“RTs do not = endorsements.” We’ve all seen it on Twitter bios, usually bios belonging to members of the media.

These kinds of disclaimers, disassociating the tweets from the people who retweet them, are common. The Twitter bio belonging to Brian Stelter of the New York Times (@brianstelter) notes, “RT & links aren’t endorsements.”

A Social Media Policy Addressing RTs and Linking

But for some, those disclaimers are not enough.  Last fall, the Associated Press introduced an updated social media policy for its reporters and editors.  As recently reported in Yahoo! News, the AP memo advised reporters and editors that “Retweets, like tweets, should not be written in a way that looks like you’re expressing a personal opinion on the issues of the day. A retweet with no comment of your own can easily be seen as a sign of approval of what you’re relaying.” The guidelines note, “[W]e can judiciously retweet opinionated material if we make clear we’re simply reporting it.”

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It is a task often relegated to the office interns: posting promotional content to outside social media sites.

Despite the fact that this practice is officially frowned upon in the Federal Trade Commission’s 2009 endorsement guidelines, companies will often engage paid individuals – either employees on the payroll or outside bloggers who receive compensation in the form of a free sample – to post positive reviews online, including to places like Twitter, personal blogs, or online public forums without identifying the connection between the commenter and the product being commented on.

The FTC’s endorsement guidelines seek (among other things) to ensure that unbiased positive reviews online can be considered credible, while also ensuring that positive reviews that are partially the result of some sort of compensation be acknowledged as such. Continue reading

Unlike traditional newsroom journalists, “citizen journalists” have no formal way to ensure that everyone maintains similar quality standards.  Which does not mean that quality standards are necessarily (or consistently) maintained at traditional newsrooms, but rather that a traditional hierarchical editorial structure imposes at least theoretical guidelines.

By definition, citizen journalism’s inherent difference from the traditional editorial process is the dispersion of responsibility for editorial choice.  Nonetheless, “trustiness” in journalism is a concept still heavily dependent on a reporter’s or editor’s reputation.  Is the New York Times trusted because it’s trustworthy?  Or is it trustworthy because it’s trusted?

The “Generated By Users” journalism blog recently reported the results of its reader poll, “Do you TRUST user generated content in news?” Continue reading

Two dueling tattoo parlors down the road from one another in Mobile, Alabama. It could be the premise of a TLC reality show.  It’s not (yet) a TV show, but it IS a court case recently decided by the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals. In September, that court ruled in favor of Chassity Ebbole, owner of “LA Body Art” tattoo parlor in Mobile, who had sued the owners of the competing “Demented Needle” tattoo shop for libel and wrongful invasion of privacy.

Ebbole claimed that Demented Needle owner Paul Averette had been telling customers and others that Ebbole’s shop used equipment infected with diseases such as Hepatitis C and HIV, claiming also that Averette had told the world that Ebbole had infected herself.

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Eleven years ago, the District of Columbia announced the “New E-Conomy Transformation Act of 2000”, which set up tax benefits encouraging technological innovation.  The Act became effective April 3, 2001.

“My vision for our city is to become the technology capital of the world….  We want to attract and retain leaders in the fields of e-government, e-commerce, e-business, and technology,” said then-mayor Anthony Williams.

New E-Conomy Transformation Act

The District’s final rulemaking for the Act, setting out terms of qualification for the Act’s various tax benefits to qualifying businesses, can be found here.

Among many other tax incentives, the Act granted tax benefits to “Qualified High Technology Companies” (QHTCs), those DC-based, for-profit organizations that make most of their revenue from the sale of products and services related to information technology.   Continue reading

What is a “trademark use”?  This question comes up in this way: You want to use a trademarked name or brand or logo (not yours).  You want to make commentary about the trademark, or simply reference the trademark in some way.

Trademark protections give their owners the right of exclusive use to the trademark, but only when used “as a trademark”.  If the use of the mark is for any purpose not a “trademark use”, that use does not fall within the exclusive rights of the trademark owner.

The Good and The Ugly – Trademark Use Examples

Some examples illustrate the point:

1. A magazine story features a photograph of a woman wearing a tee-shirt with picture of a Marvel Comics character.  The story is about the woman and her battle with a difficult disease, having nothing to do with the Marvel trademark.  The trademark is clearly incidental to the photo and to the story.

2. A cash-for-gold jewelry dealer in Toronto (featured in a New Yorker profile this past week) promotes his business through television commercials featuring the character “Cashman” dressed in a red cape and pair of blue tights and dollar signs on his chest.  “Cashman” bursts out of telephone booths to frighten desperate Torontonians into parting with their family heirlooms.  The owner of the Superman trademarks felt compelled to ask – nicely at first, not so nicely in the subsequent lawsuit – that “Cashman” stop trading on the Superman goodwill.

