WebProNews

Tag: Lawsuits

  • Winklevii Refuse To Let Facebook Suit Die

    Winklevii Refuse To Let Facebook Suit Die

    Call it the little lawsuit that could.

    Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are making a career out of prolonging litigation, as they come out of a recent appeals court ruling unhappy, and with more requests.

    As most of you I’m sure are quite familiar with the saga, I’ll keep the synopsis brief.  The Winklevii claim that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ripped of their idea when he created the social media giant.  Although Zuckerberg vehemently denies this claim, the two parties reached a settlement of $20 million in cash and $45 million in stock options.

    In January, the Winklevii decided that this was not enough based on undisclosed Facebook valuations and elected to turn down the original agreement to pursue more in compensation.  On April 11th, an appeals court ruled that the original settlement must be enforced, and the Winklevii cannot back out of it.  This seemed like an end to a long litigation process.

    Not so fast, say the Winklevii.

    The twins are now asking a federal appeals court in San Francisco to rehear their request to nullify the original settlement.  The April 11th ruling was made by a panel of three judges, and now the Winklevii want their motion to be heard by the entire court.

    Jerome B. Falk Jr., lead appellate lawyer for the Winklevii said this as quoted in the NYT:

    “This appeal is not about whether our clients would be better off keeping the settlement proceeds (which admittedly are substantial) rather than proceeding with their lawsuit against Facebook. That is up to them to decide; it is not a question for the courts.”

    Tyler Winklevoss, the tweetiest of the twins tweeted about the new request:

    @tylerwinklevoss
    Tyler Winklevoss    here’s the latest…http://tinyurl.com/3wdneja #FightForJusticeContinues 22 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    Note the exotic hashtag he created.  Further inspection reveals that only one other person has jumped on board that hashtag, with the tweet “LET ME DIE.”  This is not the first excellent use of the hashtag by Tyler Winklevoss.  His #WonderWhoTheHarvardUpperclassemenWere tag didn’t exactly take off.

    Cameron Winklevoss, who has about 300 less followers than Tyler (Boom! Take that), has not yet tweeted about the continued litigation.

    I, for one, sure thought this was over when Mark Zuckerberg demolished the kayaking Winklevii in a Taiwanese animation last week.

     

  • Facebook, Zuckerberg Sued Over “Third Palestinian Intifada” Page

    This week, we told you about the public outcry against a Facebook page titled “Third Palestinian Intifada.” Many, including the Anti-Defamation League, demanded that Facebook remove the page, as it promoted a violent uprising against Jews in Jerusalem on May 15th of this year.  Facebook was hesitant to remove the page at first according to the ADL, but eventually took it down.

    Apparently they didn’t take it down fast enough.

    Today, Zuckerberg and Facebook have been named in a lawsuit filed by Larry Klayman.  Dubbed a “one man litigation explosion” by Slate, Klayman has made a living by filing odd and sometimes frivolous suits against the likes of Hugo Chavez, Hillary Clinton and his own mother.  The lawsuit accuses Zuckerberg of intentionally delaying the removal of the controversial page  “on information and belief to boost their revenues and the net worth of Facebook, which they have been marketing through the ‘legally challenged’ firm of Goldman Sachs.”

    Klayman argues that in the time Facebook delayed removal of the page, its contents were spread rampantly across the internet.  Basically, the damage had been done, it’s “out there,” says Klayman.

    Klayman, who is half Jewish, uses The Social Network to paint a picture of Zuckerberg as morally defunct and says that he has acted against his own Jewish people for the sake of financial gain:

    “As depicted in the award winning film ‘Social Network,’ Defendant Zuckerberg in particular lacks strong ethical and moral character, having cheated his partners out of their shares and/or ownership in Facebook early on, for which he was forced to pay large settlements once sued. Now, for financial reasons, he has marketed, used, and allowed to be used, Facebook against the interests of his own people, the Jewish people, and Plaintiff.”

    Apparently he though the film was a documentary.

    Klayman asks that the defendants be unable to have any anti-Semitic pages operating on Facebook ever again, oh, and a cool $1,000,000,000 in damages.

    I’m no legal scholar, but I’m not convinced Mr. Klayman has a case.  Let’s just say I won’t be the least bit shocked when this turns out to be Klayman’s idea of an April Fool’s joke.  Full text of the brief below.


