The case involves law firm Jones Day and a real estate news website called BlockShopper.com. Last April, BlockShopper reported on a home purchase made by a Jones Day lawyer, Jacob Tiedt, linking to the lawyer's profile on the Jones Day site, as well as a public record of the sale elsewhere online.
Jones Day sued, arguing that the link compromised their employee's privacy, but because both sites were public record, they had to build their case on a trademark infringement argument. According to Jones Day, casual surfers might get confused and think that the law firm was in some way associated with BlockShopper.
The judge agreed, and BlockShopper settled with Jones Day. The settlement didn't order BlockShopper to remove the link to the law firm from their site, but it did change how they could link to the law firm's site. Before the case, BlockShopper linked by writing "Jacob Tiedt bought a bouse" — where "Jacob Tiedt" were hyperlinked words — but after the settlement, they had to write "Jacob Tiedt (https://www.jonesday.com/jtiedt/) bought a house."
Several civil rights organizations objected to the case, including Public Citizen, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Citizen Media Law Project and Public Knowledge. Legal reporter Wendy Davis said that the settlement may herald a new era of litigation online.
"The actual change Jones Day wrought may be small, but it signals to companies that they can force sites to revise their linking styles by alleging trademark infringement," she said. "And [the judge's] decision not to dismiss the suit signals that web publishers may have to spend significant sums to deal with this kind of litigation."