Yet another rediculous Web-related lawsuit has been filed - this time against companies that use wish lists for products. The lawsuit comes from Channel Intelligence, a company with a patent that looks like it covers the creation of lists in databases.

This reminds me of the absurdity of Amazon’s One-Click patent which basically had Amazon controlling the rights to one click purchases on websites. Seems like something somebody made up as a spoof or something right? Well, I wish it was just a joke, and while Amazon’s One-Click patent was partially restricted, much of it still exists.

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Last week I reported that eBay had been fined by French courts for certain illegal sales made on its auction website. Well, apparently the US courts aren’t quite as ignorant as the net’s freedom was defended against stupidity as the trademark accusations brought up in a similar lawsuit were completely rejected by US courts.

While it’s definitely a relief that at least some court out there isn’t going to hold a service provider responsible for the actions of its users, it also shows just how differently responsibility and blame is treated. With something as global as the internet, how are new services and technologies going to survive and grow if each region decides to handle the Web so differently? It’s not like this is the first case where a Web company has had to deal with such varying internet policies in different regions - Google censoring searches in China is a big one that jumps to mind.

So last week I started part 1 of my fake profiles series, with the focus being on creating fake profiles for MySpace. Why bring it up again so soon you ask? Well, maybe because the federal courts are looking at how creating a fake profile should be considered a federal crime.

Actually, the extent to which they are going would likely criminalize most (if not all) violations of any website’s terms of service. What this means is that any time you decide to fill out a form online, if you enter any false data or in any other way violate that website’s terms of service, you could be sent to jail.

Well lying is bad right? And when you use a website you should follow that website’s guidlines right? Perhaps. But you sure as hell shouldn’t make it against the law to do otherwise.

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Another day, another court case furthers a dangerous precedent when it comes to who’s responsible for misconduct on the Web. Last time it was eBay that was dealt the blow when they were held accountable for it’s users selling items illegally. This time Google takes a hit as a US judge ordered the Web giant to turn over significant amounts of YouTube user data to Viacom to help determine whether or not Google’s YouTube is profitting more off copyrighted materials than user uploaded clips.

The data Google is to hand over includes records of every video watched by YouTube users along with logs that include various user data (such as IP address and viewing histories). Google must also hand over copies of all videos it has ever taken down. Viacom did ask for more, such as YouTube’s source code and copies of all private videos, but the judge threw those requests out.

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It’s a story that’s getting more and more frequent these days as Web sofware companies are increasingly being held responsible for the actions of those who use said software. The latest case is a whopper as a French court ordered eBay to pay $61 million due to fake fashion merchandise being sold on eBay’s auction website.

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