GOOGLE IS SUING A ROBOCALLER THAT TARGETED ADWORDS CUSTOMERS

Original Story: theverge.com

If you answer a phone call and hear a recording claiming to be Google, the odds are good that you're being scammed. That's the message of a new Google Business post and a new lawsuit from the company, targeting a company that used robocalling to target businesses using Google Adwords. A San Diego unfair competition lawyer is following this story closely.

According to the complaint, a company called Local Lighthouse Corp. made telemarketing calls to Adwords customers, using misappropriated logos and other methods to represent themselves as agents of Google. Once they gained a target's trust, they attempted to milk them for $100 fees in exchange for Search benefits like "front page domination." Based on those claims, the lawsuit alleges trademark infringement, false advertising, and unfair competition. A Roseland trademark lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.

Google says such scams are routine, but the company is usually unable to prosecute because scammers are too successful in hiding their tracks. In this case, the accused party is a California search engine optimization company, making it significantly easier for Google to take action. Still, the company reminded users that it rarely contacts Adwords users over the phone, and never does so through pre-recorded calls. Anyone receiving such a call should contact both Google and the Federal Trade Commission to lodge a complaint.

WOMAN, HIT BY CAR, SUES GOOGLE FOR FAULTY DIRECTIONS

Original Story: cnet.com

Why trust the machines when you can trust your own eyes, your own brain, your own basic sense of survival?

This philosophical question comes to mind after reading the tragic tale of a woman, her eyes, her brain, her BlackBerry, and her Google Maps.

According to an exhaustive analysis presented by Search Engine Land, Lauren Rosenberg decided to take a walk in Park City, Utah, on January 19, 2009. A Detroit personal injury lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.

I will try and ignore just how fundamentally un-American this act was in order to focus on some of the ensuing action.

Rosenberg fingered her trusted BlackBerry and asked it to tell her just how she might walk between 96 Daly Avenue and 1710 Prospector Avenue. Her BlackBerry turned to the world's great walking resource, Google Maps. Google Maps suggested that she should, as part of her journey, amble along Deer Valley Drive.

For all of you who have not had the pleasure of strolling there, might I quote papers filed by Rosenberg's lawyers with the Utah courts. These papers describe Deer Valley Drive as "a.k.a. State Route 224, a rural highway with no sidewalks, and a roadway that exhibits motor vehicles traveling at high speeds, that is not reasonably safe for pedestrians."

There is perhaps nothing finer than a roadway that bothers to exhibit motor vehicles. Yet this was not quite the exhibition that Rosenberg had in mind. For during her stroll along State Route 224 aka Deer Valley Drive she was allegedly struck by a car driven by Patrick Harwood. A Chicago personal injury lawyer represents clients in personal injury, accident, an negligence cases.

She's suing Harwood. And she is also suing Google.

Perhaps some of you might think of Rosenberg as just a perambulating chaser. Yet she and her lawyers reason that Google's walking directions were "careless, reckless, and negligent providing of unsafe directions."

Now this is the point at which your complex minds become engaged and my rather simpler version becomes divorced. You see, if you ask Google Maps for walking directions on your laptop you get a very clear warning--yes, on one of those lovely beigey-yellow backgrounds--that reads: "Walking Direction are in Beta. Use caution--This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths."

The question is, does this warning appear when you go to Google Maps on your BlackBerry? Or, even more importantly, on Rosenberg's BlackBerry? It does not appear to appear on the iPhone. Which might suggest the same situation holds with the RIM phone.

What I cannot ascertain from the court papers is why Rosenberg would want to walk this route in Utah. She is, it appears, from Los Angeles, which means that she might not have been used to walking at all.

Equally puzzling is the first part part of the court papers where it is says that Rosenberg suffered mental, physical and emotional injuries that caused her to incur medical expenses "in an amount yet to be determined." And yet when it comes to the part about suing Google, medical expenses are said to exceed $100,000. A Grand Rapids personal injury attorney is following this story closely.

Courts have not always been sympathetic to those who claim that they were merely following the orders of enlightened machines. There was the man in England who ordered his BMW down an unpaved cliffside lane , got stuck, and then claimed that his GPS made him do it. The court decided it was the driver's own brain that made him do so.

Can Rosenberg expect Utah courts to be more sympathetic? In our world of increasingly diminished responsibility, might someone actually be in a position to prove that we are all now subjects of the Googleplex? Those Googlies have filmed our streets, made records of our Wi-Fi data, followed us around the Web until they could offer us ads that are "good" for us. Shouldn't we admit whose the supreme power truly is?

Or might the judge emit a cough and declaim in the finest Latin: "Caveat walker"?

Google makes Gmail Statement Regarding Google Buzz Lawsuit

    From: Google Buzz
    Date: November 2, 2010 3:30:00 PM EDT
    To: @gmail users
    Subject: Important Information about Google Buzz Class Action Settlement

Google rarely contacts Gmail users via email, but we are making an exception to let you know that we've reached a settlement in a lawsuit regarding Google Buzz (http://buzz.google.com), a service we launched within Gmail in February of this year.