    110331-Fbook-Complaint –

  • Yelp Beats “Deceptive Acts” Claims

    Yelp recently won a case against a dentist who tried who sued the site over a negative review, claiming defamation and "deceptive acts and practices" under New York state law.

    The defamation part was pretty much old hat. This is not the first time someone has tried to sue the owners of a site (or even Yelp specifically) because they didn’t like a review. The second part was new to the story, though the court still moved to dismiss it. Technology and intellectual property attorney Evan Brown writes on his Internet Cases blog: 

    The other claim against Yelp — for deceptive acts and practices — was intriguing, though the court did not let it stand. Plaintiff alleged that Yelp’s Business Owner’s Guide says that once a business signs up for advertising with Yelp, an “entirely automated” system screens out reviews that are written by less established users.

    The problem with this, plaintiff claimed, was that the process was not automated with the help of algorithms, but was done by humans at Yelp. That divergence between what the Business Owner’s Guide said and Yelps actual practices, plaintiff claimed, was consumer-oriented conduct that was materially misleading, in violation of New York’s General Business Law Section 349(a). 

    In the end, the court decided that statements from Yelp’s Business Owner’s Guide were not consumer-oriented, so that was the end of it. 

    Eric Goldman, an Associate Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law, writes on his Technology and Marketing Law Blog: "While Yelp avoided liability in this lawsuit, it should scrub its site to ensure it does not claim that Yelp’s reviews are bias-free or the sole product of automated algorithms. For example, the complaint alleges that Yelp’s guide says ‘We remove the guesswork by screening out reviews that are written by less established users. The process is entirely automated to avoid human bias.’ Obviously, the second half of the statement contains a fatal logic flaw; any algorithm intrinsically reflects human biases in its configurations."

    Do you think the court was right to side with Yelp? Tell us what you think.

    Yesterday, Yelp announced that it surpassed 13 million reviews. Yelp reviews were recently removed from Google Place Pages, instantly giving them less visibility. 

    Hat tips to Greg Sterling and Mike Masnick.

  • Facebook Sues Teacher Resource for Using the Word “Book”

    Update: WebProNews reached out to Teachbook for comment. Read Teachbook’s full response here. See comments from Facebook in the comments section of either article.

    Excerpt: "We were unaware the Facebook owned the Internet or the term ‘book,’" Teachbook Managing Partner Greg Shrader tells WebProNews.

    —

    Original Article: Facebook is suing a company called Teachbook, which operates a social networking site for teachers, apparently because it has "book" in its name and "competes" with Facebook. Teachbook is described as "a professional community for teachers". Sounds like a threat to Facebook’s existence doesn’t it?

    Do you think Facebook should be suing Teachbook? Tell us what you think.

    Ryan Tate at Valleywag draws on some irony, saying, "Imagine: Someone ripping off the name of an existing social networking tool for his own site. Why, that hasn’t been done since 2004 when some punk kid at Harvard registered TheFacebook.com while college administrators were already developing their own ‘online facebook.’"

    The beginning of the suit reads:

    Facebook has become a worldwide social, cultural and political phenomenon. With fame comes imitation. Here, Defendant Teachbook.com LLC rides on the coattails of the fame and enormous goodwill of the FACEBOOK trademark. Misappropriating the distinctive BOOK portion of Facebook’s trademark, Defendant has created its own competing online networking community in a blatant attempt to become Facebook "for Teachers." Despite Facebook’s protests, Defendant has willfully and deliberately persisted in its misappropriation of the Facebook brand, forcing Facebook to protect its user community and the strength of the Famous FACEBOOK trademark through this action.

    They’re protecting us – the user community.

    Teachbook - A professional community for teachers

    When a user (teacher) joins Teachbook, the site promises the ability to manage a professional profile and all info in the account by choosing to share with admins, colleagues, parents, or public. It lets teachers create lesson plans, instructional videos, and other teaching resources. It lets users manage their classroom communications with secure parent-teacher communication tools (gradebook, events calendar, classroom newsletter, homework space). It lets teachers communicate with colleagues through discussion, chat, blogs, etc. It lets them create and manage online courses and instructional modules. It lets teachers manage student grades by recording, calculating, and sharing them within the Gradebook. (I wonder if Facebook knows they’re using the word "gradebook" too).

