John DiGiacomo

You spend years building a brand, creating original products, and developing content—only to discover that an anonymous seller on a marketplace or website has lifted your work and is using it to compete against you. The situation is frustrating precisely because the usual first step—identifying who you are dealing with—hits a wall. This post explains […]

If you own a trademark, a copyright, a proprietary design, or other valuable intellectual property, licensing it to another party can generate revenue without requiring you to give up ownership. For e-commerce businesses in particular, IP licensing arrangements are increasingly common—covering brand collaborations, distributor relationships, white-label manufacturing agreements, content creator partnerships, and more. But an […]

If you have discovered that a competitor is copying content from your website—product descriptions, images, articles, or other material—and republishing it, you may have legal options to make them stop. Web scraping itself is not categorically illegal, but what the scraper does with your content often is. The critical questions are what was taken, who […]

Receiving a refusal from the USPTO can feel discouraging, but a refusal is not the end of the road. Many trademark applications are initially refused and ultimately succeed. The right path forward depends on why your application was refused, whether the refusal is final or non-final, and what options remain available. The most important thing […]

Retailers and online platforms are increasingly using personal data—your location, browsing history, shopping behavior, and even demographics—to set prices that vary from customer to customer. This practice, known as surveillance pricing, has attracted growing scrutiny from federal and state regulators. If your business uses algorithmic pricing tools or third-party data to inform pricing decisions, you […]

If your e-commerce business sells to customers in California, you are subject to a detailed pre-sale disclosure regime that goes beyond typical terms-of-service requirements. California law mandates that sellers make specific disclosures about their business identity, address, and return and refund policies before accepting payment from any California buyer. Failure to comply can expose your […]

When an AI chatbot speaks to your customers, it is speaking on your business’s behalf. If it gets something wrong — inventing a return policy, promising capabilities a product does not have, quoting an incorrect price, or providing inaccurate information about a service — saying “the AI made a mistake” is unlikely to protect you. […]

Buying an existing e-commerce business can look like a shortcut to an established brand, a proven customer base, and immediate revenue. But what you are actually buying is a bundle of legal assets and obligations — trademarks, copyrights, domain names, software licenses, customer data, supplier contracts, and platform accounts — and if any of those […]

Many business owners treat a cookie consent banner as a formality — a pop-up visitors click through before getting on with whatever brought them to the site. From a legal standpoint, that framing gets it backwards. The banner is a symptom. The real issue is whether your website is activating non-essential tracking technologies before obtaining […]

Running an e-commerce business involves far more than selecting products and setting up a checkout flow. Every online store operating in the United States has legal obligations that govern how it collects customer data, advertises products, handles email marketing, and designs its website. Ignoring these obligations — even unintentionally — can result in regulatory fines, […]