Facebook defines clickjacking in its help center in the following manner:

Certain malicious websites contain code that can make your browser take action without your knowledge or consent. For example. clicking on a link on one of these websites might cause the website to be posted to your Facebook profile (timeline). Never click strange links, even if they are from friends. Also be sure to notify the person sending the link if you see something suspicious.

“We don’t ‘like’ schemes that illegally trick Facebook users into giving up personal information or paying for unwanted subscription services through spam,” McKenna says. “We applaud Facebook for devoting significant technical and legal resources to finding and stopping scams as soon as possible – and often before they even start. We’re proud to join forces in order to protect Washington consumers.”

You see what he did there with the “like”?

“Security is an arms race, and that’s why Facebook is committed to constantly improving our consumer safeguards while pursuing and supporting civil and criminal consequences for bad actors,” says Facebook General Counsel Ted Ullyot.

“The natural reaction is to wonder why anyone would click on these links,” says Assistant Attorney General Paula Selis. “But, unfortunately they do, and at one point Adscend spam lined the defendants’ pockets with up to $1.2 million a month.”

“Facebook’s security professionals have made tremendous strides against this particular form of attack and we are intent on eradicating it completely,” said Craig Clark, Lead Litigation Counsel at Facebook. “We will continue to use all tools at our disposal to ensure that scammers do not profit from misusing Facebook’s services.”

Facebook’s suit was filed against Adscend and its owners in federal court in the Northern District of California. The AG’s suit alleging violation of the CAN-SPAM act, Washington State’s Commercial Electronic Mail Act and Washintgon State’s Consumer Protection Act, was filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle. Adscend is based in Delaware.

Bloomberg reports today that Apple has filed yet another lawsuit in Germany, this time seeking to ban sales of multiple Samsung devices. The design suit, which focuses on Samsung smartphones such as Galaxy S Plus and the S II, alleges that the models violate Apple’s design rights. As if the fun should stop there – and why should it – Apple filed a separate lawsuit against five Samsung tablets. The Bloomberg report continues:

Last month, the Dusseldorf court said it is unlikely to grant an injunction against the Galaxy 10.1N and an appeals court also voiced doubts about the reach of Apple’s European Union design right that won the company the injunction against the Galaxy 10.1. The new suits aren’t filed under emergency proceedings and allow Apple a new procedure against both models.

The end of last year was witness to an international back-and-forth court room dispute between Samsung and Apple that played out in courts in the United States, Germany and Australia. No word yet on where they plan to take their Patent Lawsuit World Tour next.

To be fair, though, not all of this design war is futile act of hair-splitting. At the beginning of this year, you may recall the debut of the Samsung Ace, which was a might familiar looking if you’re an Apple fanboy.

The investigation is regarding claims related to potential securities violations between December 20, 2010 and October 24, 2011 (the “Class Period”). Powers Taylor says in a press release:

In a recently filed federal class action complaint, Netflix and certain of its officers and directors were charged with violating provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Specifically, the complaint alleges that defendants knew but concealed the following facts from the investing public during the Class Period: (a) Netflix had short-term contracts with content providers and defendants were aware that the company faced the choice of renegotiating the contracts in 2011 at much higher rates or not renewing them at all; (b) content providers were already demanding much higher license fees, which would dramatically alter Netflix’s business; (c) defendants recognized that Netflix’s pricing would have to dramatically increase to maintain profit margins given the streaming content costs they knew the Company would soon be incurring; and (d) Netflix was not on track to achieve the earnings forecasts made by and for the company for 2011.

“Because of the severity of the accusations lodged against certain of Netflix’s officers and directors, we are concerned about the possible damage to the company and its shareholders, and the firms have commenced an investigation to uncover possible breaches of fiduciary duties and other violations of state law by the officers and directors,” said Briscoe.

Powers Taylor is recommending “affected” investors contact them to join the action at no cost.

The suit, led by a seller from Phoenix, alleges breach of contract on eBay’s part, as well as violations of California’s Unfair Competition Law and “tortious interference with the sellers’ prospective economic advantage”.

eBay explains how automatic bidding works:

1. When you place a bid, you enter the maximum amount you’re willing to pay for the item. The seller and other bidders don’t know your maximum bid.

