For a brief review, GateHouse Media filed a lawsuit against The New York Times Co. for violating its copyright and trademark by linking to GateHouse articles and displaying their headlines and first sentences. The allegations were primarily directed toward the Boston Globe and Boston.com, which are owned by The New York Times.

The companies reached a settlement and the Times agreed to remove the headlines and text excerpts from GateHouse media stories previously posted on Boston.com.

As Clarke points out in the video above, we don’t fully know whether or not The New York Times was in the wrong because there was not a judicial decision. He personally believes the NYT had legitimate fair use to publish the headlines and leads.

Sarah also raises some concern in this case since many news aggregators and bloggers consider the practice of linking to an article including the headline and lead, a “common business model” on the Web. If this practice is not fair use and the Times actually is in the wrong, then the Internet, as we know it, could drastically change.

The reason why the New York Times didn’t take the case to court for a judicial decision remains a mystery. However, Sarah suspects that time and money played a large role in their choice.

You may remember our coverage last year when Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear ordered the seizure of 141 gambling domain names by the state. The case went to court and Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate upheld the Governor’s order. The website owners appealed the ruling and in January of this year, the appellate court reversed Judge Wingate’s ruling saying domain names should not be considered gaming devices.

Clarke refers to this case as a classic example of a state not understanding its state limitations of jurisdiction on the Web. Sarah points out that the Kentucky appellate court’s ruling was based only upon a 2-1 decision. She expresses fear that other states will follow Kentucky’s example and push for action in similar cases.

Despite the ruling, Kentucky is not giving up its fight against the Internet domain names. In a statement released from Governor Beshear’s administration, Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown said:

“The Commonwealth will continue its action to protect Kentucky citizens from illegal Internet gambling operations, and appeal the recent Court of Appeals ruling to the state Supreme Court.”

He went on to say:

“The evidence demonstrated that illegal and unregulated activity is occurring in Kentucky, and that millions of dollars are being lost as a result of that activity…”

WebProNews will continue to keep you updated as this battle continues.

For those who may not know, BlockShopper is a website that provides home purchasing information for certain geographical locations, and Jones Day is a large law firm. In the lawsuit, Jones Day alleged that Blockshopper infringed upon its trademark by using the name “Jones Day” as the anchor text in the links to the law firm’s website. Two associates from Jones Day purchased homes in the Chicago area and BlockShopper reported the information and linked to their lawyer bios on the Jones Day website.

BlockShopper asked the court to dismiss the case, but the judge refused. Since this video was shot, the companies ended up settling and BlockShopper was forced to change its linking policies. Many bloggers, lawyers and those involved in the Internet industry believe that BlockShopper followed the standard Web linking procedure that all other websites follow.

Clarke says he does not believe Jones Day should have sued on the grounds of a trademark violation. He could believe a copyright or trademark infringement over the use of an image, but not over a hyperlink.

Sarah says that while BlockShopper may raise some privacy concerns in an ethical sense, the real estate site does not violate any laws. She questions the law firm’s understanding of the Internet and Web commerce since links are a positive practice.

In a post regarding the settlement, Attorney Paul Alan Levy of the Public Citizen Litigation Group encourages Internet communities to retaliate against Jones Day by “repeatedly deep-linking from its name, and to its web site, in precisely the ways to which it objects, but which cannot prevent through litigation.” He says the firm’s bullying should not continue.

The user generated videos led Subway to sue Quiznos for false advertising. The case is ongoing but listen to what Walton and Bird have to say on the matter.

To briefly summarize the case, American Airlines accused Google of infringing upon its trademarks by using them as keyword targets for paid ads from other airline companies. Essentially, when a user searched for “American Airlines” in a Google search, the user was then redirected to the site of an American Airlines competitor. (Clarification: When a user searched for “American Airlines” in Google, paid advertisements and organic results would show up. Some of these paid ads and organic results were from the competitors of American Airlines who chose “American Airlines” as a keyword phrase. The searcher could then be led to believe that the competitor was either affiliated with American Airlines or superior to American Airlines.)

In July of 2008, the companies settled the lawsuit. As mentioned above, the terms remain classified so there is no real winner that we know of. Incidentally, several companies have sued Google over trademark infringement, but American Airlines is the first well-known trademark owner to take action.

In this video, Clarke speculates that Google has a policy that it implements for most all businesses, but for recognized brands like American Airlines, the giant search company may make exceptions to its policy. He takes it one step further and says there is a possibility that in cases such as this, companies create their own policy through a confidential settlement.

Clarke also guesses that if a user conducts a Google search for “American Airlines” today, competitor’s ads will not show up. Interestingly enough, I did a Google search for “American Airlines” and no ads showed up.

Just for a quick recap, Impulse Media Group is an adult website that has several affiliates. The FTC sued Impulse Media Group for spam that was sent via its affiliates. The case went to jury and found that Impulse Media should not be held liable.

Many people disagreed with the outcome including Affiliate Summit Co-founder Shawn Collins who referred to it as a “travesty.” From a legal perspective however, attorney Anne Mitchell blatantly says, “the FTC couldn’t prove their case.” Clarke Walton also agrees with the verdict on the grounds that Impulse Media had well-designed policy agreements with its affiliates.

Affiliate agreements are very important because they essentially set the bar for how the relationship is governed. Clarke points out that the relationship between Impulse Media Group and its affiliates was that of an independent contractor and not of an agency-principal.

Sarah Bird also throws out a word of advice for affiliate marketers. She says monitoring your affiliates in addition to the terms of use set up, is a good rule of thumb to go by to prevent unwanted activity.

There are currently 21 gTLDs such as .com, .net, .org, but ICANN will expand upon that number later on this year. According to ICANN, “choice and competition are key to the continued success and reach of the global network.” ICANN will be accepting applications for gTLDs in Q4 of this year. Possible new gTLDs include: .hotel, .law, .facebook, .ebay, etc.

The application fee for obtaining a new gTLD is $185,000. Clarke says there will be additional fees if the application moves forward. Annual fees could be greater than $75,000 or 5 percent of your generated revenue. Clarke’s suggested ballpark of bankroll needed for this venture is $1 million.

So how does all this affect search marketers? Speaking on his personal belief, Clarke says it is a possibility that search engines will include these new gTLDs into their algorithms. For example, if .law is only available to licensed attorneys, then Google might find it to be a more relevant search result instead of a random .com domain.

If you’re interested in learning more about becoming a part of the new gTLD program, be sure to look into ICANN’s gTLD application guidebook. Also, stay tuned to WebProNews Videos for a look at several case studies from Clarke Walton and Sarah Bird.

Find out the latest in the case including Gambert’s response to the community and how you can file a Notice of Opposition, right here on WebProNews.