ReedSmith
Serving Clients in
a Digital World
March 2007
Volume VI, Number 3
FTC Continues to Focus on Marketing to Children
The FTC is expected to release a Report on how violence is being used to market
to children—in movies, music and video games. Some insiders fear the FTC will
suggest the entertainment industry has violated or outgrown its voluntary standards—can you say “regulation.” Both the FTC and the FCC have targeted children’s
advertising, programming and products. Want to know more? Contact Anthony
E. DiResta ([email protected]) or John P. Feldman ([email protected]) in
our Washington, D.C. office; Douglas J. Wood ([email protected]) or Joseph I.
Rosenbaum ([email protected]) in our New York office; or Stephen Edwards
([email protected]), Michael Skrein ([email protected]) or Carolyn Pepper
([email protected]) in our London office. Please also visit our www.KidAdLaw.com
web pages. If you market or advertise to children or if you are a company that carries
advertising which is or could be targeted to children, why would you look anywhere
else for legal counsel.
Light Bytes
Employee Blogging May Subject Employers to Liability
“Our greatest natural resource is
the minds of our children.”
The FTC, in a recent advisory opinion, highlighted the possibility that a seller’s failure
to disclose the connection with an endorser could result in a violation of the FTC Act.
This opinion has legal implications for blogging by employees, even on personal time
and even if the company is unaware of the employee’s activities. Employees should
be advised to strictly abide by their employer’s blogging policy, and if they blog about
a product, they must identify their employment status. What? You don’t have an
employee blogging policy? Shame on you. Come get one. Come to Reed Smith.
Need to know more? Read our Labor & Employment e-flash bulletin at http://www.
reedsmith.com/_db/_documents/L&E_E-Flash_032707.pdf and contact the authors,
Angela M. Washelesky ([email protected]) in our Chicago office or Sara A.
Begley ([email protected]) in our Philadelphia office.
—Walt Disney
NEW YORK
LONDON
CHICAGO
PARIS
LOS ANGELES
WASHINGTON, D.C.
SAN FRANCISCO
PHILADELPHIA
PITTSBURGH
OAKLAND
MUNICH
ABU DHABI
PRINCETON
N. VIRGINIA
WILMINGTON
BIRMINGHAM
DUBAI
CENTURY CITY
RICHMOND
GREECE
r e e d s m i t h . c o m
The Future of the Web
This is a portion of testimony before Congress. Think you know who said this?
“In the future, the Web will seem like it’s everywhere, not just on our desktop or mobile device. As LCD technology becomes cheaper, walls of rooms, and even walls of
buildings, will become display surfaces for information from the Web. Much of the
information that we receive today through a specialized application such as a database
or a spreadsheet will come directly from the Web. Pervasive and ubiquitous web applications hold much opportunity for innovation and social enrichment. They also pose
significant public policy challenges. Nearly all of the information displayed is speech
but is being done in public, possibly in a manner accessible to children. Some of this
information is bound to be personal, raising privacy questions. Finally, inasmuch as this
new ubiquitous face of the Web is public, it will shape the nature of the public spaces
ReedSmith
we work, shop, do politics, and socialize
in… Progress in the evolution of the Web
to date has been quite gratifying to me.
But the Web is by no means finished.
“The Web, and everything which happens
on it, rest on two things: technological
protocols, and social conventions. The
technological protocols, like HTTP and
HTML, determine how computers interact. Social conventions, such as the
incentive to make links to valuable resources, or the rules of engagement in a
social networking web site, are about how
people like to, and are allowed to, interact.
As the Web passes through its first decade
of widespread use, we still know surprisingly little about these complex technical
and social mechanisms. We have only
scratched the surface of what could be
realized with deeper scientific investigation into its design, operation and impact
on society. Robust technical design, innovative business decisions, and sound
public policy judgment all require that
we are aware of the complex interactions
between technology and society.
“So how do we plan for a better future,
better for society? We ensure that both
technological protocols and social conventions respect basic values. That the
Web remains a universal platform: independent of any specific hardware device,
software platform, language, culture, or
disability. That the Web does not become
controlled by a single company—or a single country. By adherence to these principles we can ensure that Web technology,
like the Internet, continues to serve as a
foundation for bigger things to come.”
