It’s a saga we’re all familiar with by now: create a pretty awesome web service, start a trend, become a media sweetheart, make lots of money (VC or acquisition), get slapped with a lawsuit. Or two. Or fifty billion. Facebook added two more lawsuits to its heap recently: a countersuit from Power.com and a click fraud proceeding.
Yahoo Settles Lawsuit With NFL
Yahoo and the NFL Players Association have reached a settlement over the use of players’ statistics, images and other information in Yahoo’s fantasy football games.
Yahoo sued the NFLPA last month arguing it should not have to pay additional royalties to use players’ data in its fantasy football games because the information is publicly available.
Errant Google Snippet Draws Lawsuit For Webmaster
Sometimes all it takes is precedent to fuel similar actions, so webmasters should be aware a Dutch court found a website operator liable for how a snippet appeared in Google’s search results, even if the appearance was the result of an algorithmic quirk.
A Lawsuit Featuring Dunkin’ Donuts, Online Anonymity, and Dirty Bathrooms
The Maryland Court of Appeals has overturned a previous ruling that would have required a website that was being charged with defamation due to comments from anonymous ‘users’ to turn over their identities immediately.
Street View Lawsuit Dismissed
Privacy advocates who oppose Google Street View have suffered a rather significant defeat. Yesterday, a United States Magistrate Judge thoroughly dismissed a lawsuit brought against Google by Aaron and Christine Boring.
eHarmony Settles Lawsuit, Starts Gay Site
eHarmony is releasing a new same-sex matching service starting by the end of March. This service is the product of legal problems the company has been dealing with out of New Jersey and California. A gay man in Jersey sued the company for not catering to same-sex relationships as a violation of his rights in the state of New Jersey, and earlier in the year, a gay woman from San Francisco filed a suit against the company for being denied access to eHarmony’s service because of her sexuality.
Redlasso Closes Blogger Access Due To Lawsuit
Online video news sharing site Redlasso said today that it is suspending blogger access to its video search and clipping service while it fights a copyright infringement lawsuit filed this week by NBC and Fox News Channel.The company said it will continue to provide services to its business and radio clients.
American Airlines Drops Google Lawsuit
The use of competitor keywords had American flying into the courtroom, but both sides taxied out with a quiet and confidential settlement.
Google In Lawsuit Over ‘Google AdSense for domains’
Google pays domain parkers by allowing them to run a special AdSense program. Titled “Google AdSense for domains”, this program now reportedly triggered a class-action lawsuit which alleges “that Google committed fraud, business code violations, and unjust enrichment by selling ads that were unlikely to generate conversions”.
Facebook Wins Lawsuit
Social networking site ConnectU sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for stealing their idea. They allege he used the source code they hired him to create for their site.