    Facebook drops the following stats in its case for why others shouldn’t be able to use the word "book" in their names:

    – Facebook has over 500 million active users

    – Those users spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.com.

    – Facebook is the second most trafficked site in the U.S.

    – Over 150 million Facebook users also engage with FB through third-party sites each month

    – Over a million sites have implemented tools Facebook makes available

    – Through Facebook, users can interact with over 900 million objects (individual and community pages, groups, and events) and 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.).

    "Through this usage, Facebook has permeated the web and Facebook users are accustomed to seeing and expect to see Facebook across the world wide web, not just on the Facebook site," the suit proclaims. "Facebook, and its FACEBOOK trademark, are famous."

    The suit also mentions that Facebook owns a number of U.S. registrations for the mark FACEBOOK, covering a variety of goods and services, such as online networking services, chat functions, electronic media, online journals with user-defined content and electronic publishing services, and software to enable uploading, tagging, and sharing of electronic media or info.

    By this logic, other companies that use either "Face" or "Book" may have to fear. It’s unclear what the company’s stance on the word "the" is, as Facebook was first called "The Facebook". "The" is only slightly more common than "book", especially in the teaching profession, I would imagine. Since "the" is no longer part of the Facbook brand, I’m guessing they won’t pursue that.

    It’s also worth noting that Facebook just launched a product called "Facebook Places" , even though Google (their direct competitor) already had a product called "Google Places".

    This suit comes at a time when Facebook is becoming much more integrated with not only the web, as the company pointed out, but the real world as well. Facebook Places is bringing physical locations to Facebook, and other third-parties are also coming up with different ways to connect physical objects (not just places) to Facebook. Watch out, books!

    The entire suit can be read here (pdf).

    I’m no lawyer, and I’m not going to pretend to be. Does Facebook have a case? Tell us what you think.

  • Teachbook Says it Doesn’t Know Why Facebook Wants to Impede Teaching

    Update: See comments section for comment from Facebook.

    Original Article: WebProNews reached out to both Teachbook and Facebook for comment on the suit the latter has filed against the former. So far, we’ve only heard back from Teachbook.

    In case you’re not familiar with the story, Facebook is suing a company called Teachbook, which operates a social networking site for teachers, apparently because it has "book" in its name and "competes" with Facebook. Teachbook is described as "a professional community for teachers".

    "We were unaware the Facebook owned the Internet or the term ‘book,’" Teachbook Managing Partner Greg Shrader tells WebProNews. "We believe that they are wrong on the merits of their case, especially because the United States Patent and Trademark Office approve our trademark application for Teachbook and informed us that ‘book’ is a generic term which cannot be trademarked. We believe this is why they elected to file a suit in federal court and take their opposition out of the trademark office. They simply can’t win on the merits of their trademark objection."

    "Teachbook is a suite of productivity tools for teachers," Shrader explains. "It allows teachers to design and share lesson plans, instructional videos, online courses. It also allows teachers to keep online gradebooks, communicate with parents, and share ideas with one another."

    Teachbook - A professional community for teachers

    "In short it is designed to allow teachers to improve teaching and learning in the classroom," he continues. "We don’t know why Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg want to get in the way of that."

    "And we don’t believe that potential Facebook users who are looking to share pictures and socialize with their old high school buddies could be confused by a site designed for teachers," he concludes.

    Based on the responses we’ve gotten from our previous article on the subject, it would appear that the general public (for the most part) agrees. What do you think? Comment here.

    We’ll update when we receive comment from Facebook.

  • The Top Ten U.S. Web Properties

    The Top Ten U.S. Web Properties

    comScore released its monthly Media Metrix top 50 revealing the top 50 U.S. web properties. Here are the top ten:

    1. Google sites
    2. Yahoo Sites
    3. Microsoft sites
    4. Facebook.com
    5. AOL
    6. Glam Media
    7. Ask Network (IAC perhaps?)
    8. Turner Network
    9. Fox Interactive Media
    10. Amazon Sites

    AngstroGoogle has acquired Angstro, a social startup that is said to be key to the company’s social strategy going forward. More on this here.