What’s Gnu?
Legal Bytes welcomes our colleagues in
our new Chicago office. As of March 1,
our combination with Sachnoff & Weaver
became official, adding 130 attorneys, all
based in Chicago. We are also excited to
welcome some of these professionals into
our Advertising Technology & Media Law
practice group. You will start to see their
names in Legal Bytes and we are excited
about the terrific people and the outstanding opportunities. Stay tuned.
Who’s Gnus?
Douglas J. Wood was featured in Law
Crossing, in an article entitled: “Douglas J.
Wood, Renaissance Man of Marketing
and Advertising Law.” Follow this link:
http://www.lawcrossing.com/article/index.
php?id=2761.
On Monday, March 26, Joseph I. Rosenbaum appeared on CNBC speaking about
Intel’s $2.5B Bet on China. On the heels
of Intel’s announcement that it is moving
high-level operations to Asia for the first
time, CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla questioned
Joe about the risks and opportunities to
foreign direct investment and protection
of technology that Intel’s move signals.
Follow this link: http://www.cnbc.com/
id/15840232?video=228986355.
To find out more about our Advertising Technology & Media Law practice group at Reed Smith, contact
me at [email protected], or
my colleagues, Douglas J. Wood at
[email protected] or Stephen S. Edwards ([email protected]).
Useless But Compelling Facts
This month, we would like you to find a common word in the English language that has only one vowel and which occurs five times.
Send your answers to [email protected]. Reed Smith employees are ineligible.
Last Month we asked you to tell us what the words assess, banana, dresser, grammar, potato, revive and uneven all have in common.
Wow. I’m going to break tradition and give you some idea of the brilliant answers we received in less than 24 hours from around the
world: Cathy Ettinger at Verisign noted all the words have mirror images of the same vowel-consonant combination. Rich Palermo at DC
Comic, James Griffin at PNC and Randy Henrick at DealerTrack all correctly pointed out if you drop off the first letter of each word, each
spells the same, forward and backwards. Mike Rodenbaugh at Yahoo! not only noticed that,
but also pointed out they all have two double-letters! Jim Holmes at Unison Site Management
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
and Phil Dewost from Realeyes3D each noticed they all have mirror-like symmetry if the first
Joseph I. Rosenbaum
letter is stricken (e.g., A – ssess is symmetrical around the “e”). J. Brian Mitchell at Caithness,
New York
Shari Gottesman at Garden of Life and Richard Fine at IBM all responded that if you take the
212.702.1303
first letter and put it at the end, it will result in the same word spelled backwards. But Scott
[email protected]
Morton from J.D.S. Uniphase takes the cake. He not only noted that if you take off the first
letter the result is a palindrome, but also that there are palindromes that are the same upsideIf you would like to know more about the topdown (NOON). As if this weren’t enough, he mentioned Kinnikinnik is a Native American word
ics in this issue, about Reed Smith or the ways
for smoking mixture, and the Finnish language provides the longest single-word palindromes:
we can help serve your legal needs, please
contact Joe Rosenbaum, head of our New
saippuakivikauppias which means “soap stone dealer” and solutomaattimittaamotulos which means
York-based e-commerce practice.
“the result from a measurement laboratory for tomatoes.” Hmmm. The longest palindrome in
The material is not intended to provide legal
the Oxford English Dictionary is the 12-letter word “tattarrattat,” an invented word (a “nonce”)
advice to be used in a specific fact situation.
meaning rat-a-tat, which James Joyce used in Ulysses: “I knew his tattarrattat at the door.” Now
“Reed Smith,” which refers to Reed Smith LLP
lest you think Scott has far too much time on his hands, consider the person who wrote a 17,259
and related entities, is a limited liability partword palindromic sentence! Last, but not least, a special mention to another winner, Samantha
nership formed in the state of Delaware.
Teich, who will never let her parents forget who the intellectual giant in the family really is….
©Reed Smith LLP 2007. All rights reserved.
Congratulations everyone!
The business of relationships.
SM
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