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One unintended consequence of the accelerating popularity of HTML5 for mobile app development is an ability to skate past Apple’s App Store restrictions on in-app sales.  So I put this question to Piotr Steininger of Tapangi Consulting:

There’s talk out there about being able to use HTML5 to get around Apple’s App Store ban on charging for in-app purchases.  In other words (I think), somehow HTML5 allows content producers to get around this problem by making apps (and other things) downloadable directly through web browsers.  So … how is it that HTML5 allows getting around this issue?

Some background: Apple announced a policy change earlier this year, specifically in Section 11.14 of its App Store guidelines, Continue reading

In March of this year, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland denied the preliminary injunction that the Pennsylvania “Field of Screams” had sought against the Maryland “Field of Screams.” Andrew Mirsky wrote about this case last fall, a trademark infringement action involving a haunted amusement house in Pennsylvania operating under the name “Field of Screams” and a Maryland operation of the same name.

The court’s opinion denying the preliminary injunction can be viewed here.  The preliminary injunction was denied on the grounds that the plaintiff was unable to show that its case was likely to succeed in court – the standard required to obtain a preliminary injunction.   Continue reading

In June of this year, Senator Al Franken (D. Minn.) introduced the “Location Privacy Protection Act of 2011” (S. 1223).  According to the bill summary available on Franken’s website, a 2010 investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed that 47 of the top 101 mobile applications for Apple iPhones and Google Android phones disclose user location without consent of the user.

According to Franken’s bill summary, current law prevents disclosure of user location during telephone calls without user consent. Currently, no similar legislation protects user location when a user accesses information through a mobile web browser or mobile application. Franken claims that his bill will close loopholes in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act that allow for this distinction.

If S. 1223 passes, companies will be required to obtain permission not only to collect mobile user location information but also to share that information with third parties. Additionally, the bill seeks to put in place measures to prevent stalking through location information.

As of this writing, Franken’s bill has been assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee and is being cosponsored by Sens. Blumenthal, Coons, Durbin, Menendez, and Sanders.

Original Post (published 9/8/2011)

When was the last time you read a license agreement after installing software or downloading an app on your smartphone? If you’re like most people, the answer is probably never.

According to some estimates, fewer than 8 percent of us actually read the entirety of those agreements, despite rising concerns about digital privacy and data collection. Continue reading

Kate Tummarello is a Research and Social Media Intern with Mirsky & Company and a reporter at Roll Call/Congressional Quarterly.  Follow Kate on Twitter @ktummarello.

Apple’s App Store is full of subscription-based content providers. Whether you’re watching a movie on the Netflix app, reading a book through the Kindle app or streaming a TV show using the Hulu Premium app, you’re probably used to paying for the app and then paying more for the content.

But that’s changing, thanks to Apple’s new policy, which will prohibit developers from requiring users to make a second purchase to access content once they have purchased the app itself.

Apple rumor website MacWorld reported earlier this summer that Apple was planning on this new policy. The article quoted Section 11.14 of Apple’s App Store guidelines:

Apps can read or play approved content (specifically magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video) that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app, as long as there is no button or external link in the app to purchase the approved content. Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues for approved content that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app.

Previously, developers could charge one price for the app and then offer more content for a second price within the app. Unlike purchases made through the app store, where Apple receives 30 percent of the profit, profits made from purchases within the app itself would go entirely to the developer. In eliminating the possibility for in-app purchases, Apple is ensuring that it retains its 30 percent.

But developers are looking to find ways around this policy. According to MacWorld, Netflix has found a loophole in instructing users to “visit Netflix.com” without providing a button for users to do so.

Others are turning to the much anticipated HTML5. According to Piotr Steininger, co-founder of Tapangi Consulting [http://tapangi.com/] based in Washington, DC, HTML5 may open floodgates for apps that are accessed through a device’s web browser rather than through an app store.  Or in other words, “Rather than buying an app in the app store you just go to a URL and you’ve got an app to go,” Steininger says. “You load it once on the iPad and download a book locally, and you’re good to go.”

Amazon has already unveiled an HTML5-based Kindle app that works within a device’s browser, including on the iPad. The app synchronizes with a user’s Kindle library, and users can shop for Kindle content within the app. According to many reports, other content providers, including Wal-Mart, are similarly attempting to use HTML5-based apps to avoid the Apple App Store and its rules and fees.