Harvard Law Misses the Mark
I just noticed a brief discussion of our case over at JOLT Digest, the online blog that accompanies the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology. Andrew Ungberg posted his article to the blog very early on November 25, 2008. That would be the same day the Court issued its ruling denying the FTC’s request to extend the temporary restraining order (TRO) and the day after we appeared in court for the hearing on the preliminary injunction (PI).
He seems confused about when the hearing was held and, much more importantly, what the judge decided:
Following a hearing on November 17, Judge Gregory Presnell of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida upheld his November 6th decision to grant the Federal Trade Commission’s request for a temporary restraining order prohibiting the sale of CyberSpy Software’s RemoteSpy keylogger software.
Well, no, actually. The hearing was on the 24th, not the 17th. And Judge Presnell did not uphold his decision granting the FTC’s request for a TRO prohibiting the sale of RemoteSpy. On the contrary, he vacated the ban on selling RemoteSpy in his ruling the day after the hearing, which is why we are now selling the product again.
I think Mr. Ungberg is a first or second year law student, so we’ll cut him some slack. But I would like to see him post a correction. Even better, he can make it part of a follow-up, in which he discusses the merits of the case in light of the Court’s latest ruling. What say you, Mr. Ungberg?
December 5th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Dear Mr. Ivey,
Thank you for your interest in the JOLT Digest – we strive to provide neutral, useful information on current developments in technology law, and links to the insightful commentary of others on the subject. While we work to make our articles as factually accurate as possible, inevitably mistakes are made. Thank you for bringing one to our attention.
A few notes about the article:
- The article actually pertains to the decision by Judge Presnell to grant the TRO initially, at the request of the FTC on 11/6. Because of the limits of student journalism, we only became aware of this development on 11/17, and posted on the subject on 11/25.
- The article incorrectly reports the TRO as resulting from a hearing on 11/17. Aside from this, the article is factually correct with regards to the substance of Judge Presnell’s TRO of 11/6.
- The confusion arose due to the 11/24 hearing, which we did not know about when our initial TRO-related post went live in the early hours of 11/25. This, combined with our incorrect reporting of a hearing on 11/17, made the topic of our article unclear.
After reading your post about our article, we discovered the incorrect dates in original post and corrected them. Further, we have updated the article with the court’s most recent order, including the reduced scope of the present injunction.
Thank you again for reading the JOLT Digest, and helping us keep our information accurate. If you have any more comments to bring to our attention, you can contact the Digest staff at DigestContent@gmail.com.
Sincerely,
Andrew Ungberg
Digest Executive Editor