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Posts Tagged ‘california’

Facebook has been making their own rules since they came on the scene. Although they’ve taken more and more heat for their almost-constant privacy changes, it seems like we find a new low every few months. Meanwhile, even the courts are beginning to side with Facebook on advertising issues. Facebook gained a partial victory in the US District court last week in a case on click fraud. Judge Jeremy Fogel decided that advertisers could sue Facebook for charges resulting from “invalid” clicks&madsh;but not “fraudulent” ones. A clause in Facebook’s advertising contract, tentatively upheld by the court, actually protects them from any suits about fraudulent clicks. A fraudulent click might include a competitor’s click campaign designed to drive up the advertiser’s costs. Click fraud is a felony in California (where the case was decided). This class-action suit was originally filed last July . The decision does mean that advertisers can subpoena click information to look for “invalid” clicks they were charged for, and sue Facebook for those. The court did not agree with Facebook’s argument on invalid clicks, though it was quite similar to their argument for fraudulent ones: Facebook argued that the litigation should be dismissed because all cost-per-click advertisers were required to agree to the company’s terms and conditions, which allegedly included the following language: “I understand that third parties may generate impressions, clicks, or other actions affecting the cost of the advertising for fraudulent or improper purposes, and I accept the risk of any such impressions, clicks, or other actions.” Facebook’s latest new venture, a Like button for the whole Internet, may also bring them some serious grief. Developers have revealed that Facebook’s new Graph API had at least one serious privacy loophole : the API allowed developers to see and display all public events a person has said they’d attend, regardless of whether that person is a friend or not. Ka-Ping Yee, a software engineer for Google.org (Google’s charitable arm, as the Guardian describes it), discovered the vulnerability . He was especially concerned that there was no way to block or opt-out of this setting, especially since respondents to events have no control over whether the event is listed as private or public. Although you could see non-friends who have RSVP’ed to a public event on the event’s page, the API loophole allows everyone to see a full list of a single user’s public events, regardless of their connection to you. This vulnerability may have actually been inherited from an old API. However, late last night, Facebook corrected the vulnerability. Shades of Google Buzz, anyone? Ultimately, I think the Graph API will probably face at least a few more privacy challenges, even before the watchdogs, federal government and litigators start in on it. What do you think?

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Facebook: Where Fraud Isn’t Frauduldent and Privacy Isn’t Private

Just in time for the iPad, Yahoo is premiering two new Apple apps based around their local/mobile search offerings . One is a fairly standard search app—but the other brings an interesting dimension to local search. Considering that, as Google reported, a third of mobile searches are local , there’s obviously a significant market for local/mobile search. Using the iPod and iPhone’s touch-screen capabilities, users of the new Sketch-a-Search app can outline an area on a map and search within that area for a specific type of business. The feature is specifically geared toward US restaurants and lets users search by details including ambiance, ratings and types of cuisine. The app is slated to expand to other business categories and countries soon. This is especially nice if you live in one of those megalopolii (the plural of megalopolis, of course), where you can never be sure exactly what city that awesome Thai place was in (and who on earth would remember a ZIP code?). The regular search app also includes some cool local features: Since mobile searchers tend to ping-pong back and forth between map applications and search, we’ve integrated maps into the app to simplify the experience. The app also allows you to customize the local maps experience: Want to see more map and fewer local results? More results and less map? It’s totally up to you. . . . Finally, we’ve made it easier to search for what’s nearby with location-based, local results. For example, if you’re searching for plumbers here in Sunnyvale, California, the app will detect that you’re likely looking for plumbers in this area and will provide you with results in a combined map-list view. As you scroll down the list of plumbers and their reviews, the app repositions the map with the currently selected item. You can also use the map to browse the associated ratings and reviews. The search app also includes shortcuts for Yahoo’s Movies, Finance and News areas, as well as a voice to search feature. I think these apps (especially Sketch-a-Search) are a big step forward for mobile search. While there may already be some similar offerings out there, the backing of a big brand like Yahoo can help these apps gain popularity. We can only hope that these apps and this kind of thinking can continue after the merger with Microsoft (you know, if/when). What do you think? What other features would you like to see in mobile search?

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Yahoo Integrating Mobile, Maps and Search

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Yelp Sued for Extortion—Again

I think that based on the legal angle of much of the news around Google lately, we could see a service called Google Legal. I have no idea what that might look like but since the Internet behemoth spends so much time in court battles they should be able to find a way to monetize that right? They make money on everything else they do so why not? The latest case was brought against Google by Daniel Jurin. MediaPost gives some of the details Jurin, who sells StyroTrim building material, brought suit last year for trademark infringement, false advertising, interference with contractual relations, and other counts. The allegations all stemmed from Google’s AdWords program, which allows trademarked terms to trigger pay-per-click ads. If you want to get a lesson in whether this kind of thing is a good idea to do, take into consideration these two results from the case. Jurin has to pay $6,000 for Google’s legal fees and most of the case was dismissed. Not exactly a winner other than getting some press that won’t likely help his business any. In a ruling issued this week, U.S. District Court Judge Morrison England in the eastern district of California dismissed a host of Jurin’s claims, including allegations that Google confused consumers about who produced StyroTrim by returning links to a variety of companies in response to a search on the term. “Even if one accepts as true the allegation that a ‘Sponsored link’ might confuse a consumer, it is hardly likely that with several different sponsored links appearing on a page that a consumer might believe each one is the true ‘producer’ or ‘origin’ of the Styrotrim product,” he wrote. What is probably the most interesting outcome of this whole thing is the assertion by the court that essentially says that Google sells ad space and not keywords. If you are Google that’s a nice thing to hear a court say because it could potentially take away a lot of the responsibility that many place on Google to police trademarks and more. As of now, the trademark infringement piece of the suit has not been dismissed but it is believed that the likelihood of anything coming of it is slim. So Google continues to fight the AdWords fight in court and why wouldn’t they? It accounts for the overwhelming majority of the company’s revenues so it is worth fighting for. Of course their legal woes aren’t even close to being over. Google is currently facing 10 trademark infringement cases stemming from AdWords. No court has yet definitively ruled on whether using a brand name to trigger a search ads infringes trademark. The one case to go to trial, a lawsuit by insurance company Geico against Google, resulted in a victory for Google in 2004. In that case, a judge in Alexandria, Va. ruled that Geico had not proven that consumers were confused when they typed “Geico” into a search box and were served with ads for other insurance companies. There will always be legal battles for Google and any other successful company to fight especially in this day and age where unscrupulous folks look at the legal system as the the lottery system. As long as the impression is that Google is playing on the right side of the law in most instances then this whole process can just be chalked up to the cost of doing business. Hey, it is America after all. Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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Most of Google AdWords Case Dismissed