Marketing Pilgrim

The public version of eBay’s lawsuit against craigslist was filed this week, with a number of redactions (legal for ‘censored bits’) removed from the official filing, at the request of craigslist (which include the exact number of shares that eBay owns, the exact proportions of shares that others hold, etc.

paidContent offers a good synopsis of eBay’s accusations from the filing and the WSJ (which I will translate into English/a soap opera for those of us who are not financial wizards):

Click here to continue reading...

It appears that one of Google’s board members is in hot water with the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the National Post, Ann Mather has been notified by the SEC that it plans to recommend civil action against her for her role in the Pixar stock option backdating scandal.

Google said the SEC told Ms. Mather it would recommend alleging securities law violations related to certain stock option transactions at Ms. Mather’s former employer, Pixar Animation Studios. Google said the case does not involve her services as a Google board member.

Click here to continue reading...

It appears that US courts are getting more and more savvy about Internet marketing (or US attorneys are getting more and more savvy about their “expert” witnesses in these cases!). Last week, the 11th circuit court ruled that meta keywords aren’t effective for SEO (so trademark infringement in them didn’t really matter anyway), and the US District Court in the middle district of Florida ruled that a trademark infringing AdWords advertiser would have to use negative keyword matches in future searches.

Click here to continue reading...

As Andy mentioned in today’s Pilgrim’s Picks, Reuters reports that Google’s confident about the proposed ad deal with Yahoo receiving the OK from the FTC.

If you don’t remember, almost three weeks ago, Yahoo announced that they would conduct a two week test of Google’s AdSense for Search program. A scant eight days later, Yahoo was reportedly very happy with the deal—and talking about making the arrangement permanent.

Reports surfaced late last week that the US Department of Justice was investigating the deal, which could possibly be a prelude to an FTC investigation.

Click here to continue reading...

Living in a Radically Transparent world is, it seems, not without risk. Apparently a Seattle man was recently sued for $10,000 because he left a “Neutral” rating for an eBay seller from North Carolina.

Sued! For $10k for using a system that eBay implemented to encourage feedback!!!

Shellhorn bought some Morgan silver dollars from a man in North Carolina. The price was fair, but Shellhorn says the coins were packed poorly.

“The coins were hanging out of the envelope, loose, with no packing whatsoever around them,” he said.

Click here to continue reading...

I know you’re getting bored with all the other Internet marketing intrigues out there, so here’s a new one: eBay is suing craigslist. Tantalizing, isn’t it?

By way of background, eBay bought more than a quarter of craigslist’s stock (28.4%) back in 2004. According to the suit, this January, unnamed “unilateral actions” by founder Craig Newmark, CEO Jim Buckmaster and/or the craigslist company itself diluted eBay’s shares, diminishing the power that eBay should wield by an alleged 10%.

eBay says that the unnamed actions were unethical and unfair, in addition to being a “breach” of the company’s “fiduciary duties.” citing their good history with craigslist, eBay expressed dismay at the recent developments:

Click here to continue reading...

One of the more interesting statements in the Comcast/FCC hearings recently was made almost two months ago, when Comcast argued that:

The FCC “Internet policy statement, in which it [the FCC] endorses net neutrality in general, ‘was not published in the Federal Register and is not contained in the Code of Federal Regulations,’ and therefore does not have ‘binding legal effect.’”

(It actually got better as Comcast’s counsel couldn’t seem to understand questions about that statement, or his company’s position.)

Click here to continue reading...

Reuters may well report that Yahoo’s paid search performance is growing faster than Google’s, but a new $1 million law suit might negate any such gains.

According to ComputerWorld, Bigreds–an online seller of collectibles–will ask a judge to force Yahoo to pay back the $936,000 in paid traffic, it claims was fraudulent.

Bigreds, which sells collectibles online, said that between 2002 and 2006, it used Overture Services Inc., a pay-per-click advertising service that was acquired by Yahoo in 2003. Bigreds said it was charged more than $936,000 between 2002 and 2006 for the number of clicks that Bigreds ads received on sites affiliated with Yahoo and Overture.

Click here to continue reading...

The next time your boss asks you why you spend so much time on Twitter, there’s a new reason you can add to the normal “I’m building buzz and making connections” speech.

Twitter might just help you get out of jail.

According to the The Mercury News, a 29-year-old UC Berkeley journalism student used Twitter to alert his network he had been arrested by Egyptian police for nothing more than taking a photo. As he was being carted off to a jail–presumably without many of the rights you’d expert in the US–he managed to alert his Twitter followers.

Click here to continue reading...

I know that every reader of Marketing Pilgrim will agree with the ethics of Google’s decision to share account information of 3,261 suspected pedophiles, with Brazilian authorities. If you’re an innocent user of Google’s Orkut, you have nothing to fear. If you are guilty, then you certainly don’t deserve any privacy protection from Google.

OK, now let’s extract the heinous nature of the crime from Google’s decision.

Google just handed over private information of more than 3,000 individuals, without giving those individuals the opportunity to fight the court ruling.

Click here to continue reading...

Remember earlier this week, someone was trying to trademark the acronym ‘SEO’? A helpful little comment on our post on that news just pointed me to the “enterprising marketer’s” response, posted Wednesday. And if you didn’t like his original idea, you’ll probably like this one even less.

First, Jason says that his exclusive ownership of the trademark won’t impede anyone else’s ability to sell SEO services:

Click here to continue reading...

UPDATE, 11 April 2008: Gambert has responded to the community. He wants to use the SEO mark to enforce standards on the industry. We disagree.

Do you use the word “SEO” to describe what you do? Look out: an “enterprising” marketer (both of those words are used euphemistically) has set his sights on taking your livelihood—or at least your right to use that acronym. As SEOmoz’s Sarah Bird reports, one Jason Gambert has filed an application to trademark the acronym SEO.

Sarah has documented the ridiculous history of his application, begun almost a year ago, well. Among the highlights:

Click here to continue reading...