3. If another bidder places the same maximum bid or higher, we’ll notify you so you can place another bid. Your maximum bid is kept confidential until it is exceeded by another bidder.

To illustrate this, eBay also shares the following example:

1. The current bid for an item is $10.00. Tom is the high bidder, and has placed a maximum bid of $12.00 on the item. His maximum bid is kept confidential from other members.

4. We send Tom an email that he has been outbid. If he doesn’t raise his maximum bid, Laura wins the item.

Under a section on eBay’s help center labeled “The Fine Print,” eBay says, “In reserve price auctions, if your maximum bid is at least the reserve price, we’ll automatically increase your bid to meet the reserve, and bidding will continue from there.”

Those who have further questions are directed to contact customer support.

Here’s the complaint in its entirety (via AuctionBytes):

The suit was filed on December 30 in the U.S. District Court for California’s Northern District.

Google is being sued by a company called BuySafe, which basically claims Google is ripping off its business, hurting its ability to compete, violating its patent, and is giving special treatment to certain brands in search ranking.

In the complaint (via Robin Wauters), BuySafe claims to be the “first company to address the concerns of online shoppers by providing third-party certification and transactional guarantees for Internet retailers.”

“Because there is significant consumer demand for such certification and guarantees, numerous Internet retailers have purchased BuySafe’s services and offer BuySafe’s transactional guarantees without cost to the consumers who make purchases on their websites,” the complaint goes on to say. “It is well-known within the Internet retailer community that BuySafe’s transaction guarantee services are patented.”

In October, Google launched a pilot program for Google Trusted Stores, providing a similar service.

“The Google Trusted Store badge is awarded to e-commerce sites that demonstrate a track record of on-time shipping and excellent customer service,” said Tom Fallows, a Group Product Manager on Google’s Commerce team. “When visiting a qualifying store, shoppers can hover over the Google Trusted Store badge and see metrics on the store’s shipping and customer service performance.”

Fallows happens to be a former executive for a BuySafe customer, which BuySafe alleges had “extensive discussions” with a few of BuySafe’s execs and learned “a great deal” about BuySafe’s business. Not only did Google recruit Fallows in 2010, but according to the complaint, Google has sought a joint venture or partnership with BuySafe as far back as 2006. The complaint alleges that “google exploited those discussions to learn about BuySafe’s business.”

On top of all of that, the complaint says, Google had employees visit BuySafe.com on numerous occasions to investigate its business, methods and systems, claiming to have discovered a “tremdenous amount of visits to buysafe.com from Google IP addresses since at least 2009.

BuySafe says the launch of Google’s Trusted Stores has already “drastically” slowed its annual growth rate. It also says:

In or around October 2011, Google told at least two customers of BuySafe that participants in Google’s Trusted Stores program will have an advantage with respect to the order in which Google’s search results are displayed and promoted within Google search results. Indeed, that advantage is so significant that few, if any, online merchants will have any choice but to use Google’s Trusted Stores program. Upon information and belief, Google has made the same representations to other BuySafe customers and potential customers.

BuySafe also says Google timed the launch of the Trusted Stores Pilot to “impede BuySafe’s effort to raise additional capital,” which it needs to expand its business.

This, of course, comes at a time when Google is drawing the watchful government eye with regards to its competitive practices.

We’ve reached out to Google for comment, and will update accordingly.

As they make this move, Facebook is also making another move in the realm of legal affairs. Facebook is countersuing Timelines.com over the use of the “Timelines” trademark.

Back in September, Timelines.com sued Facebook over the used of the “Timeline” phrase. Having trademarks for “Timeline,” the historical scrapbooking site claimed that Facebook’s use of the word would effectively drown their service in customer confusion, leading to their inevitable demise. Facebook was then limited to releasing the Timeline feature to developers. That order has since expired.

Any thoughts that this thing would result in a relatively quick settlement have been nixed with this countersuit. In the legal documents, Facebook continues their assertion that Facebook’s “Timeline” feature is not infringing on trademarks because the term is too generic. The countersuit also holds that Timelines.com should be stripped of their trademarks because they are “weak” trademarks.

Facebook argues that “timeline” is a generic term that is used in a descriptive capacity. They proceed to list upwards of ten instances where “timeline” has been used generically in the past. Facebook says that a Google search of “timeline” reveals over 196 million results. They mention the use of “timeline” by various other sites – most importantly Twitter, whose tweet stream has been called the Twitter Timeline for years.

