Facebook attorneys told a federal appeals court Thursday that "likes" deserve free-speech protection, and anything less would "would result in chilling the very valued means for communication the Internet has made possible." As Bloomberg reports, the argument is part of a case in which an employee from the Hampton, Virginia sheriff's department says he was fired after "liking" a Facebook Page that belonged to his bosses' election opponent. That employee, Danny Carter, was one of six sheriff's employees fired after the election, Bloomberg says. The six sued their boss, claiming the firin [...]

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Facebook has settled its trademark-infringement litigation over the term Timeline. This was first reported by InsideFacebook based on an SEC filing: We are also party to various legal proceedings and claims which arise in the ordinary course of business. Among these legal matters, in two cases, Summit 6 LLC v. Research in Motion Corporation et al., and Timelines, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc. , we have reached agreements to settle the matters. The cost of settlement in each case, which is included in the accompanying condensed consolidated financial statements for the three months ended March 31, 20 [...]

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Recall that there was a small photo-centric site out of Chicago run by former ShopLocal executives. That site called/calls itself Timelines (plural). It obtained federal trademark registration for its name. Then, Facebook came along and used that term for its, well, Timeline. Timelines has a number of other photo-oriented sites and apps such as Photogram. Timelines the company offered to sell itself or the trademark to Facebook but the latter declined. The smaller company felt that it was only a matter of time before it would simply go out of business because its name and brand were now [...]

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The AP is reporting that a German court has invalidated a decision of the German privacy regulator, which opposes Facebook's real names/identities policy. Privacy regulators oppose the Facebook policy on the grounds that German and European privacy and free-speech rules prohibit a ban on fake names. However the court's decision is not based on German law. According to the AP report, "The administrative court in northern German Schleswig argued in its ruling Thursday that German privacy laws weren't applicable because Facebook has its European headquarters in Ireland - which has less far-rea [...]

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Facebook and AddThis, the social sharing platform company, are named as defendants in a lawsuit that claims two violations of patent infringement law. Rembrandt Social Media, a patent-holding company, filed the suit last week in Virginia, saying that Facebook infringed on two of its patents and AddThis on one. As Ars Technica reported, Rembrandt is working with the family of Joannes Jozef Everardus Van Der Meer, a Dutch programmer described in the lawsuit as "a pioneer in the development of user-friendly Web-based technologies," who died in 2004. Van Der Meer, who once owned the surfb [...]

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Just two days after a social media storm erupted over Instagram's proposed new terms of service, the Facebook-owned company -- as promised -- has come up with revisions, in an effort to "communicate our intentions clearly." Rather than say the company's plans themselves led to the controversy, co-founder Kevin Systrom has painted it all as a misunderstanding, where poor wording in its terms caused confusion among users -- many of whom said publicly that they were deleting their accounts over the changes. The first section that people were up in arms about referred to a "non-exclusive, fu [...]

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Its looking like Facebook will be a few million lighter after a California judge gave a preliminary approval of a 20 million dollar settlement stemming from Sponsored Story ads. When launched, the Sponsored Story ads didn't protect user privacy adequately, which outraged a handful of users as they were unable to opt-out of the program. The Mercury News is reporting that the $20 million is to be set away, in cash, to pay out those users who objected to their names being used in advertisements. Facebook has allegedly also agreed to create new controls that allow users to opt-out of the p [...]

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As was widely expected, the Federal Trade Commission has given final approval to the privacy settlement it reached with Facebook last year. The agreement -- unlike the $22.5 million agreement with Google announced yesterday -- doesn't call for any monetary penalty. It does, however, require Facebook to undergo privacy audits from an independent third party every two years for 20 years. Additionally, the company says it will now give consumers "clear and prominent" notice of its privacy practices, obtaining "express consent" before sharing their information beyond the limits to which were or [...]

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Facebook's automated system of suggesting image tags based on facial recognition has brought the company another formal privacy investigation in Europe, according to Bloomberg. This time it's Norway seeking to determine whether Facebook has violated its privacy rules. Norway’s data-protection agency joins other regulators from the EU investigating the feature. Norway is not an EU member state but is reportedly coordinating its initiative with other states, including an ongoing Irish probe. Germany was also investigating Facebook facial recognition but has suspended its investigation and d [...]

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Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake's new location-based startup Pinwheel, which is still in private beta, is probably going to be forced to change its name. TechCrunch reported yesterday that a court in New York granted the similarly sounding Pinweel, a mobile photo-sharing site, a preliminary injunction. The central claim was trademark infringement. The main idea here is that the lesser-known but pre-existing Pinweel will be irreparably damaged by the potential consumer confusion over the two similar-sounding companies. The case is still in process but granting a preliminary injunction is a q [...]

