Facebook is likely to always be in the crosshairs of someone or something that will want to get their piece of the Facebook gazillions the old fashioned way: by suing for it.

A group who was trying to ding Facebook on privacy found that the pot at the end of the rainbow was empty for now as their case in a California court was tossed but still allowed to return if there is actually anything to it.

The Register reports

A federal judge has gutted a lawsuit filed against Facebook for allegedly leaking users’ personal information to advertisers on the grounds that they didn’t suffer specific injuries and the leak didn’t run afoul of wiretap and computer fraud statutes.

There is a lot of buzz around new developments that go back to the early days of Facebook. No it’s not another movie but if the legal case being brought by a man who claims he should have 50% of Mark Zuckerberg’s equity is real, there may be a need to make another one.

Normally, this kind of case would be viewed as a get rich quick play by most because there are more than a few large question marks in the claims of a web developer in upstate, New York. He has already taken one swipe at claiming that an amended contract from 2004 between he and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg entitles him to some serious cash.

The Wall Street Journal reports

Imagine the difficulties that Google must have compared to many other Internet companies. Along with the great success and truckloads of cash comes the reality that different laws in different lands are going to create many different headaches especially in the legal realm. Italy has been particularly rough on Google and now it has ruled against the search giant in a case that involves the content of search results from Google’s autocomplete function.

ZDNet UK reports

Google has lost a case in Italy over the defamatory nature of autocomplete suggestions, according to a lawyer for the complainant.
On Tuesday, lead counsel Carlo Piana wrote on his blog that the Court of Milan has upheld its earlier decision to order Google to filter out libellous search suggestions. These are the suggestions that pop up in Google’s search input bar, proposing what the user might be wanting to search for.

Microsoft announced yesterday that all of its talk in Europe about unfair competition in search through various puppets (sites like which Microsoft owns part of and other whiners like Foundem who wouldn’t know what SEO was if it smacked them in the server) will now result in a formal complaint against Google.

cnet News reports

In a somewhat ironic twist, Microsoft said this evening it will file a formal complaint against Google tomorrow with European antitrust regulators.

Microsoft, which itself has been the subject of several antitrust probes in the United States and abroad, argues Google is engaging in anticompetitive behavior in search, online advertising, and smartphone software, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith wrote in a blog explaining the action.