Yahoo! Mail user Albert Rudgayzer sued the Silicon Valley web portal yesterday, charging that Yahoo's revelation of users first and last names when they send email violates the portal's own Terms of Service ('TOS'), constituting a breach of contract. He seeks relief under federal and California state law. Rudgayzer, a…
Articles Posted in Litigation
Samsung was hit with a patent infringement lawsuit yesterday over an emoticon patent (see below). Plaintiff Varia Holdings LLC charges that Samsung mobile phones violate its 2007 U.S. Patent (No. 7,167,731) for an "Emoticon Input Method and Apparatus." Varia Holdings took a jab at the electronics giant, charging that "Samsung…
It's like a scene from the Wizard of Oz: Righthaven is almost dead as a corporate entity. Yesterday U.S. District Judge Philip Pro ordered "the transfer of all of Righthaven’s intellectual property and intangible property" — including 278 registered works filed with the U.S. Copyright Office — to court-appointed receiver…
A new federal class action lawsuit (see below) charges that a host of well-known social media, app, and mobile device companies stole "literally billions of contacts" from users' personal address books by illegally 'harvesting' personal data on the sly, without their knowledge or consent. The 152-page complaint seeks monetary damages…
Facebook can be a nifty tool for spouses and divorce lawyers investigating suspicions of infidelity. Facebook itself can also tip you off to unfaithfulness by, for example, suggesting friends who are also married to your own spouse. One Washington State husband, Alan Leighton O'Neill née Alan Leighton Fulk, is learning…
According to court documents (see below), the FBI and federal prosecutors got help from hacker Hector Xavier Monsegur a/k/a 'Sabu' a/k/a 'Xavier DeLeon' a/k/a 'Leon' to build cases against other alleged members of Anonymous, LulzSec, Internet Feds, and AntiSec hacker groups. U.S. authorities charged five accused hackers with federal criminal…
The federal judge presiding over the lawsuit by plaintiff Paul Ceglia, the convicted felon claiming to own half of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook, just ordered Google to divulge Ceglia's Gmail account data and logs by March 5, 2012 Ceglia’s email accounts are at the heart of this lawsuit. Some were known,…
Three GOP presidential candidates got slapped with a patent infringement suit yesterday (read it below) by a California partnership that holds a patent with social media implications for the candidates' Facebook pages. EveryMD, a California partnership, contends that one of its patents that enables individual Facebook members like Defendants Santorum,…
Continental Appliances, Inc., a California manufacturer of a gas wall heater sold at Lowe's, sued the unknown poster of a YouTube video on Friday for claiming that its product creates "an imminent danger of fire and serious injury" because of "uncertain fuel settings." (see below) The lawsuit appears likely to…
The U.S. Magistrate Judge overseeing Paul Ceglia's ownership claim case against Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook ordered Ceglia to pay nearly $76,000 in attorneys' fees to Facebook's and Zuckerberg's lawyers for having to repeatedly go to court to compel Cegila to comply with the judge's earlier orders. That is in addition…