Topic: Eric Goldman

Yahoo Sued For Showing Spam Pages About Person’s Name

Eric Goldman uncovered another interesting lawsuit involving Yahoo. This one involves the organic search results showing spam results for a person’s name, where this person is suing Yahoo and Overture for “Lanham Act false endorsement and false designation of origin and violation of Wisconsin’s publicity rights statute and common law privacy rights.” Let me take […]

Yahoo Doesn’t Take Beef Over Akaushi Keyword Lawsuit

Eric Goldman covers a recent lawsuit where Heartbrand Beef, Inc. sued several companies, including Yahoo, for selling the keyword “Akaushi” to Lobel’s of New York. Akaushi is a very expensive Japanese type of beef, known for being marbled with fat and coming out extremely tender. Lobel’s does not sell Akaushi, but Heartbrand is the largest […]

American Airlines And Google Settle Keyword Lawsuit

American Airlines Drops Google Trademark Lawsuit from Bloomberg reports that the two sides have settled the search ad legal dispute. Each side has agreed to pay their own legal fees and the terms of the settlement were not disclosed. American Airlines sued Google about a year ago over trademark infringement in their AdWords product. In […]

Google Sued For “Fraudulent Mobile Subscription Services”

Eric Goldman has posted about yet another lawsuit against Google. This time the plaintiffs were allegedly wronged in a case involving mobile subscription services. Google is not the alleged wrongdoer here, but is being sued because it allowed the wrongdoer to advertise (AdWords) and the plaintiffs got to the bad actor via those ads.

US Court Learns SEO, Decides META Keywords Don’t Matter

Court Says Keyword Metatags Don’t Matter–Standard Process v. Banks by Eric Goldman uncovers a recent case between Standard Process, Inc. v. Banks that shows that the court has ruled that the META keywords tag is “immaterial.” Goldman said this is the first time the courts ruled based on knowledge of how the META keywords impact […]

US Court Rules Trademarks In Meta Tags Can Constitute Infringement

Eric Goldman reports that an 11th circuit, US Court of Appeals has upheld a district court’s decision that the use of trademarked terms in meta tags can cause confusion and thus can constitute trademark infringement. North American Medical Corp. v. Axiom Worldwide, Inc. docket number 06-01678 CV-JTC-1 (PDF) doesn’t specifically say if the trademarked terms […]

SEO

OpenSocial Becomes More Open, Facebook Says No; AOL Flamed By Mag; Court Rules Against Clicking Minors

The big news today comes from a trio of major Internet brands. Google, Yahoo, and News Corp.’s MySpace joined forces to announce that OpenSocial, the social networking platform alternative to Facebook’s platform, is going to become a non-profit foundation. As such, it will have a completely separate management and identity from Google and the others […]

Court: Use Of Trademark In AdWords Copy Is An Infringement

Eric Goldman commented on a case between one advertiser using another advertiser’s trademark in Google AdWords. The court has made a decision (PDF), ruling for the plaintiff, Storus, who sued Aroa for using their trademark in the AdWords title text. Eric Goldman said this is one of the first times we have seen the plaintiff […]

SEO

SMX West Day Two Coverage

Day two is pretty much over now. We still have the Google Grove later, but the sessions are now complete. Here is coverage of the conference, picking up from where we left off last night.

PPC

Yahoo, You’re Not Off The Hook Over The Chinese Dissidents Case Says New Lawsuit

Yahoo Sued Again for Assisting the Persecution of Chinese Dissidents from the Epoch Times reports Yahoo is being sued once again for allegedly leaking personal information and aiding the Chinese Communist Party in Internet censorship and the persecution of dissidents. The China Democratic Party, China Social Democratic Party and the New People’s Party filed suit […]