Given the generic or at least merely descriptive nature of the term “timeline” when used to identify chronologies of events and related information (or tools for their creation), as well as the prior and widespread use of the term by third parties, Counterdefendant does not own exclusive rights in the term “timelines” as used in connection with timeline creation and collection services.

Facebook asks that Timelines.com be stripped of their trademarks, claiming that they are weak trademarks and that Timelines.com has no right to the generic phrase:

The TIMELINES Registrations have each been registered for less than five years and thus may be cancelled if the Court finds that the term “timelines” is either generic or merely descriptive of the services identified in the registrations.

Pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1064, the Court should order the cancellation of the TIMELINES Registrations. Further, the Court should order Counterdefendant to expressly abandon its pending TIMELINES Application and enjoin Counterdefendant from seeking the registration of any mark incorporating the term “timelines” as used in connection with Counterdefendant’s timeline creation and collection services in the future.

Facebook has a point about “timeline” being a fairly generic, descriptive term. Sites have used this word for years. But it’s kind of funny to hear this kind of argument from a company that has filed lawsuits over the words “face” and “book.”

Meanwhile, Facebook says they will continue to roll out Timeline to more areas in the near future. On Timelines.com, the company says that they are “hoping that Facebook will realize that it made a mistake and that it needs to make things right.” It appears that this legal battle is not going to end that easily.

Facebook counterclaim against Timelines

Amazon battled back, saying that the term “App Store” was simply too generic to be trademarked – that it just describes a store that sells apps. The Amazon App Store for Android launched anyways, much to the chagrin of Apple. In July, a judge denied the injunction and allowed Amazon’s store to remain active.

Now, Apple has amended the lawsuit to include charges of false advertising, particularly pertaining to the recent launch of Amazon’s new tablet, the Kindle Fire.

Apple says that Amazon purposefully started “de-emphasizing” the “for Android” part of the “Amazon App Store for Android” in order to bank of the popularity of the Apple App Store.

Beginning in or about September 2011 Amazon began altering its useof the infringing mark by omitting or de-emphasizing the use of the “for Android” suffix to the “Amazon Appstore” phrase. For example, when Amazon announced in late September 2011 that it would introduce a new hardware product named the Kindle Fire(the “Fire”), Amazon promoted the Fire’s ability to use Amazon’s mobile software download service but omitted the “for Android” phrase when using the APPSTORE mark.

The brief even provides screenshots to back up their point. In this one, you can see the Kindle Fire being promoted as having the “Amazon Appstore.”

If you look at the Kindle Fire’s page on Amazon currently, the word “Appstore” doesn’t appear – instead we have “Thousands of popular apps and games.”

The updated filing also provides an example where Amazon used the “Appstore” phrase on a page selling gift cards, and according to Apple, hid away the “for Android” part in small letters.

Amazon’s use is also likely to lessen the goodwill associated with Apple’s App Store service and Apple products designed to utilize Apple’s App Store service by associating Apple’s App Store service with the inferior qualities of Amazon’s service

Amazon’s ongoing unlawful use of the APP STORE mark has irreparably harmed Apple, and Amazon’s threatened expansion and/or alteration of that unlawful use will increase the irreparable harm to Apple.

Are you buying the false advertising claims? Let us know in the comments.

App Store 2nd Amended Complaint

Those of you that felt that the free apps weren’t enough to assuage some BlackBerry users have been proven correct, as a suit filed in Quebec is seeking class action status on behalf of “all residents in Canada who have a BlackBerry smartphone and who pay for a monthly data plan” but because of the outage, were unable to access their messages and emails.

As a quick refresher, the BlackBerry outage began around October 10th, when reports emerged from parts of Europe, Africa and The Middle East that folks were having trouble with some of their services. In a couple of days, that outage had spread to North America. BBM, email, and web browsing were the three things most affected by the outage.

As services were slowly being restored, co-CEO of RIM Mike Lazaridis took to YouTube and issued a video apology to BlackBerry customers. He said that they had failed on their goal to provide reliable communications and that they had let many people down.

