Groups seek FTC probe of possible mobile marketing privacy abuse January 14, 2009
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MySpace ruling could lead to jail for lying online daters December 2, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentThe MySpace suicide case concluded last week, with the jury finding Lori Drew guilty of three misdemeanor counts of gaining unauthorized access to the popular social-networking site.
While most of the press attention has been focused on the specifics of the case, the more important issue is the potential impact this could have on the Internet in general.
Web site terms of service, which end users universally ignore, suddenly have teeth: violating them is a federal hacking offense, punishable with jail time. The days of being able to freely lie on the Web could be coming to an end. This could mean serious trouble for people who lie about their age, weight, or marital status in their online dating profiles.
Read The Rest—>MySpace ruling could lead to jail for lying online daters
Google South Africa aims to stop ‘agency fraud' (Agency director Laments that Search Cannot be tracked by AdIndex) November 14, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentGoogle aims to stop ‘agency fraud’
Myth and misunderstanding is leading to digital mayhem in the industry, whereby agencies are being accused by digital behemoth Google of committing fraud or, at the very least, irresponsible accounting with their clients cash online. As a result, Google announced today, Friday, 14 November 2008, that it would be ‘Google certifying’ five key agencies leading this space in 2009.
Read The Rest—> Google aims to stop ‘agency fraud’
Agency.com Takes iCrossing to Court for 'Employee Raiding' – MarketingVOX November 11, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentOmnicom’s Agency.com has filed suit against digital ad firm iCrossing, insinuating the latter poached a number of major executives and clients, reports the Wall Street Journal.
$19.5 million in damages are sought. The suit alleges tortious interference, breach of contract and conspiring to misappropriate proprietary data and trade secrets. In specific it accuses iCrossing CEO Donald Scales, former Chief Executive Officer of Agency.com, of “employee raiding” that “led ultimately to the closing” of its Dallas and Chicago offices.
Read The Rest—>Agency.com Takes iCrossing to Court for ‘Employee Raiding’ – MarketingVOX
No More Naughty, Craigslist Promises – MarketingVOX November 11, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentcraigslist has agreed to crack down on listings by prostitutes and businesses peddling “erotic services” (e.g., massage, boudoir photo services).
The discussion began earlier in the year, when the attorney general of Connecticut — representing a total of 40 states — sent a letter to the online classifieds site. The letter recommended that craigslist better enforce rules against illegal sex services, as well as sweep the site to rid itself of inappropriate listings.
Read The Rest —>No More Naughty, Craigslist Promises – MarketingVOX
AOL Sued for E-mail Ads | California man filed class-action suit against AOL for allegedly including text e-mail ads in footers of paid subscribers’ outgoing messages November 5, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentA California man has filed a class-action suit against AOL for allegedly including text e-mail ads in the footers of paid subscribers’ outgoing messages.
Filed by Encino, CA-based Hamner Law Offices on behalf of Frank Cecchini, the suit claims AOL wrongly inserted the ads in outgoing e-mail from 2 million paid subscribers, or 20% of AOL’s e-mail users.
The suit claims that nowhere in AOL’s terms of service does it say ads will appear in paying subscribers’ messages.
“As such, AOL pay e-mail subscribers expect the ability to send out e-mail without advertisements inserted into their e-mail,” the suit claims. “This is different from e-mail services provided by so-called free e-mail accounts (such as Hotmail.com and Yahoo.com) which do insert various advertisements into sent e-mails.”
The complaint continues: “Unlike ‘banner’ advertisements or other overt Internet advertisements, these footers, or ad tags, essentially add to and/or change the actual message contained in the e-mail.”
As a result, AOL users who don’t want ads inserted into their messages choose the premium service, the complaint said.
Media companies joining YouTube and profiting August 18, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentAfter years of regarding pirated video on YouTube as a threat, some major media companies are having a change of heart, treating it instead as an advertising opportunity.
In the last few months, CBS, Universal Music, Lionsgate, Electronic Arts and other companies have stopped prodding YouTube to remove unauthorized clips of their movies, music videos and other content and started selling advertising against them.
