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Google Settles Up and Lawyers Cash Out

posted on April 1, 2009

A lawsuit that was originally filed in Santa Clara in 2005 which claimed Google overcharged search marketers by charging over their google-logodaily spend limit was settled for about $20 million as reported by MediaPost.

The two plaintiffs in the case, printing company CLRB Hanson Industries of Minnesota and Howard Stern of New Jersey (not the shock jock) will receive $20,000 each. The class action suit is based on the claim that Google charged 120% of the daily budgeted amount on AdWords campaigns.

U.S. District Court Judge James Ware in San Jose had earlier ruled that only search marketers who advertised for fewer than 30 days could proceed with the lawsuit.

Google had argued in court papers that it sometimes charged up to 120% of marketers’ budgets, but only to make up for days when it under-delivered ads.

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Yahoo Launching Mobile Portal, Messenger

posted on April 1, 2009

Shouldn’t pretty much all serious news be delayed until tomorrow? Apparently Yahoo disagrees, since they’ve chosen to release their latest mobile offering today. Called Yahoo! Mobile for Web, the new offering is set to be the starting point for the mobile web as well as an iPhone app. Soon, a Yahoo! Messenger app will also be available for mobile devices.

The new mobile portal is now available at http://new.m.yahoo.com. The press release says that the new site features:

  • Discover: via results from Yahoo!’s award-winning mobile search and editor-selected content;
  • Stay Connected: through access to email and social network accounts from the most popular Web providers, as well as instant messaging, address book and calendar tools;

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If You’re a Blogger You MUST Read this Free Guide to Libel Law

posted on April 1, 2009

There are two things that are certain of 99.9% of bloggers.

  1. We tend to write things that could get us in legal trouble
  2. We can’t afford an attorney to help us understand libel laws

Public Citizen is aware of both of these certainties and has created a free document that should help us all stay out of libel courts: Guide for Bloggers and Non-Profit Organizations About Writing With Libel in Mind.

Instead of wasting this April Fools day reading less than funny attempts to fool you, why not spend an hour reading this great primer on what you can and cannot say about a company or individual. I thought I had most of this stuff buttoned-up but after reading the guide, I’ve learned some things that I didn’t know. For example:

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Facebook CFO Moves On

posted on April 1, 2009

In the latest episode of “How the Facebook Turns” CFO Gideon Yu has been sent packing. The report at All Things Digital says the move appears facebook-logoto be in preparation of an initial public offering (IPO). There are other rumblings that the Good Ship Zuckerberg has a captain that isn’t afraid to make someone walk the plank if there is enough push back on the captain’s orders.

This apparent friction that exists in Facebook keeps coming up in story after story concerning the company and its latest actions. Some, like Robert Scoble, seem to be firmly in Zuckerberg’s corner as he continues to push against conventional wisdom and pressure to do things other than his way. For others this type of behavior raises concerns about what is actually going on at Facebook and if any of the other approximately 799 employees will be little more than Zuckerberg “yes-people” in order to keep their positions. Dissenters being shown the door is certainly becoming a pattern so it may be more likely that folks will “fall in line” because this economy is not exactly overflowing with opportunities.

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Trackur Rebrands to Twackur, Emphasizes Twitter Monitoring

posted on April 1, 2009

You might have noticed that one sure way to get mentioned in the media is to launch anything connected with Twitter. Well, a few weeks back we added Twitter monitoring support to Trackur and today we’re announcing a major re-branding to reflect our commitment to reputation monitoring on Twitter.

Trackur has become Twackur!

We’ve moved the site to the new domain and have extensively updated the content of the site to reflect our extensive Twitter tracking capabilities.

Anyway, I don’t want to take up more of your time today–that would be foolish–so head over to Twackur and check it out for yourself!

Update: Yes, it should be obvious this is an April Fools joke. However, Trackur does offer Twitter monitoring so check it out. :-)