Well, a lot, when talking about a major newspaper reporting for years about a United States Supreme Court Justice and regularly misspelling her name since 1980. Apparently, the New York Times issued a retraction on October 28, 2008 following an article about an award to be given to Justice Steven Breyer by Fordham University Law School. The article mentions, in passing, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg by name. The retraction reads:

Correction: October 30, 2008
An article in some editions on Wednesday about Fordham University’s plan to give an ethics prize to Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer misspelled the surname of another Supreme Court justice who received the award in 2001. She is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, not Ginsberg. The Times has misspelled her name at least two dozen times since 1980; this is the first correction the paper has published.

What is to be learned? Double check the spelling of your proper names if you are going to put them in print. Or hire new editors.

Well, a lot, when talking about a major newspaper reporting for years about a United States Supreme Court Justice and regularly misspelling her name since 1980. Apparently, the New York Times issued a retraction on October 28, 2008 following an article about an award to be given to Justice Steven Breyer by Fordham University Law School. The article mentions, in passing, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg by name. The retraction reads:

Correction: October 30, 2008
An article in some editions on Wednesday about Fordham University’s plan to give an ethics prize to Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer misspelled the surname of another Supreme Court justice who received the award in 2001. She is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, not Ginsberg. The Times has misspelled her name at least two dozen times since 1980; this is the first correction the paper has published.

What is to be learned? Double check the spelling of your proper names if you are going to put them in print. Or hire new editors.

Following my first post on this topic, I have seen much discussion on the new blogging insurance product. At least one reader has questioned the “need” for this product, so I thought it useful to identify more recent articles and opinions on whether to buy.  Dan Margolies, in an Austrialian article from the Sydney Morning Herald, cites some relevant numbers. According to the article, there have been 280 lawsuits against bloggers and other online publishers, climbing steadily from 4 in 1997. While most have resulted in no verdict, there has been at least one of note: a $11.3 million verdict against a woman who defamed on various internet bulletin boards the head of an organization she had hired to assist her.

The coverage will be written with Axis Insurance. Policy premiums will range from $540 to $3,370 per year. Standard coverage limits are $100,000 per triggering event (not sure how the insuring language is worded), with a $300,000 aggregate (the maximum amount paid over the course of a year on all claims) with a $2,500 deductible. Nice selling points include access to a “legal hotline” manned by Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal in Chicago, a top media defense firm, and access to an on-line media law course.

How serious are the risks? A well-worded disclaimer can mitigate, somewhat, the legal malpractice risk unique to law bloggers. The likelihood of defamation liability (notice I didn’t say “suits”) is wholly dependent upon the proactive conduct of the blogger. The other significant area of blogger risk appears to be copyright infringment. As noted by Margolies:

Although the posting of links poses no copyright risks, many bloggers wrongly believe material on the internet is not covered by copyright and can be used with impunity. “It’s a risk that bloggers don’t fully appreciate because they’re not in an institutional setting where there’s training,” Mr Dodell says.

Doug Malan at the Connecticut Law Tribune relates the opinions of legal bloggers about the attractiveness of the insurance product. Ryan McKeen, attorney and head blogger at aconnecticutlawblog.com, thinks the insurance is a good idea. McKeen writes with liability in mind and would consider omitting the step of filtering comments and would expand the scope of the blog if the insurance was in place.

Attorney Sergei Lemberg, author of lemonjustice.com, is not convinced. His blog discusses lemon law issues and targets automobile manufacturers. He believes that good blog practice and care, including judicious use of disclaimers, will go far in protecting him from libel and other potential liabilities.

So, does one buy it? It is not inexpensive. The calculus comes down to personal risk analysis and an examination of the on-line activity in question. If a blogger is regularly skirting the line of legality in the targeting and harvesting of subject matter, then perhaps blogging insurance makes sense.