Shortly after its launch, we heard from a number of people who were concerned about privacy. In addition, we were sued by a group of Buzz users and recently reached a settlement in this case.

The settlement acknowledges that we quickly changed the service to address users' concerns. In addition, Google has committed $8.5 million to an independent fund, most of which will support organizations promoting privacy education and policy on the web. We will also do more to educate people about privacy controls specific to Buzz. The more people know about privacy online, the better their online experience will be.

Just to be clear, this is not a settlement in which people who use Gmail can file to receive compensation. Everyone in the U.S. who uses Gmail is included in the settlement, unless you personally decide to opt out before December 6, 2010. The Court will consider final approval of the agreement on January 31, 2011. This email is a summary of the settlement, and more detailed information and instructions approved by the court, including instructions about how to opt out, object, or comment, are available at http://www.BuzzClassAction.com.

Mistaken Identitiy Causing Personal Grief in Google Maps Case

LA Times

Santa Monica woman takes the heat over Google lawsuit

An L.A. County woman sues the search engine giant over directions that allegedly led to her being struck by a car. But another woman, also named Lauren Rosenberg, bears the brunt of public abuse.

Last week, a Los Angeles County woman named Lauren Rosenberg sued Google in federal court for damages, alleging it was responsible for her being hit by a car. Rosenberg — who also sued the driver who hit her — said the search engine giant was "careless, reckless, and negligent" in supplying her with walking directions in Park City, Utah, last year that led her onto a rural state highway with no sidewalks.

And this week, Lauren Rosenberg of Santa Monica got bombarded with the public reaction. Strangers left tart phone messages and withering e-mails lambasting her for suing Google.

The problem is — they found the wrong Lauren Rosenberg. This Lauren Rosenberg owns a public relations company, did not sue Google over bad directions, and says she's confident she wouldn't have followed those directions anyway. ("Just because Google says to walk on a highway, you don't walk on a highway.")

What she's struggling to cope with is the fallout mistakenly directed her way. "The first one I received was an e-mail from a friend saying, 'Gee, I thought you were smarter than that,' " Rosenberg said.That's when Rosenberg discovered that someone who shared her name had sued Google. "I replied, 'I swear I'm smarter than that.' Smiley face."

At least her friends are funny — or worried. ("Not you, I hope?" e-mailed one friend with a link to a story on the plaintiff Rosenberg.)

Strangers, however, have been scathing.

"They all tell me I'm stupid and how dare I sue Google, take some responsibility for your own actions," Rosenberg said. "At first I thought it was funny. I just cracked up. Ha, ha, ha. Then today when I got more, I thought this could be a problem."

She has posted something on her blog headlined "A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY" that alerts the public that she is not the same Lauren Rosenberg. "Can you say 'damage control'?" she concludes.

The attorney representing the "other" Rosenberg — the one who really is suing Google — did not return a phone message.

Review Site Yelp Under Fire in Business' Lawsuits

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Yelp, one of the most popular Web sites that let people post opinions about restaurants, shops and local services, is being sued by several small businesses that claim they've been pressured to advertise on the site in exchange for getting negative reviews squashed.

Yelp denies the claims, but exactly what happened may never be clear. And regardless of what happens in court, the lawsuits could taint Yelp's reputation as a leader in online reviews.

San Francisco-based Yelp has faced many complaints since it began letting consumers post reviews about local businesses ranging from all-you-can eat buffets to zip line operators six years ago. Often businesses have complained about how reviews on the site - positive or negative - can mysteriously disappear and reappear.

If your company or brand is being damaged by negative reviews, contact the online reputation management specialists at Peak Positions SEO.

But since late February, at least three lawsuits seeking class action status have been filed against the site by a dozen companies, complaining that reviews are manipulated depending on which companies advertise on the site and which ones do not.

The first suit, which explicitly alleges Yelp engaged in extortion and attempted extortion, was filed Feb. 23 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by Cats & Dogs Animal Hospital in Long Beach, Calif.

That lawsuit was amended in March to add nine more companies - some Yelp advertisers, some not. It alleges Yelp sales representatives indicated to businesses that they could alter site listings to help advertisers and harm non-advertisers, and that Yelp has actually done so.

The lawsuit began with Cats & Dogs owner Greg Perrault, who said in a court filing that after receiving negative reviews on the site he started getting calls from Yelp, informing him that if he advertised Yelp would hide or lower negative reviews on his page and let him choose the order of the reviews.

Perrault said he decided not to advertise, and a week later a negative review that had disappeared from his page reappeared. He also received a second negative review from someone who had previously written one, he said. Yelp refused his request that the reviews be removed, he said.

The lawsuit seeks an order barring Yelp from manipulating reviews and forcing the company to return money reaped "by means of its wrongful acts and practices," along with unspecified damages.

At least two similar lawsuits have been filed: One by Christine LaPuasky of D'ames Day Spa in Imperial Beach, Calif., on March 3 in the same district court, and one by Boris Levitt of Renaissance Furniture Restoration in San Francisco on March 12 in San Francisco Superior Court.

