Lawsuit - SocialTimes

Will Facebook’s Timeline Last? A Closer Look at 7 Other Facebook Features from 2011

CJ Arlotta — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 10:10:20 +0000

Facebook users are afraid of change, according to a USA Today poll released in mid-October, which revealed that 56% of Facebook users did not like Facebook’s latest changes. With that being said, Facebook users are constantly growing by the day. What keeps current users with the social networking platform, and what drives new users towards it? The answers are endless, but we should not be looking at what brings users to the platform, instead we should be looking at what drives users away. Timeline, Facebook’s “new kind of profile,” could be the underlying answer to the question at hand. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

South Koreans To Sue Apple Over Privacy Violation Of iPhone User Information

Bilal Hameed — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 09:35:44 +0000

A group of nearly 27,000 South Koreans have filed a lawsuit against Apple for a whopping $26 million, claiming privacy violations on the collection of iPhone user location information. Apple spokesman Steve Park in Seoul has declined to comment on the situation.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Oracle Sues Google, Wants Half of Android Ad Money

Bilal Hameed — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 16:00:43 +0000

Oracle is seeking major compensation i.e. around 50% in terms of ad revenues Google generated via Android mobile operating system. These hefty demands were made in the recent filing made this week by Oracle in conjunction with the companies’ ongoing intellectual property dispute with Google.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Android Faces Lawsuit For Knowing Too Much About The Users

Bilal Hameed — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:00:36 +0000

Google’s Android smartphone has become a Big Brother and knows more about the users, than their family and friends does. A federal class-action lawsuit filed by a Charleston attorney, has alleged Google and Android phone apps of keeping track of user’s personal information and selling them to advertising companies. According to the lawsuit, Android apps keep track of customer’s personal information ranging from his physical location, to his sexual orientation and monthly income.

Aaron Mayer, the lawyer who filed the suit is representing three men, two from Texas and one from Florida. Mayer’s client learned form an article in Wall Street Journal that their phones could collect and sell their personal information. Mayer’s case is the first ever lawsuit nationally related to Android’s privacy concerns. Mayer said.

If you’re using a map application, then yeah, its going to get your location. If you’re using a map application and it’s also collecting your gender, your sexual preference and your income, users don’t think they’re consenting to that.

Mayer filed the case in Florida against Android’s owner, Google; Internet radio provider and Android app maker Pandora; and advertising companies AdMob and Traffic Marketplace. According the lawsuit, Google engineers the OS for different smartphone models to retrieve the user information from the phones back to the company’s databases. The smartphone apps gather information even when the users aren’t using their phones. Mayer also told that since the news of lawsuit outbreak, nearly 10 similar cases are filed around the country and all of those cases will eventually be consolidated into a single case in California. According to the lawsuit, 67 million Android based phones were shipped worldwide last year alone.

The lawsuit also alleges that Pandora collects location data and other information from phones and shares it directly with third parties. Officials with Pandora, Google and Ad Mob, has refused to comment on the pending litigation. However, Traffic Marketplace has made a brief statement saying that the company “does not collect or buy any personal data or information pertaining to mobile devices”.

The lawsuit asks compensation for the price of the smartphones and the value of the data collected and shared with the advertisers, plus disciplinary damages. Imagine if Google and its partners lose this lawsuit and they are asked to compensate all the Android users. Even worse, imagine what is it that Google potentially does not know about you.

U.S. Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, has asked via letter the CEOs of Google and Apple, for transparent privacy policies in the online marketplaces where customers buy apps. Franken wrote;

Although I believe there is a greater need for transparency and disclosure for the collection and sharing of all personal information, at a minimum, I ask that you require all location-aware applications in your app stores to provide privacy policies that clearly specify what kind of location information is gathered from users, how that information is used, and how it is shared with third parties.

According to Mayer the next six months are significant to determine the direction of the lawsuit. If the case shows any progress, other Android users would likely receive notice of the lawsuit.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Australian Groupon Foe Raises Funding at Valuation of $200 Million

Kenna McHugh — Wed, 25 May 2011 14:00:48 +0000

CatchOfTheDay, an Australian online retailing group, operates e-commerce site CatchOfTheDay.com.au and daily deal site Scoopon.com.au. The social shopping platform raised an undisclosed amount of funding. Estimates are around $80 million, valuing the company at $200 million.
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

User Files $1.00 Lawsuit Against Facebook

Kenna McHugh — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:00:27 +0000

The first time David Fagin saw he was being blocked from sending friend requests on Facebook, as well as being labeled a spammer, he didn’t think much of it. Then, when it happened again, and he was informed that he was in danger of having his account deleted, he tried to resolve it by reaching out to Facebook’s support department – only to discover they don’t have one.
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Laughable Facebook Lawsuit Has Suddenly Become an Armani Tuxedo