Shortly after that, RIM announced that they would be giving BlackBerry customers free apps in compensation for the outage. The free apps list included things like SIMS 3, Bejewled, and Speech Translator Pro. All in all, over $100 worth of apps have been offered for free.

Many were skeptical that this display would be enough to satisfy disgruntled users – that some would want real monetary compensation for the multiple days that they were unable to use the BlackBerry network. This is exactly what this lawsuit is asking for.

The Respondent has failed to take action to either directly compensate BlackBerry users or to indirectly compensate BlackBerry users by arranging for wireless service providers to refunds their customers and to take full responsibility for these damages

When you think about it, compensation for 4 days of data services being down doesn’t really amount to much money. I guess for some people, it’s the principle of the thing.

Time will tell if more suits like this are filed in other countries. Were you affected by the Blackberry outage? Do you feel like RIM did enough with the free apps and apologies? Let us know in the comments.

A website, let’s call it TheScoop.org, publishes an article that, among other things, says that a high profile businessman named John Robertson is involved in an illegal drug ring. The article contains little to no actual evidence for this claim and relies on “some guy” as their source for the information. I’m sure we can all agree that the high profile businessman would at least have a case for defamation.

What if the following week, another website called HotBuzz.com writes an article that refers to the article published on TheScoop.org via hyperlink inside the text. Would HotBuzz.com also be guilty of defamation?

According to the Canadian Supreme Court, probably not.

Should sites have the ability to link to possibly defamatory content without fear of retribution? How about the right to quote from it and print the exact same defamatory content? Let us know in the comments.

The Court has just ruled that unless the hyperlink “presents content from the hyperlinked material in a way that actually repeats the defamatory content,” a hyperlink does not equal publication. In effect, as long as you refrain from restating the defamatory content on your own site, feel free to link away.

This decision comes from a case, Crookes v. Newton, that basically runs parallel to the fictional scenario I described above. The defendant, Newton, published an article about a defamation dispute between local businessman Crookes and a former associate. Newton linked to the supposed defamatory content written by the former associate, and Crookes sued Newton when he refused to take down the links.

Crookes’ argument was that the hyperlinks created by Newton connected to the defamatory content, and by publishing the links, he was in turn publishing the defamatory content himself.

The majority of the panelists of the Court held that hyperlinks are basically analogous to footnotes. Even though hyperlinks make the referenced information more easily accessed than a traditional footnote can, it is the same concept.

Here’s what they had to say about the fact that hyperlinks do not equal publication –

Hyperlinks are, in essence, references, which are fundamentally different from other acts of “publication”. Hyperlinks and references both communicate that something exists, but do not, by themselves, communicate its content. They both require some act on the part of a third party before he or she gains access to the content. The fact that access to that content is far easier with hyperlinks than with footnotes does not change the reality that a hyperlink, by itself, is content neutral. Furthermore, inserting a hyperlink into a text gives the author no control over the content in the secondary article to which he or she has linked.

A hyperlink, by itself, should never be seen as “publication” of the content to which it refers. When a person follows a hyperlink to a secondary source that contains defamatory words, the actual creator or poster of the defamatory words in the secondary material is the person who is publishing the libel. Only when a hyperlinker presents content from the hyperlinked material in a way that actually repeats the defamatory content, should that content be considered to be “published” by the hyperlinker.

According to the court, the traditional burden of proof in a defamation case simply involves showing how a defendant conveyed defamatory information to a third party. Usually, the manner in which the defendant conveys the defamatory content to a third party is irrelevant. If this traditional understanding is applied to the Newton v. Crookes case, then Newton is screwed. He undoubtedly became a delivery mechanism to a third party when he hyperlinked to the content.

The majority of the Court explained how this traditional understanding can’t be applied to hyperlinks –

Applying this traditional rule to hyperlinks, however, would have the effect of creating a presumption of liability for all hyperlinkers. This would seriously restrict the flow of information on the Internet and, as a result, freedom of expression.

Chalk one up to internet freedom. It appears that the Canadian Supreme Court understands the devastating effect “hyperlink liability” would have on the internet.

But let’s take a closer look at the last part of the majority decision – Only when a hyperlinker presents content from the hyperlinked material in a way that actually repeats the defamatory content, should that content be considered to be “published” by the hyperlinker.