Everyone recalls the practice of reserving popular domain names in the hopes of getting a big payout from the rightful owners. That is so 1999. Today’s cybersquatters are lurking over at Twitter and are snagging IDs in the hopes of grabbing the greenbacks. It’s real – Network World author Richard Stienon searched Twitter for single letter IDs that appear to be “placeholders.” He also noted that all the big names, like Crisco, Coke, Pepsi, Nike and Chevrolet, are taken. By all accounts, Twitter is big and getting bigger, making it increasingly attractive bait for one of the big players, like Google. Stienon urges readers to head over to Twitter and reserve your ID and brand name now before someone else beats you to it. While there, check out some popular names and see if you can’t cash in yourself.

Twitter squatting | NetworkWorld.com Community

Everyone recalls the practice of reserving popular domain names in the hopes of getting a big payout from the rightful owners. That is so 1999. Today’s cybersquatters are lurking over at Twitter and are snagging IDs in the hopes of grabbing the greenbacks. It’s real – Network World author Richard Stienon searched Twitter for single letter IDs that appear to be “placeholders.” He also noted that all the big names, like Crisco, Coke, Pepsi, Nike and Chevrolet, are taken. By all accounts, Twitter is big and getting bigger, making it increasingly attractive bait for one of the big players, like Google. Stienon urges readers to head over to Twitter and reserve your ID and brand name now before someone else beats you to it. While there, check out some popular names and see if you can’t cash in yourself.

Twitter squatting | NetworkWorld.com Community

I am not the first to comment on this, and I certainly won’t be the last, but it is most worthy of additional mention. LinkedIn has opened up its OpenSocial platform for development of applications that can be added to profiles. Early options include offerings from Amazon, Google, Twitter, WordPress and more. LinkedIn’s announcement about the new apps can be found here.

It is no surprise that LinkedIn is beefing up: they recently acquired an additional $22.7 million in funding and have seen significant user growth. It is equally unsurprising that people turn to a professional social networking site in tough economic times to improve their network and their safety net at the same time!

LinkedIn’s New Apps Are All Work and No Play | Epicenter from Wired.com

I am not the first to comment on this, and I certainly won’t be the last, but it is most worthy of additional mention. LinkedIn has opened up its OpenSocial platform for development of applications that can be added to profiles. Early options include offerings from Amazon, Google, Twitter, WordPress and more. LinkedIn’s announcement about the new apps can be found here.

It is no surprise that LinkedIn is beefing up: they recently acquired an additional $22.7 million in funding and have seen significant user growth. It is equally unsurprising that people turn to a professional social networking site in tough economic times to improve their network and their safety net at the same time!

LinkedIn’s New Apps Are All Work and No Play | Epicenter from Wired.com

A question on everyone’s mind – how social am I? Or, more to the point, how social is my product or brand? Vitrue has a social media index that assesses a name’s or brand’s strength across the internet’s social media outlets by measuring conversations about the name, brand or product. Conversation-mining locales include social networking sites, video sharing sites, micro-blogs, photo sharing sites and the general blogosphere. Basically, anywhere that conversations are taking place is fair game. Vitrue compares two or more terms to determine which term commands more conversation time, e.g. comparing Apple to Microsoft. Yet another marketing tool to measure your power in the virtual marketplace!

Let’s face it, eDiscovery can be somewhat complex and challenging and the technology supporting the process can be daunting. Marketwatch reports on a new eDiscovery and Technology blog called docNative Paradigm, lead by Tom O’Connor, a well known litigation consultant. The blog is hosted by Anacomp, Inc., in conjunction with the Legal Electronic Document Institute.  The latter is a non-profit organization that strives to promote standards for electronic legal docs. Weekly updates to the blog will occur on Wednesdays.  Check it out.

Renowned Litigation Consultant Tom O’Connor Initiates docNative Paradigm Blog – MarketWatch

Let’s face it, eDiscovery can be somewhat complex and challenging and the technology supporting the process can be daunting. Marketwatch reports on a new eDiscovery and Technology blog called docNative Paradigm, lead by Tom O’Connor, a well known litigation consultant. The blog is hosted by Anacomp, Inc., in conjunction with the Legal Electronic Document Institute.  The latter is a non-profit organization that strives to promote standards for electronic legal docs. Weekly updates to the blog will occur on Wednesdays.  Check it out.

Renowned Litigation Consultant Tom O’Connor Initiates docNative Paradigm Blog – MarketWatch