1. Monthly archive
  2. December 2016

December 2016

Supreme Court Declines to Review Colorado’s Internet Sales Tax Law

The US Supreme Court denied review of a case that leaves intact a Colorado law forcing retailers without a physical presence in the state to turn over customer purchase data to state tax officials. The court’s denial of Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl gives the green light for other states to impose laws mandating the collection of consumer purchase data from online retailers, making it more difficult for customers who buy products online to avoid state sales taxes. It may also presage an examination of a 1992 Supreme Court ruling in Quill v. North Dakota that prohibits states from ordering out-of-state retailers to directly collect sales tax from their customers.

A reconsideration of that decision has already been suggested thanks to a separate 2015 high court ruling in the same case, where the justices unanimously agreed that the Direct Market Association had the standing to sue. In that ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy also wrote a concurring statement emphasizing that the court should take another look at its 1992 decision. Kennedy noted that the amount of forgone taxes resulting from the decision is now many orders of magnitude greater than in 1992, when Internet commerce was not yet viable. He urged the the court to reconsider the decision at the earliest opportunity.

Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division: Charter Ad on AT&T-DirecTV Was Unsubstantiated

The Better Business Bureau's ad review arm has advised Charter to stop using broadcast ads that make what it says are "unsubstantiated” claims about the impact of the AT&T-DirecTV merger on customer service.

"NAD [National Advertising Division] determined that the depicted conversation in the 'Transfer' commercial conveys the substantive message that DirecTV’s merger with AT&T has had a deleterious effect on the company’s ability to provide customer service. Because such a claim was not supported, NAD recommended that the advertisement be discontinued," it said. The fact that the ads are funny does not remove the obligation to support the claims they make, NAD concluded.

Even Before Trial, Entercom KDND License Fight Marches On

The Federal Communications Commission’s hearing into whether Entercom should be allowed to continue holding the license for CHR “107.9 The End” KDND, Sacramento (CA) isn’t likely to occur until spring 2017 at the earliest, but the legal maneuvers behind the scenes have begun. Legal teams from the company and the challengers to its license met recently in what chief administrative law judge Richard Sippel says led to “extensive” discussions about how evidence will be collected. The outcome has cleared the way for the Enforcement Bureau to begin serving requests for e-mails and other information from KDND.

Sippel has ordered that rather than requiring Entercom follow the standard 10-day deadline for filling requests, the company will be permitted to turn over documents in two batches. The first will be due Jan. 13 with a second due date set for Feb. 10. The discovery process is expected to focus on the planning and execution of the station’s 2007 ill-fated “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest where the contestant who was able to drink water every 15 minutes for the longest time without urinating or vomiting won a Nintendo Wii video game console. One of the constants, Jennifer Strange, 28, died of water intoxication.

Google inks deal with Cuba to speed up Internet service

Google announced that it signed a new deal with Cuba's state-run telecommunications company to speed up Internet service for Cubans using YouTube and other Google products. The move, however, will affect only a small percentage of Cubans since the vast majority of communist country's 11 million residents do not have access to the Internet.

Google has been making small inroads into Cuba over the past two years as the United States works to re-establish diplomatic relations with its Cold War foe. On Dec 12, Google CEO Eric Schmidt signed the latest deal in Havana with Mayra Arevich Marin, president of State Enterprise of Telecommunications of Cuba, the government-run communications company known as ETECSA that handles all Internet and phone services in Cuba. The deal will provide Google's "Global Cache" service to the island, which reduces the amount of time it takes high-bandwidth content to load by storing data on servers on the island.Google previously made available some of its other products on the island nation, including its Google Chrome Web browser and Google Play music service.

When ‘Miranda’ violations lead to passwords

A new decision, United States v. Ashmore (W.D. Ark. December 7, 2016), raises an interesting question at the intersection of new technology and constitutional rights: If the government violates a suspect’s Miranda rights, interrogating him without reading Miranda warnings, and during the interrogation obtains the suspect’s passwords that are then used to access his phone and computer, are the phone and computer admissible in court?

The district court held that the passwords themselves must be suppressed but that, on the specific facts of this case, the evidence on the devices should not be suppressed. I think that’s the right result, although the court reached that result for the wrong reason. And I think that the government should win on much broader grounds than the court realized.

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