In an interview, Yelp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said that the businesses suing his company don't understand how Yelp works.

Yelp says some reviews might come and go because it relies on an automated program to weigh reviews and filter out ones that might be untrustworthy, such as a negative review a spa owner might write about a competitor. Yelp says it does nothing to manipulate reviews, aside from allowing advertisers to choose one review they would like to feature at the top of the page about their business.

Stoppelman said the automated filter has helped Yelp stay relevant to consumers, even though it frustrates some businesses.

Bob Gutgsell, whose San Carlos, Calif.-based Astro Appliance Service is one of the 10 businesses involved in the Cats & Dogs suit, said he does understand how Yelp works, and he doesn't like it.

Gutgsell said that after responding to a negative Yelp review from a customer, he got a call from a sales representative asking him to pay several hundred dollars a month to advertise. Gutgsell said the Yelp representative explained that if he did so Yelp would help him control his good and bad reviews.

"The attitude that was conveyed was, 'You really need to do this for your business.' And I felt I really didn't need to do that for my business," Gutgsell said.

Soon after declining to advertise, he noticed some positive reviews had disappeared from his site profile, he said.

Stoppelman countered, however, that his sales reps have "absolutely no ability" to move reviews or remove them from Yelp. Once a sales representative closes an ad deal it is handed over to an account manager who, unlike representatives, is not paid in accordance with the number of deals he or she makes, Stoppelman said.

"We would immediately know from our account manager that something was going wrong, or their messaging was off-key, and we simply haven't found that," he said.

Stoppelman says the lawsuits are suspiciously timed, because Yelp recently got deeper pockets. Yelp got an infusion of venture capital in January, snagging $25 million from Elevation Partners. That values the company at about $475 million and brings its total financing to $56 million.

Some plaintiffs said they were unaware that Yelp had just gotten more financing, though. Ronald Marron, a lawyer for D'ames Day Spa, said he just wants money returned to people who were subject to Yelp's "unfair business practices and bought advertising as a result."

Yelp has tried to head off problems by making efforts to connect with businesses and educate them about the site. After a rash of complaints early last year, Yelp started allowing businesses to respond publicly to customers' critiques right on their Yelp pages. Previously businesses could contact reviewers only privately. Yelp also has hired an outreach manager who has met with business owners and business groups.

Given that more than 15 million small businesses are listed on the site, including businesses that have not yet been reviewed by Yelp users, lawsuits from even a dozen businesses don't seem like very many, said Ray Valdes, a Gartner Inc. analyst.

"The question is," he said, "how many more will come out?"

Viacom-YouTube Secrets to be Exposed in Lawsuit

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A legal tussle pitting media conglomerate Viacom Inc. against online video leader YouTube is about to get dirtier as a federal judge prepares to release documents that will expose their secrets and other confidential information.

The information expected to be unsealed Thursday will include some of the evidence that Viacom and Google-owned YouTube have collected to prove their respective points, but have kept under wraps so far during their 3-year-old dispute over copyright law.

The sensitive material is emerging now because Viacom and YouTube are citing some of the documents as they try to persuade U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton in New York to decide the case without a trial. Stanton isn't likely to decide on a so-called summary judgment for several more months.

Each side will likely be pointing to things that the other might find embarrassing.

The evidence is expected to provide insights into the early strategies of YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen and how they responded to copyright complaints that quickly accumulated a few months after the Web site's 2005 debut. The documents also could reveal whether other media suitors tried to buy YouTube before Google acquired the site for $1.76 billion in 2006.

Viacom, the owner of Paramount Pictures and cable TV channels that include Comedy Central, sued YouTube in 2007 seeking more than $1 billion in damages.

Viacom alleges that YouTube built its early success by rampantly infringing on copyrights. YouTube maintains it follows the copyright laws governing the Internet.

Viacom seems particularly interested in sharing some of the documents that it gathered from YouTube and Google. The company, based in New York, argued for a quick release of the records shortly after it and YouTube filed their motions for summary judgments.

YouTube's lawyers unsuccessfully tried to persuade Stanton to keep the documents under seal until this summer.

One of the biggest disputes in the case is how YouTube monitored its site for copyright violations before Google bought it.

Viacom contends YouTube's employees realized copyright-protected video was being illegally posted on the Web site, but routinely looked the other way because they knew the professionally produced material would help attract a bigger audience and encourage return visits through SEO.

YouTube lawyers have contended there was no way to know whether copyright-protected video was coming from pirates or from movie and TV studios looking to use the Web site as a promotional tool. If a studio issued a notice of a copyright violation, YouTube says it promptly removed the specified clip as required under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The 1998 federal law generally protects service providers such as YouTube from copyright claims as long as they promptly remove infringing material when notified about a violation. The outcome could hinge on whether Viacom can prove YouTube knew about the copyright abuses without formal notice from Viacom.

Although other content producers also initially complained about copyright abuse at YouTube, many media companies have since struck revenue-sharing deals with the Web site.

YouTube won over much of the professional media by developing technology that automatically detects video and audio claimed by its copyright owners.