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Google and Facebook both increased their spending trying to educate (read: influence) Congress in the second quarter, according to filings made under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995. Companies that employ lobbyists must file these reports on a quarterly basis. The disclosures show that Facebook spent just under $1 million ($960,000) on lobbying in Q2, up from $650,000 in Q1 2012. That compares with $320,000 spent trying to influence lawmakers in Q2, 2011. A wide range of bills and issues were cited on Facebook's disclosures. Among them privacy, intellectual property reform, corporate [...]

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Facebook's use of facial recognition technology will be discussed during a Senate hearing on Wednesday. According to The Hill, Facebook will send Rob Sherman, its Washington DC-based Manager of Privacy and Public Policy to meet with a sub-panel of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Al Franken called for the hearing. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), chairman of the Senate Privacy subcommittee, has voiced concern about Facebook not including sufficient privacy protections in the tagging feature. In comments to the Department of Commerce, Franken has written that Facebook likely holds the la [...]

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Last month Facebook settled the "Sponsored Stories" lawsuit brought on by 5 Facebook members and the total numbers have been disclosed this week.  The lawsuit alleged that Facebook violated California's laws by leveraging user photos, content and likelihood without consent. The lawsuit was filed in San Jose, California and Judge Lucy Koh found that the plaintiffs had "shown economic injury could occur through Facebook's use of their name, photographs and likenesses" according to Reuters.  Facebook has agreed to pay $10 million to charity to settle the lawsuit.  The settlement arrang [...]

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This morning the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook is considering letting those under the age of 13 on the site.  Since day one, Facebook has always been accessible for teenagers or adults.  one of the biggest issues with those under the age of 13 who are using Facebook by using false information is that they do put themselves at risk due to their permission levels.  Giving children significantly reduced permission levels and monitoring could help circumvent issues of  forged accounts. CBS news also reports: The company is testing a way to connect kids' accounts with thei [...]

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The news keeps getting worse for Facebook. First, the IPO didn't do as well as expected, though it made lots of people at Facebook very wealthy. Then came news that Facebook's underwriters (banks) had to intervene on Friday to keep the stock from falling below the $38 offering price because demand was weaker than expected. On Monday and yesterday Facebook shares fell (well) below $38, erasing about $40 billion in market value. And today the company is being sued by shareholders for failing to disclose that Q2 revenues were going to be weaker than previously expected: $1.11 billion vs. rough [...]

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As we reported back in December, a Sponsored Stories lawsuit was allowed to proceed against the social media giant as Facebook failed to have it thrown out.  Today, the lawsuit was settled "in principle"at a federal court in San Jose, CA. Originally five Facebook members sued Facebook with claims that their privacy was infringed upon as their likeness was used in ads without their permission or ability to opt-out.  Sponsored stories match users who have liked or commented on a page/post with ads for Facebook pages. More information on the specific ads can be found in the video below: [...]

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Today, on the day of Facebook's IPO, Bloomberg reports that Facebook (FB) is being sued for $15 billion for improper user tracking. The suit claims that Facebook invaded privacy by tracking users, logged in or out of Facebook. The lawsuit was filed in Federal Court in California and combines 21 cases from across the country according to Stewards Law US LLP, a firm leading the claim. The main basis of the tracking claims is that Facebook continued to track users, even after they had signed out of their accounts. The total of $15 billion comes from the U.S. Wiretap Act and the lawsuit sta [...]

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Adscend Media, the company accused earlier this year of running "likejacking" campaigns on Facebook, has settled separate lawsuits with both Facebook and the state of Washington. CNET reports that the company agreed on Monday to settlement terms with Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna. In that settlement, Adscend Media agreed to stop spamming Facebook users and to pay $100,000 in attorneys fees -- but they did not admit liability as part of the consent decree. McKenna issued a statement about the settlement: Today's settlement puts a stop to Adscend’s 'likejacking' and other mi [...]

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The Consumers Union, the entity behind Consumer Reports, is launching an aggressive campaign for a national privacy law that would offer more transparency and control to online users in connection with data mining, online ad targeting and tracking. In particular, Consumers Union is taking aim at Facebook as the exemplar of practices that it believes should be made more transparent to consumers and/or reined in. The advocacy group took out a full-page ad (.pdf and above) critical of Facebook in the print version of Politico according to AdAge. AdAge remarked that "While the ad copy seems [...]

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Just two weeks after Microsoft bought more than 925 patents from AOL, the company is turning around and selling about 650 of them to Facebook. The deal also allows Facebook to license the other AOL patents that it's not buying from Microsoft. According to today's announcement, the sale will cost Facebook about $550 million -- close to half of what Microsoft originally spent on the AOL patents. Microsoft says the sale is motivated by financial reasons. "Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction," says Micr [...]

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