Another Court panelist expounded on that scenario –

However, a hyperlink should constitute publication if, read contextually, the text that includes the hyperlink constitutes adoption or endorsement of the specific content it links to. A mere general reference to a website is not enough to find publication.

Does this leave the door open for a lot of blurred lines and subjective judgment?

Going back to our fictional scenario, we can imagine that the following link would be alright in the eyes of the Court:

…here’s TheScoop.org’s take on Robertson, if you are interested.

And we can surmise that this would be a no-no:

…and since John Robertson is a big time drug dealer, his opinions would be biased.

But what if we change it slightly, to this:

…here’s TheScoop.org’s awesome indictment of Robertson, for your reading pleasure.

Would that constitute “adoption and endorsement” of the linked content?

The Court specifically says that regurgitating the possibly defamatory content, even after sourcing it with a hyperlink, would constitute defamation. So this wouldn’t fly, according to this Canadian Court’s ruling:

I’m sure you all remember what TheScoop.org said about John Robertson, that he’s the leader of an underground drug ring and everything.

The big question out of all of this is what do you think constitutes publication when it comes to defamation online?

I have a feeling that most of us will agree that linking to an article without republishing any of the defamatory content does not equal defamation. But if an article links to defamatory content and reprints the same content, should that then be considered defamation?

In the U.S., hyperlinking is not considered publication. Do you think that citing an article should ever be considered publication of the content? Let us know what you think in the comments.

[Image Courtesy m.photography (Flickr), Hat Tip to Ars Technica.]

In case you’ve forgotten, when YouTube started its skyrocket ascent, Viacom was displeased with their content being available — for free — on YouTube’s servers, and so, they filed suit to have their content removed. That is an understandable, if not archaic position, one that becomes even more obtuse when you consider YouTube does indeed have a sufficient advertising model in place.

Because, let’s face it, Viacom’s position is all about getting paid when people view their content.

Digression aside, in 2010, a judge ruled that YouTube was given “safe harbor” protection, which essentially means as long as YouTube removes the offending content, it’s not YouTube’s fault if one of their users is responsible for uploading it, which makes perfect sense in the rational world. Unfortunately, that’s not the world Viacom resides in. No, being a corporate juggernaut, Viacom’s concern is for one thing and one thing only: profit.

Because of that, Viacom is working their asses off in an effort to find an appeals judge who agrees with them, and so, here we go again with the appeals process, one that says, “please, judge, make YouTube liable so we can have some of their money.” A snippet from PaidContent.org details Viacom’s position quite nicely:

What do Viacom and the other plaintiffs want?

Viacom wants the panel to declare that the judge made an error when he stated that the safe harbor protection applies to YouTube. According to lawyers from Jenner & Block, YouTube forfeited its right to the safe harbor because it did not make an honest effort to stop the clips from being uploaded and instead focused on growing its online video business at the expense of content owners.

Viacom is also hoping that the influential Second Circuit will provide a precedent that curtails the scope of safe harbors in general. It believes that the 1998 law has become too expansive…

Apparently, Viacom doesn’t know, or doesn’t care about the amount of content that’s uploaded to YouTube on daily basis. Or maybe Viacom thinks YouTube should be capable of seamlessly inspecting every aspect of the 48 hours worth of video that’s uploaded on a minute-by-minute basis, instead of reacting to it after a complaint has been filed.

Or, maybe Viacom just wants some of that YouTube money.

It’s funny, YouTube is a perfectly acceptable platform for Viacom to take advantage of when they release movies trailers, nor do they seem to mind when Internet properties like ClevverTV exploit Viacom properties for pageviews, like so:

For what it’s worth, Clevver is a property that aims to keep teens hip and informed, and unless they are owned by Viacom, a distinct possibility, but it’s not indicated anywhere on Clevver’s about pages, Viacom’s stance appears hypocritical.

Apparently, it’s fine to promote their products in the form of trailers and television previews, just don’t upload video from properties Viacom makes money from. It’s also OK if the Clevver brand establishes its popularity via Viacom-owned trailers and other promotional content, however, if they upload a non-promotional clip from MTV’s Teen Wolf, then Viacom wants YouTube to be liable.

Does that make even make sense? To Viacom’s legal team, apparently so. Is it YouTube’s fault if these videos exist, even though no one has apparently filed the appropriate infringement notice?