CBS may be the most surprising new business partner in that its sister company, Viacom, is still pursuing its acrimonious billion-dollar copyright lawsuit against YouTube’s owner, Google.
So far, the money is minimal ads appear on only a fraction of YouTube’s millions of videos but the move suggests a possible thaw in the chilly standoff between the online video giant and media companies. Getting into the good graces of media entities is seen as critical to the future of YouTube, which has struggled to show appreciable revenue for video ads.
“We don’t want to condone people taking our intellectual property and using it without our permission,” said Curt Marvis, the president of digital media at Lionsgate Entertainment, which owns films like “Dirty Dancing” and the “Saw” series of horror movies.
“But we also don’t like the idea of keeping fans of our products from being able to engage with our content.” he said. “For the most part, people who are uploading videos are fans of our movies. They’re not trying to be evil pirates, and they’re not trying to get revenue from it.”
Indeed, the YouTube users who post the content without permission will not share in the advertising revenue generated by their posts. Instead, it is split between the media companies and YouTube.
The infringing user receives an e-mail message with an ominous red banner saying “a YouTube partner made a copyright claim on one of your videos.” The e-mail message explains that the media company has “authorized the use of this content” and that viewers may see advertising on the video.
For example, a user-uploaded video for the music video for “Disturbia” by the artist Rihanna is still online, even though YouTube makes it easy to remove. The Rihanna video page was uploaded by a fan three weeks ago and has attracted 1.2 million views. It now features a prominent ad and a small disclaimer that cites the Universal Music Group as the owner.
Under pressure from media companies, YouTube introduced a technology last fall called Video ID which allowed copyright owners to compare the digital fingerprints of their videos with material on YouTube, then flag infringing material for removal.
It was widely expected, given the acrimony between the parties, that media companies would simply demand their material be taken down. But the technology offered an alternative, allowing the companies to “claim” the videos and start showing ads alongside them, creating a new revenue stream for both YouTube and the content owners.
YouTube executives say they have been surprised by the interest in the advertising option. David King, a product manager at YouTube, said in an interview that 90 percent of the copyright claims made using the identification tool remain on the site and are converted to advertising inventory. The other 10 percent are either removed from the site or tracked by the content owner.
“A year ago, I don’t think I would have dared guess that” so many videos would be converted, King said. “They want to leave it up and make money on it.”
YouTube is trying to sell other media companies on the model, but the conglomerates are apparently taking a wait-and-see approach. Time Warner and the News Corporation acknowledge testing the platform, but there is no evidence they are putting ads on user content. Companies like NBC Universal and the Walt Disney Company prefer to steer users toward their own video sites.
Viacom appreciates the technology but is not softening its legal hard line. Last fall, Viacom said it was pleased that YouTube appeared to be “stepping up to its responsibility and ending the practice of profiting from copyright infringement,” but it emphasized that the $1 billion lawsuit addressed past infringement of content. The lawsuit is in the discovery phase, with another hearing set for September. A Viacom spokesman said Friday that the company had not taken a position on Video ID.
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End nears in Facebook legal row August 18, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentFacebook has won approval to acquire rival ConnectU despite an appeal against an agreed settlement.
In 2004 ConnectU’s founders sued Facebook claiming creator Mark Zuckerberg took his idea for a social networking site from them.
The lawsuit was settled in early 2008 but ConnectU claims Facebook misrepresented its value during talks.
The judge has told ConnectU to stick to the agreed settlement and transfer its stock to Facebook.
The row over valuation has been caused by Microsoft taking a $240m (£128m) stake in Facebook in October 2007 that valued the site, on paper, at $15 billion.
Facebook said that figure should not be used to rate the company’s worth as that valuation was specific to Microsoft’s preferred stock and the business deal surrounding it. Facebook said its real valuation stood at $3-4bn.
Court papers have shown that as part of the approved settlement, Facebook agreed to give ConnectU’s owners an undisclosed amount of money and Facebook stock.
In return ConnectU’s principals agreed to turn over to Facebook all the stock they held in ConnectU.
