Thoughts on Angie's List v. Amazon

Angie's List has a pretty strong claim against Amazon for its employees' activities. While normally customer reviews posted online are not a trade secret because they are publicly available, here, it looks like Angie's List compiled such reviews into a database of select service-providers and charged consumers a fee for being able to access the reviews. This is the epitome of a proprietary product. This is very similar to a vendor database that a business would maintain and protect from competitors. Here, they've given others a right to use the information that the compiled for a fee. The contract claim is very strong because the membership agreement clearly states that the users of the database may not use the information they find there for anything other than personal purchase decisions.

The trade secret misappropriation claim is really strong as well since at least some of the information described in the complaint as being contained in the database would qualify as a trade secret. Furthermore, even if some of that information is publicly available, a compilation of a publicly available information can constitute a trade secret. Moreover, the membership agreement clearly demonstrates that Angie's List took reasonable measure to protect its proprietary information.

I have seen a few cases around the country that apply uniform trade secret misappropriation statutes to require that a trade secret be acquired by improper means. Thus, Amazon.com could potentially argue that its employees did not acquire the information by improper means because Angie's List gave them access to the database. However, such a literal interpretation of the statute might or might not have traction in the 7th Circuit.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) claim is pretty weak as the courts around the country have refused to apply it to those situations where employees exceed the authorization provided to them by employers. In this case, since Amazon employees were authorized to access Angie's List database, the fact that they used it for improper purposes is not likely to support a CFAA claim.

The Stored Communications Act (SCA) claim is very interesting and might have some teeth in this situation, considering that at least one other court found that Facebook posts were protected by the SCA, holding: Facebook wall posts are electronic communications as they are made over the internet; transmitted via an electronic communication service (Facebook allows users to send and receive electronic messages to each other through emails and posts); maintained in electronic storage (Facebook archives all old posts and emails); and not accessible to the general public. Since Angie's List's database also has a messaging system and the access it not accessible to the general public, it seems to fall under the protection of the SCA.

The real battle will come down to the scope of the temporary injunction and whether the court will go so far as to prohibit Amazon from listing on its website any service providers that are listed on Angie's List or only those service providers whom the specified Amazon employees searched, or whether to prohibit Amazon from accessing Angie's List database for commercial purposes. In a case like this, the size of the bond for a temporary injunction will also be subject to contention since Amazon will push for a very high amount, while Angie's List will want to keep its size small.

Overall, it appears Amazon got caught red-handed. Even if every other claim fails, Angie's List should be able to proceed on the breach of contract claim based on the clear language of the membership agreement.