varying the caption on the now famous New Yorker cartoon from the early Internet days: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a bot ..read more

All of the below issues should be considered and worked out early on. Sometimes, in the frenzy and thrill of developing a new business, it’s easy to overlook the “housekeeping” issues. However, dealing with these issues farther down the road might become a major headache ..read more

A key focus of e-commerce marketing focuses on customer reviews. Customer reviews might be the single most important factor considered by consumers when evaluating purchase options. Positive customer reviews can translate into big bucks. And negative customer reviews can seriously damage a business. One of my client’s competitors created a page comparing customer reviews of the 10 top apps in its niche from the Apple Store and Google Play Store. The competitor is on top – and to a consumer – this is a compelling presentation. What if positive reviews don’t start coming in, or don’t come in q ..read more