misleading advertising Archives

Keyword advertising not passing off: Vancouver Community College v. Vancouver Career College

Search engines make billions of dollars each year selling keywords to businesses to advertise their products and services online. Businesses often bid for keywords that are trade-marks or trade-names of their competitors. Understandably this has generated considerable litigation around the world against search engines such as Google and their customers, much of it unsuccessful.

The recent Canadian case, Vancouver Community College v. Vancouver Career College (Burnaby) Inc., 2015 BCSC 1470 affirmed that the owner of a trade-mark cannot succeed in a passing off action against a person who buys and uses the trade-mark of a competitor as a keyword unless, the person can prove that that use causes or is likely to cause confusion.…

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Online vendors owe purchasers a duty of care says an Ontario court: Hazjizadeh v Canada

Online vendors will be interested in a recent decision of an Ontario court in Hazjizadeh v Canada (Attorney General), 2014 CanLII 48552 (ON SCSM). In the ruling the court held that online advertisers owe a duty of care to prospective purchasers to ensure that their representations are true and not misleading. If they breach this duty, they may be held liable in negligence for online statements which induce purchasers to engage in transactions.

Statements that appear on commercial websites can be characterized for legal purposes in different ways.…

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misleading advertising

How to avoid misleading disclosures in online advertising

Want to avoid making misleading disclosures in online advertising? Then the FTC’s new staff guidance document, .com Disclosures, How to Make effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising, is a must read. It provides information businesses should consider as they develop ads for online media to ensure that they comply with US law.

The overview summarizes the general principles as follows:

The same consumer protection laws that apply to commercial activities in other media apply online, including activities in the mobile marketplace.

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misleading advertising

Google wins sponsored links case in Australia

Google won an important case earlier today in the High Court of Australia In Google Inc v Australian Competition and Consumer Commission [2013] HCA 1 (6 February 2013), Australia’s highest court unanimously allowed an appeal from a decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia which had found that Google had engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct contrary to s 52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974 by publishing and displaying sponsored links. The High Court ruled that Google did not create the sponsored links that it published or displayed.…

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Developments in Computer, Internet and E-Commerce Law (2011-2012)

Here are the slides used in my presentation to the Toronto Computer Lawyers Group earlier today, The Year in Review: Developments in Computer, Internet and E-Commerce Law (2011-2012). It covers significant developements since my talk last spring, Developments in Computer, Internet and E-Commerce Law (2010-2011).

The slides include a summary of the following cases:

Kraft Real Estate Investments, LLC v Homeway.com, Inc. 2012 WL 220271 (D.S.Car. Jan 24, 2012)

Swift v. Zynga Game Network, Inc., 805 F.Supp.2d…

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Name Canada’s Anti-Spam/Anti-Spyware Law

Canada has a new anti-SPAM and anti-spyware law, Bill –C-28. It is a law with an inordinately long name: “An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act”.

The Bill has no short title. As a result different terms and acronyms are being used to refer to it including the ECPA, FISA, FIWSA, the SPAM Bill, the Anti-SPAM Legislation, and the Anti-SPAM and Anti-Spyware Bill.…

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