JOLT Digest

Ninth Circuit Adopts National Obscenity Standard in Adult Website Spam Case

By Ian B. Brooks – Edited by Alissa Del Riego
United States v. Kilbride, No. 07-10528 (9th Cir. Oct. 28, 2009)
Opinion

The Ninth Circuit has affirmed the District Court for the District of Arizona, which had convicted and sentenced defendants Jeffery Kilbride and James Schaffer of transporting obscene materials for sale.

The Ninth Circuit held that a national community standard “must be applied in regulating obscene speech on the Internet, including obscenity disseminated via email.” United States v. Kilbride, No. 07-10528 at 14492 (9th Cir. Oct. 28, 2009).  Defendant Internet spammers Kilbride and Schaffer had appealed their convictions for interstate transportation for sale of obscene material in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1462 and 1465. Judge Fletcher of the 9th Circuit examined the opinions of the fragmented Justices in the Supreme Court’s opinion in Ashcroft v. ACLU for guidance in reaching his conclusion that a national community standard would not pose the constitutional concerns that a local community standard would. Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. 564 (2002)

Eric Goldman provides an overview of the case. Orin Kerr, of The Volokh Conspiracy, criticizes the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning in the case. Kerr argues that the Ninth Circuit should have followed the precedent set in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), wherein local “contemporary community standards” were applied. (more…)

Class Action Complaint Alleges Facebook Click Fraud

By Brian Kozlowski – Edited by Jad Mills
RootZoo, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc., 5:09-cv-03043-HRL (N.D Cal. July 7, 2009)

In a federal court complaint filed in the Northern District of California on July 7th, sports discussion board and social networking site RootZoo alleged that Facebook charged them for advertising referrals that never occurred and that Facebook failed to “properly guard” against click fraud, the practice of third-party individuals or computer programs repeatedly clicking on the advertisement to inflate the number of referrals.

RootZoo’s complaint accuses Facebook of both breach of the “implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing” in their advertising contract and unfair business practices. RootZoo was one of many advertisers who paid Facebook for each click referring a Facebook user to their site. RootZoo claims that Facebook consistently charged them for more outgoing referrals than the RootZoo servers logged as incoming during the period they advertised on Facebook. According to the complaint, when RootZoo submitted server log documentation to Facebook and asked to be refunded for the discrepancy, Facebook refused to provide any refund and would not release any documentation to back up their refusal. The complaint contrasted Facebook’s unwillingness to release data with the more transparent practices of Yahoo! and Google. RootZoo’s filing came only weeks after TechCrunch wrote a series of well-publicized articles on Facebook click fraud prompted by outraged advertiser posts on the marketing discussion board WickedFire. Following the TechCrunch articles, Facebook representatives claimed to have “developed a series of sophisticated systems” to detect click fraud and to have refunded any advertisers that were affected. However, RootZoo is seeking class action status and an unspecified amount of damages..

MediaPost and The Register offer overviews of the filing and a response from Facebook, while TechCrunch summarizes some of the preceding controversy and WickedFire discussion board postings.

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Virginia State Supreme Court Holds Anti-Spam Statute Unconstitutionally Overbroad
By Jay Gill — Edited by Nicola Carah

Jaynes v. Commonwealth of Virginia
Supreme Court of Virginia, September 12, 2008, No. 062388
Slip Opinion

The Supreme Court of Virginia overturned the conviction of prolific spammer Jeremy Jaynes, unanimously reversing not only the Virginia state court of appeals, but its own earlier holding in the case. In doing so, the court held that the Virginia anti-spam statute under which Jaynes was convicted was unconstitutionally overbroad, as it did not distinguish between commercial and non-commercial instances of anonymous, unsolicited bulk e-mail. The court ruled that non-commercial anonymous bulk e-mail falls squarely within First Amendment protection and that no reasonable construction of the Virginia statute could remedy the constitutional defect.

In a press release praising the decision, the ACLU, which filed an amicus brief in support of Jaynes, wrote, “[s]peech on the Internet deserves no less First Amendment protection than in any other medium.” Jon Praed of the Internet Law Group took issue with the court’s characterization of the situation, telling the Washington Post: “I guess a burglar can break into your home as long as they are reciting the Gettysburg Address.” John Levine, president of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail, and an expert for the prosecution in Jayne’s jury trial, argues that IP forgery is a red herring and points out that there are a variety of alternatives to send anonymous emails. Nonetheless, he commented, “I don’t see it as a fatal setback for anti-spam law.” According to Levine, Virginia’s statute was unique in prohibiting noncommercial spam, and other statutes, including the federal CAN-SPAM act (which took effect after Jaynes’s arrest), do not contain the flaw that led to the result in this case.
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