In their appeal ConnectU co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss along with fellow partner Divya Narendra claimed that implementing the agreement now would let Facebook disrupt the appeals process.
Judge James Ware of the US district court in San Jose, California ruled that before ConnectU’s appeal can be heard, the settlement made earlier this year has to go through.
“The longer the court delays in enforcing the settlement between the parties, the more like the value of the consideration subject of the settlement will change,” he wrote in his judgement. “Any further delay in enforcing the settlement will create a serious risk of prejudice to Facebook, as well as to ConnectU.”
He added: “This means the status quo cannot be preserved with a stay.”
He originally rejected ConnectU’s claims of fraud in June prompting the appeal which he has pledged to hear.
The ConnectU founders sued fellow Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 accusing him of stealing their idea for the company following work he did on a dating site for them in 2003.
Facebook said it would not comment on the case. ConnectU did not return calls for comment.
Meanwhile the Winklevoss brothers are competing for rowing gold in the Beijing Olympics. They came second in their semi-final to win a place in the men’s pairs final.
Recent figures by Comscore show Facebook is now the world’s biggest and fastest growing social networking site with 132 million unique visitors in June.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/7559864.stm
Google Facing Third 'Parked Domain' Suit August 14, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a comment| by Wendy Davis, Thursday, Aug 14, 2008 7:00 AM ET |
 For the third time this summer, Google has been hit with a fraud lawsuit stemming from its parked domain program, which serves pay-per-click ads on otherwise empty Web pages.This latest case, a potential class-action lawsuit filed this week in federal district court in Chicago, was brought by Bartlett, Ill. container company JIT Packaging. The case joins a putative class-action lawsuit filed in San Jose, Calif. last month by Hal Levitte, an attorney who took out search ads, and one brought in San Jose by online retailer RK West, which operates the e-commerce site Malibu Wholesale. As in the other two lawsuits, JIT Packaging alleges that Google displayed search ads on “low-quality” sites that yielded almost no conversions. The Illinois company specifically takes issue with Google’s AdSense for Domains and AdSense for Errors programs, which place ads on sites that have little or no editorial content. Users often land on such sites after mistyping a URL. Examples cited in the complaint include jcpennycom.com and bedbathandbeyondcom.com. “The quality of these sites as an advertising medium is substantially lower than sites on the rest of Google’s network,” the lawsuit alleges. JIT also asserts that many of these sites violate trademark, copyright or cybersquatting laws because they include a brand name in the URL. READ THE REST OF THIS GREAT ONLINE MEDIA DAILY POST BY CLICKING HERE FOR MORE GREAT MEDIAPOST PUBLICATIONS CLICK HERE |
YouTube to keep user details away from Viacom July 15, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentSOURCE STORY HERE
Viacom has backed off its demands to gain access to the viewing habits and personal data of YouTube users, information it had originally asked for in its copyright infringement lawsuit against the video-sharing website.
The two sides agreed on Monday that any material YouTube was ordered to hand over would be stripped of personal information, including user ID, IP address and visitor ID.
“We are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users’ viewing histories and we will not be providing that information,” YouTube wrote on its company blog Monday. The company also posted a copy of the stipulation to the order on its website.
Viacom, which owns several U.S. television networks including MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, had originally asked for the information as part of its $1 billion US lawsuit against YouTube, which is owned by internet search giant Google Inc.
Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the English soccer Premier League and music publisher Bourne Co. Viacom and the other plaintiffs alleged in the suit, launched in March2007, that almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of its programming are available on YouTube. Those clips have been viewed more than 1.5 billion times, Viacom charged.
It argued Google wasn’t doing enough to keep its copyrighted videos from television shows such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report off YouTube.
It had originally asked for access to the user histories to prove that copyright-infringing material is more popular than user-generated videos on YouTube.
Two weeks ago a U.S. federal judge ordered YouTube to hand over this information, a decision San Francisco-based privacy advocacy group The Electronic Frontier Foundation said was “a setback to privacy rights.”
Viacom issued a statement Monday, saying it never asked for personally identifiable information and only wanted the data as evidence in its case.
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