Get your cheap Redskins gear here!

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today canceled the Washington Redskins' trademark registration, on the grounds that the name is disparaging to Native Americans. The NFL is expected to appeal the order in court, and if they lose (and perhaps even if they don't), the team may eventually adopt a new name.

In the meantime, however, what this means is that anyone can freely use the Redskins name and logo without paying royalties or getting permission from the NFL. As a result, I think we're likely to see a glut of bootleg Redskins apparel -- including items that the NFL would never have approved, some of which will probably be much more disparaging than the name itself. (Granted, some of the most outrageous items might have been permissible as parodies anyway.)

Top-secret cereal arbitration

General Mills recently revised the terms posted on its website, adding a provision that requires disputes between consumers and the company to be brought in binding arbitration. The interesting part is this: The arbitration provision says it applies to "all disputes or claims arising out of this Agreement or your purchase or use of any General Mills product or service for personal or household use." In other words, if you want to sue General Mills because there weren't enough marshmallows in your Lucky Charms, you have to bring the claim in arbitration rather than in court (assuming that the amount of your claim exceeds the small claims court maximum -- and if you're really going to sue over something like this, you might as well aim high).

The New York Times is understandably troubled by this -- see When 'Liking' a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue -- but the requirement to arbitrate doesn't bother me nearly as much as the confidentiality provision:

Any arbitration will be confidential, and neither you nor General Mills may disclose the existence, content, or results of any arbitration, except as may be required by law or for purposes of enforcement of the arbitration award.

That strikes me as overreaching and contrary to public policy.  It's common for companies to agree that they will keep arbitration proceedings confidential (in many cases, including financial service providers, they're probably required to do so anyway), but prohibiting a consumer from disclosing information about the dispute is a very bad idea, and one that seems likely to backfire.

Update (4/21/14): General Mills has retracted the policy.

Some of Netflix's best customers are pirates

TorrentFreak is reporting that Netflix has thousands of paying subscribers in Australia. Since Netflix doesn't allow Australians to access its service, these folks are accessing Netflix via VPNs and similar services to conceal their location, paying monthly subscription fees to both Netflix and (in most instances) a VPN service as well.

TV networks are calling these people "pirates," but perhaps a more accurate term would be "customers."

Another loony lawsuit

Eric Goldman tipped me off to a defamation lawsuit filed yesterday against Google and the anonymous bloggers behind Encyclopedia of American Loons by Uri Dowbenko, described in a blog post as a "batshit insane tinfoilhatter."

Google presumably will have little trouble getting the claim against it dismissed under 42 U.S.C. § 230(c), despite Dowbenko's as yet unsubstantiated assertion that the bloggers are "Google employees and/or blog writers." Assuming Dowbenko goes forward anyway and seeks to subpoena the bloggers' identities, it will be interesting to see which of the statements in the allegedly defamatory blog post are claimed to be false statements of fact. The post includes some statements that are clearly mere opinions (albeit insulting and perhaps gratuitous), and others that are factual but apparently accurate (at least based upon the sources that they link to, including this). The complaint does contain a general claim that the blog post falsely attributes some statements to Dowbenko, but it's not clear to me precisely which of the statements in the post are asserted to be defamatory.

A very quick read

Take 15 seconds to read this fascinating DOJ memo re: GPS tracking. I wouldn't recommend printing it out, at least not unless someone else is paying for your printer toner/ink. (More at Ars Technica.)

Privacy symposium

The John Marshall Law School presents a two-day symposium, The Development of Privacy Law from Brandeis to Today, September 27-28, 2012. Symposium proceedings will be published in The John Marshall Journal of Computer & Information Law, published by John Marshall's Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law.

Olympics are stupid

The Olympics are stupid. And the London 2012 Olympic Games are especially stupid. Their terms of use prohibit linking to their site if the link portrays them in a derogatory manner (CNET News.com, July 14, 2012). (Does that mean I shouldn't put anything derogatory in the link itself, as in "stupid Olympics"?)

They also don't want people to use their logo as a link to their site, like
this	or	this	or	this.

It's all so confusing. How am I supposed to tell if they would object to this?

Job seeker sues Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo

Jason L. Nieman, an Illinois resident, sued his former employer, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, in 2009. Various public documents from that litigation are available on the Internet, and are accessible via Google and other search engines by anyone searching for Nieman's name.  Nieman recently filed a pro se lawsuit against Google, Microsoft (Bing), Yahoo, and others, alleging that other potential employers are conducting such searches and then unlawfully declining to hire Nieman, even though he "was obviously the most qualified person for the position" (Complaint ¶ 17).  (Hat tip to Eric Goldman, from whom I learned of the case.)

I wonder how Jason Nieman's job prospects will be affected by the fact that potential employers searching for his name will now learn of his lawsuit against search engines for linking to his lawsuit against a former employer.  (And this information, unlike the information about his litigation against a former employer, is probably a perfectly legal basis for an employer not to hire him.)

Additional coverage:  State Journal Register

How Facebook can fight nosy employers

Employers reportedly are demanding that job applicants fork over their Facebook passwords; Facebook has responded by threatening to sue employers for violating its terms of service.  Facebook could easily add teeth to this threat by amending its terms of service to provide that Facebook users are intended third-party beneficiaries, enabling them to sue employers directly instead of having to rely upon Facebook to do so.  (Facebook's current terms state just the opposite--that they do not confer any third-party beneficiary rights.)  A liquidated damages provision would be nice as well, plus attorney's fees, to make the lawsuits worthwhile.  Facebook would also have to make a minor modification to its login process, to ensure that any login from a new IP address requires explicit agreement to the terms of service.

Dealing with telemarketers

I'm looking for a good way to deal with annoying telemarketers.  I'm on the national Do Not Call list, but I still receive lots of unsolicited calls that usually start with a prerecorded sales pitch, followed by an option to speak to a salesperson for more information.  The Caller ID information is usually unhelpful (a number I don't recognize--probably fake anyway--with at best a vague description for the name).  Many of the calls seem to come from companies that sell leads to other companies.  The most common one is a credit card pitch, but there are calls from electricity providers and other companies, not to mention surveys (real and fake), charity solicitations (often claiming to benefit police or veterans), and of course political fundraising and campaign robocalls.  I usually stay on the line long enough to ask for the caller's name, company, address, and phone number, but I almost never get a straight answer, and once they realize I'm not going to buy anything they just hang up on me.

I'm tempted to buy a cheap air horn, but I've read that call centers have shriek-rejection amplifiers that block loud noises to protect their employees' hearing, so I'd just be wasting my money.  Yelling and swearing is sometimes cathartic, but after a day or two on the job, most telemarketers must be used to this, so I doubt it has much effect other than on my vocal cords.

Is there perhaps some kind of recorded hypnosis message I could play over the phone to get the caller to attack his or her supervisor, or at least to physically damage the call center's equipment?  I understand that hypnotism supposedly won't get people to do something that they wouldn't otherwise consider, but you'd have to be a sociopath to become a telemarketer in the first place, so this shouldn't be a problem.  Any other ideas?  (In case it's not clear, I'm not looking for ideas like "just ignore them," "don't answer the phone," or "ask them not to call again."  I need something that makes the experience significantly more annoying for the caller than it is for me.)