    SCVNGR, which reportedly raised $4 million from Google Ventures in December, has now launched support for Facebook Places. As Jason Kincaid notes, the company has had a big week with a partnership with AT&T and the release of its secret social mechanics playdeck.

    Speaking of location-based games, Foursquare has tweaked its apps. The Foursquare team writes, "When you’re getting close to winning a Mayorship (within 10 check-ins), you’ll now see how far away you are from ousting the current Mayor. You’ll see the count in the post check-in screen when you check into a place. Take it for a test drive tonight and see if it fires up the flames of competitiveness for you!"

    Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has decided to sue most of the Internet – 11 prominent companies at least. These include Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Apple, eBay, and Netflix. TechCrunch obtained statements from Facebook and Google regarding the suit. Both indicate the suit is without merit. Surprise.

    A class action lawsuit has been filed against Facebook alleging that the company is misappropriating the names and pictures of minors for profit. Here’s the press release on that.

  • Microsoft Co-Founder Sues Google, AOL, eBay, Facebook, Netflix, Yahoo, Apple, Etc.

    Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has a company called Interval Licensing, and it is suing the following  eleven companies: AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, and YouTube.

    The claim, filed in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Washington, alleges that these companies have infringed upon patents held by Interval. The patents in question include:

    • United States Patent No. 6,263,507 issued for an invention entitled "Browser for Use in Navigating a Body of Information, With Particular Application to Browsing Information Represented By Audiovisual Data."
    • United States Patent No. 6,034,652 issued for an invention entitled "Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device."
    • United States Patent No. 6,788,314 issued for an invention entitled "Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device."  
    • United States Patent No. 6,757,682 issued for an invention entitled "Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest." 

    Paul Allen Sues A Good Portion of the Internet"Interval Research was an early, ground-breaking contributor to the development of the internet economy," said David Postman, a spokesman for Allen, in a statement. "Interval has worked hard to bring its technologies to market through spinning off new companies, technology transfer arrangements, and sales of its patented technology."

    The statement says that the patents are "fundamental to the ways that leading e-commerce and search companies operate today."

    "This lawsuit is necessary to protect our investment in innovation," Postman added. "We are not asserting patents that other companies have filed, nor are we buying patents originally assigned to someone else.  These are patents developed by and for Interval."

    Interval says that it helped fund Sergey Brin’s and Larry Page’s research that resulted in Google.

    The legal document can be viewed here (pdf), courtesy of ZDNet.

  • Inside the Google Phonebooth, Apple Refuses to Show “Green” Rank

    Inside the Google Phonebooth, Apple Refuses to Show “Green” Rank

    Today seems to be redesign day. Digg began rolling out its new redesign to all users (follow us here). MySpace introduced a redesign to profiles. In addition to these, UStream unveiled its own redesign with changes to the homepage as well as the dashboard.

    Guardian reports that Apple has refused to allow its iPhone to be included in the UK’s green ranking system, which gives phones a rating of zero to five based on their environmental footprint.

    As you may have heard, Google unveiled a new feature in Gmail today that allows users to make and receive phone calls. In addition to this, Google will be setting up phone booths on college campuses and in airports. Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land shares a video looking at the inside of the phone booth and talking to the product marketing manager about it:

    According to PaidContent, Alibaba has acquired eBay auction management provider Auctiva. It recently acquired a similar service in Vendio.

    Nick Bilton at the New York Times has an interesting profile of a startup called Stipple, which aims to tag the web’s images. It lets publishers add tags to parts of an image with info about its contents and related links. Launch partners include Six Apart, Jive Records and E.W. Scripps.

    Ian Sheer at the Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece about online coupons and how they’re getting smarter. "Among the new approaches: computer programs to better target consumers with personalized deals and staff on the ground to help merchants," he writes.

    ReadWriteWeb points to a video of Apple SVP of software engineering, Bertrand Serlet, who talks about using Apple’s private APIs.

    According to Guardian, Facebook is now being valued at over $33 billion as investors try to secure a stake in it. Facebook shares are changing hands for up to $76 each, the publication reports. Still, it doesn’t look like there will be an IPO anytime soon.

    Ad firm Specificmedia is being sued amid accusations that it is re-creating deleted cookies, according to Wired’s Epicenter.

    Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at the WSJ reports that Amazon has lost a big e-book deal with literary agent Andrew Wylie. This comes as the company also announced that its new Kindles are selling faster than any previous models.

  • Google’s Reponse to the Oracle Suit

    As you may have read, Google is being sued by Oracle, who claims Google is infringing on several patents it holds, related to Java. These patents came to Oracle through its recent acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

    "In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property," said Oracle spokesperson Karen Tillman. "This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement."

    TechCrunch obtained the following statment from Google on the matter:

    "We are disappointed Oracle has chosen to attack both Google and the open-source Java community with this baseless lawsuit. The open-source Java community goes beyond any one corporation and works every day to make the web a better place. We will strongly defend open-source standards and will continue to work with the industry to develop the Android platform."

    Kara Swisher has the entire complaint in a Scribd document:

    FINAL Complaint

    The complaint deals with a total of seven patents. Jason Kincaid notes that Sun Microsystems was able to get $1.6 billion out of Microsoft related to patent disputes and antitrust issues.

  • HP Shareholder Sues Board Over Hurd Investigation

    HP Shareholder Sues Board Over Hurd Investigation

    Last weekend, HP announced the "resignation" of Chairman, CEO, and President Mark Hurd, following an investigation into sexual harassment claims that were later revealed to come from actress and former HP contractor Jodie Fisher.

    Well, HP’s board may have forgotten to clue in shareholders about that investigation, and now the board is being sued over it. The suit, filed by a Connecticut-based law firm, according to the Wall Street Journal, was actually filed on Tuesday on behalf of HP shareholder Brocton Contributory Retirement System.

    The complaint alleges that the board failed to live it to its fiduciary duties related to the investigation. CNET’s Erica Ogg quotes the complaint, "As a result of Hurd’s, Lesjak’s, and the HP board’s shortcomings, HP lost significant credibility, and the market punished HP (and its shareholders) upon the 8/6/10 revelation of Hurd’s termination–slashing its stock rating and erasing over $9 billion in market capitalization when the company’s stock resumed trading on 8/9/10."

    Lesjak would be HP’s CFO, which has assumed the CEO role on an interim basis as the board looks for Hurd’s replacement.

    Mark Hurd Resigns as HP CEO Hurd did indicate that the company will be fine without him, if that counts for anything. "The corporation is exceptionally well positioned strategically," he said upon resignation. "HP has an extremely talented executive team supported by a dedicated and customer focused work force. I expect that the company will continue to be successful in the future."

    HP has not offered a statement on the lawsuit.

  • Google, Apple, Yahoo, AOL, Dell, HP, RIM, McAfee, Symantec, Siemens Sued Over Spam Filtering

    Google, Apple, Yahoo, AOL, Dell, HP, RIM, McAfee, Symantec, Siemens Sued Over Spam Filtering

    A few days ago, a Texas-based company called InNova Patent Licensing filed an infringement lawsuit against 36 well-known companies. The company claims to hold the patent on spam filtering, and appears to be resting on the notion that any company using spam filtering owes them.

    Among the companies being sued are Google, Apple, AOL, Dell, HP, RIM, Yahoo, McAfee, Symantec, and Siemens. The list doesn’t stop at tech companies though. It also contains names like Frito Lay, Cinemark, J.C. Penney, Rent-A-Center, and Dr. Pepper.

    Chad Catacchio at TheNextWeb points out that Microsoft is strangely absent from the list, though one of the publication’s commenters points out that many of the companies named have offices in the InNova’s area.

    Innova claims patent for email filtering "Email as we know it would essentially stop working if it weren’t for InNova’s invention," says InNova lead counsel Christopher Banys. "More than 80 percent of email is spam, which is why companies use InNova’s invention rather than forcing employees to wade through billions of useless emails. Unfortunately, the defendants appear to be profiting from this invention without any consideration for InNova’s legal patent rights."

    Mike Masnick at TechDirt had some fun with this one. "First of all, actual spam filtering is a hell of a lot more sophisticated than the methods in this patent, and the idea that email would stop working without this patent existing is pretty laughable, he writes. "This is such a basic concept that it boggles the mind that anyone thought it was patentable."

    The patent, granted to InNova’s founder 15 years ago, is titled "System for adding to electronic mail messages information obtained from sources external to the electronic mail transport process." You can read it here.