iEntry 10th Anniversary RSS Newsletter Advertising
Visit Twellow.com
Text: Decrease Font Size Increase Font Size | Print Print Article | Share: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Post to Twitter Post to Facebook
CommentFriday, November 6, 2009

Yahoo Settles Mary Kay Trademark Infringement Suit

Yahoo (probably) apologizes over popup ads in emails

It looks like some lawyers representing cosmetics giant Mary Kay have removed their figurative war paint.  In early July, Mary Kay sued Yahoo, alleging trademark infringement, but not long ago, Yahoo was able to settle the case.

Yahoo LogoMary Kay originally objected to Yahoo's practice of adding links of its own choosing to certain emails.  The links appeared in popups when people would position their cursors over the text, potentially creating confusion about the extra ads' origin.

"Emails that advertise Mary Kay products are hijacked and manipulated by Yahoo and provide an unfair advantage for the unauthorized re-sellers and other competitors," claimed Mary Kay's suit, which was filed in the Northern District of Dallas.

Now - although the terms of the settlement haven't been disclosed - Yahoo's presumably apologized, promised to never repeat the offending behavior, and provided at least a little in the way of cash compensation.  Such is the way these things go.

Anyway, a big hat tip also goes to Erik Larson, who noted that this settlement may have some interesting ramifications.  He wrote, "The dispute was similar to trademark lawsuits against Google Inc. in which the world's most popular search firm was accused of wrongfully selling ad rights to keyword searches."

Related Articles:

> Skype Founders Reportedly Close To Settlement With eBay

> Power.com Suit Against Facebook Tossed

Turkey Asks Google For $47 Million In Taxes

About the author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.

Publish A Comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
1 + 3 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.
SEARCH
Popular WPN Business Resources












Subscribe to WebProNews


Send me relevant info