Website and Internet Law: A Comprehensive Guide

141 questions on website and internet law, answered and cited by the UpLaw editorial team.

• Are state laws restricting platform moderation constitutional?
• Can a company amend its terms by silently posting a new version?
• Can a company lose despite obtaining a click?
• Can actual knowledge of terms bind a party despite bad design?
• Can a popular website create general jurisdiction?
• Can a small provider satisfy Section 512(i) with an informal policy?
• Can competitors enforce advertising law?
• Did Multi Time Machine v. Amazon extend keyword logic to on-site search?
• Did the DeCSS case address the First Amendment?
• Do accessibility overlay widgets confer legal protection?
• Does calling a statement an opinion make it non-actionable?
• Does notifying a platform of defamatory content strip Section 230 immunity?
• Does Section 230 protect a platform for removing content?
• Does the GDPR reach a U.S. website?
• Does willful blindness defeat the DMCA safe harbor?
• Do state anti-SLAPP statutes apply in federal court?
• How did AMG Capital change FTC remedies?
• How did Carparts reason about non-physical businesses?
• How did Cox Communications lose the DMCA conduit harbor?
• How did Ford Motor Co. v. Montana loosen relatedness?
• How did Network Automation rewire the confusion analysis for the internet?
• How did Roommates.com split a website into pieces?
• How did Van Buren read the word "so" in the CFAA?
• How does notice affect Section 230 and the DMCA differently?
• How does the counter-notice and put-back process work?
• How does the DMCA triennial rulemaking work, and what are its two traps?
• How does the Federal Arbitration Act support class-action waivers?
• How does the single-publication rule apply to websites?
• How do the circuits split on website coverage under Title III?
• How do UDRP and ACPA compare on cost, speed, and finality?
• How do you authenticate a Wayback Machine capture?
• How narrow should a platform's license to user content be?
• How should a company respond to an accessibility demand letter?
• How should a limitation of liability be drafted?
• How should a site defend itself against scrapers?
• Is algorithmic recommendation protected publishing?
• Is a printout of a web page an "original" under the best evidence rule?
• Is buying a competitor's trademark as a search keyword infringement?
• Is DMCA knowledge general or item-specific?
• Is proximity of a terms link to a button enough for constructive notice?
• Is Section 1201 the right claim against someone who defeats a rate limiter?
• Is the internet a legal frontier where the ordinary rules go soft?
• Is there a binding technical accessibility standard for private websites?
• Is there a special federal law of online contract formation?
• Is the scope of the Section 230 IP carve-out settled?
• Must a "repeat infringer" be adjudicated by a court?
• What abuses plague the unmasking and de-indexing space?
• What actually wins a motion to compel arbitration?
• What are the authentication routes for web evidence?
• What are the constitutional overlays on defamation?
• What are the four DMCA safe harbors?
• What are the four forms of online agreement?
• What are the recurring dark-pattern targets?
• What are the Section 230(e) carve-outs?
• What are the twenty-six words of Section 230?
• What are the two FTC Act theories in privacy enforcement?
• What common architecture do the state comprehensive privacy laws share?
• What did Anderson v. TikTok hold?
• What did Robles v. Domino's Pizza hold?
• What did Specht v. Netscape establish?
• What discipline did Walden v. Fiore impose?
• What does advertising substantiation require?
• What does CAN-SPAM require of commercial email?
• What does COPPA require?
• What does "right and ability to control" mean under Section 512(c)(1)(B)?
• What does ROSCA require for online subscriptions?
• What does Rule 37(e) require before an adverse-inference instruction?
• What does Rule 901 require for a web page?
• What does Section 1201 actually protect?
• What does the ACPA offer that the UDRP cannot?
• What does the ACPA prohibit?
• What does the FTC's fake-review rule target?
• What does the INFORM Consumers Act require of marketplaces?
• What does the SPEECH Act do?
• What do the FTC Endorsement Guides require?
• What evidence establishes online targeting for jurisdiction?
• What happens if a takedown notice is defective?
• What is an "information content provider" under Section 230?
• What is a website's best jurisdictional defense?
• What is "layer discipline" and why does it matter?
• What is mass arbitration and why did it emerge?
• What is Rule 4(k)(2) and when does it matter?
• What is Section 512(f) misrepresentation liability worth?
• What is the 902(13)/(14) notice trap?
• What is the asymmetry in Section 1201 that trips people up?
• What is the Calder effects test?
• What is the Chamberlain/MDY split over Section 1201?
• What is the CIPA session-replay theory?
• What is the commercial answer to a counterfeit problem, as distinct from the legal one?
• What is the de facto accessibility standard, and what does it require?
• What is the Dendrite standard for unmasking an anonymous poster?
• What is the DMCA agent registration trap?
• What is the DMCA Section 512 bargain?
• What is the fact half the internet gets wrong about hiQ?
• What is the failure-to-warn end-run around Section 230?
• What is the full matrix of a scraper's legal exposure?
• What is the illusory-promise trap in change-of-terms clauses?
• What is the Inwood test for contributory trademark infringement?
• What is the limit on the contract theory against scrapers?
• What is the material contribution test?
• What is the practical preservation protocol on receiving a demand letter?
• What is the practical sequence for unmasking a poster?
• What is the recurring privacy lesson about tracking exposure?
• What is the simple design rule for subscription cancellation?
• What is the single most useful evidentiary fact in internet litigation?
• What is the standing defense in accessibility cases?
• What is the template for the modern platform-liability complaint?
• What is the tension between Section 230 instincts and evidentiary instincts?
• What is the through-line of internet law?
• What is the two-part test for online contract formation?
• What keyword-advertising risk remains?
• What made Uber's sign-in-wrap enforceable in Meyer?
• What makes an arbitration clause unconscionable?
• What permanent exceptions does Section 1201 contain?
• What six elements must a DMCA takedown notice contain?
• What standard does Tiffany v. eBay set for marketplaces?
• What ten principles generalize across internet law?
• What three elements must a UDRP complainant prove?
• What three elements must be satisfied for Section 230(c)(1) immunity?
• What three kinds of computer systems did hiQ identify?
• What threshold conditions apply to all four DMCA harbors?
• What two structural points about CAN-SPAM do people miss?
• What two things did Van Buren NOT decide?
• What was the Zippo sliding scale, and why is it in decline?
• When does accessing a system with credentials become "without authorization"?
• When does the duty to preserve web evidence attach?
• Where does ISP contributory liability stand?
• Where does the private right of action sit in state privacy law?
• Why did the promissory estoppel claim in Barnes v. Yahoo survive?
• Why do accessibility claims cluster in California, New York, and Florida?
• Why do companies waste money on terms of service?
• Why do email and text message rules differ?
• Why does first-party content shrink a platform's Section 230 protection?
• Why does Register.com matter more against competitors than consumers?
• Why does Section 230 push defamation plaintiffs toward unmasking?
• Why does the Section 1201 nexus split matter?
• Why has the Video Privacy Protection Act been revived?
• Why is ADA website accessibility the most litigated internet-law claim?
• Why is ignoring Global Privacy Control especially risky?
• Why is the CFAA so dangerous as a civil theory?
• Why is the UDRP's conjunctive bad-faith element so consequential?