Richard Howard — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:30:38 +0000

Oh, ‘The Social Network’. What a great film. I bet the studio wishes it could do a sequel to that bad boy – I know all of us moviegoers do. Well, while that doesn’t look anymore likely than it did before, there may be fodder for a prequel emerging. On June 30, 2010, disgraced businessman and convicted felon Paul Ceglia filed a lawsuit against Facebook and Mark Zuckerman claiming, in short, to own 84% of Facebook. After the world had a good chuckle, the case was all but forgotten. Well, he’s back with a new legal team and new evidence. And while the evidence is far from conclusive, nobody’s laughing anymore.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Rebecca Black May Sue Ark Music Factory Over Friday

Megan O'Neill — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:29:49 +0000

By this time everyone is familiar with Rebecca Black, her infectious hit song ‘Friday’ and Ark Music Factory, the company that her mother paid to write the song and produce the music video for her. But it seems that now that Rebecca’s overnight fame has set in, money is the big thing on everyone’s minds and Rebecca and her mother may be suing Ark over the song.
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

LinkedIn Hit By User Privacy Lawsuit

Katie Kindelan — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:30:41 +0000

Another social networking site is back in court to face accusations it violated users’ privacy by leaking private information to third-party advertisers. The lawsuit may be new for LinkedIn, but it’s a situation, and a claim, we’ve seen before.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Gmail Users That Sued Google Win $8.5 Million Settlement… But Won't Get Any Of The Money

Katie Kindelan — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:15:12 +0000

How does an Internet search giant named Google tell users that it agreed to a settlement of $8.5 million over privacy breaches related to its Buzz social networking program. By Gmail, of course.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Social Game Maker Digital Chocolate Files Lawsuit Against Zynga [Updated]

Neil Vidyarthi — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 11:15:46 +0000

TechCrunch is reporting that social games makers Digital Chocolate are filing a lawsuit against Zynga for unspecified reasons. There aren’t any details about the particulars but it is likely related to a patent or a intellectual property matter. We’ve covered Digital Chocolate in depth over the years, and in fact had an in depth interview with founder Trip Hawkins (who was also the founder of Electronic Arts… yes, THAT Electronic Arts). Read on for more details. [Update: Zynga's quote is below]

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

"AddThis" To Your List of Online Privacy Concerns

Katie Kindelan — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:45:17 +0000

All it takes to “share” a favorite website with your friends or “bookmark” an article to save and post on Facebook is a simple click. In fact, the “AddThis” feature on everything from magazine to social networking sites has become so commonplace that even the savviest of Internet consumers may not realize the information they give away each time they click that button.

But now the convenient feature is very much in the spotlight thanks to a federal lawsuit claiming the company behind AddThis, Clearspring Technologies, broke the law by using the widget to gather information on users, including children. The suit was filed in the central district of California by attorneys for a group of minors and their parents.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Terms of Service Violation Not A Crime, Says Court; Bypassing Terms of Service Might Be

Dani Manor — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:00:38 +0000

A North California District Court Judge dismissed Facebook’s lawsuit against Power Ventures this week, unconvinced by the site’s claim that Power.com’s efforts to integrate Facebook into its platform constituted a criminal violation of the California Penal Code. In short, violating a website’s terms of use is not a crime.
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Google CFO Reveals Viacom’s Lawsuit Cost YouTube $100 Million

Megan O'Neill — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 11:00:53 +0000

Last month YouTube won a billion-dollar copyright infringement case, in which they were being sued by Viacom, but just because they won doesn’t mean they didn’t lose massive amounts of money as a result of the lawsuit. In an Google investor relations call yesterday, Google CFO Patrick Pichette revealed that the battle with Viacom cost Google and YouTube $100 million in legal fees since it began in 2007.
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Facebook Sues Power.com for Not Using Facebook Connect

Kristen Nicole — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:59:54 +0000

Just last month Brazil-based Power.com launched a social networking aggregator that brought together your activity from across Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, and Hi5, to name a few. But just weeks after revealing its putlic beta, Power.com is being sued by none other than Facebook itself.

As a social networking aggregator Power.com doesn’t appear to be doing anything wrong, but the way in which it’s accessing Facebook user data is non-compliant with Facebook’s terms. According to The New York Times, Facebook has spent over a month in discussions with Power.com to try to reach an agreement in regards to accessing user data, but no agreement could be reached. As a result, Facebook has filed a complaint against Power.com in Unied Sates Disctrict Court in San Jose, California, for copyright and trademark infringement, unlawful competition and violation of the computer fraud and abuse act, among other charges.
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.