Yahoo! litigation
Yahoo! has been a party to several instances of litigation.
Patent litigation
FindWhat.com
In May 1999, GoTo.com filed a patent application titled "System and method for influencing a position on a search result list generated by a computer network search engine". The patent was granted as US 6269361 in July 2001. A related patent has also been granted in Australia and other patent applications remain pending.
Prior to its acquisition by Yahoo!, Overture initiated infringement proceedings under this patent against FindWhat.com in January 2002 and Google in April 2002.[1]
The lawsuit against Google related to its
Following Yahoo!'s acquisition of Overture, the lawsuit was settled with Google agreeing to issue 2.7 million shares of common stock to Yahoo! in exchange for a perpetual license.[2]
Yahoo filed a suit against
Geocities
In 1999, a complaint was instituted against GeoCities stating that the corporation violated the provisions of the
The litigation came about in this way: GeoCities provided free home pages and e-mail address to children and adults who provided personally identifying and demographic information when they registered for the website. At the time of the complaint, GeoCities had more than 1.8 million members who were "homesteaders." GeoCities illegally permitted third-party advertisers to promote products targeted to GeoCities' 1.8 million users, by using
The problem GeoCities faced was that it placed a privacy statement on its New Member Application Form and on its website promising that it would never give personally identifying information to anyone without the user's permission. GeoCities sold personal information to third parties who used the information for purposes other than those for which members gave permission.[4]
It was ordered that GeoCities would not make any misrepresentation, in any manner about its collection or use of personal identifying information, including what information will be disclosed to third parties. GeoCities was not allowed to collect personal identifying information from any child if GeoCities had actual knowledge that the child did not have his parents' permission to provide the information.[4]
Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao
On April 18, 2007,
The lawsuit was filed by the World Organization for Human Rights USA.[7] "Yahoo is guilty of 'an act of corporate irresponsibility,' said Morton Sklar, then the Executive Director of the group. 'Yahoo had reason to know that if they provided China with identification information that those individuals would be arrested."[8]
In 2006, Yahoo! executives had testified before the
In November 2007, Yahoo! was called back to Congress to testify about its actions in China before the bi-partisan House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The plaintiffs’ families traveled from China to bear witness as the Committee questioned Yahoo!’s executives. Referencing the discrepancy between Yahoo!’s leaders’ testimony in 2006 and the new evidence, the Committee Chair, Representative Tom Lantos, said Yahoo!’s failure to correct the record was inexcusably negligent behavior at best and deliberately deceptive behavior at worst.
Rep. Lantos then told CEO
Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning remain in prison.
Pincus v. Yahoo! Inc.
Pincus v. Yahoo! Inc., 13-cv-05326, was a lawsuit filed in the
See also
References
- ^ Overture sues Google over search patent, Stefanie Olsen and Gwendolyn Mariano, CNet news.com, April 5, 2002
- ^ Google, Yahoo bury the legal hatchet, Stefanie Olsen, CNET News.com, August 9, 2004
- ^ USA Today, published March 13, 2012, page B1, "Yahoo sues Facebook over patents"
- ^ a b c d "FTC.gov" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-05-11. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
- ^ Egelko, Bob (2007-04-19). "Suit by wife of Chinese activist". SF Gate.
- ^ a b c "HumanRights : tout sur le droit !". www.humanrightsusa.org.
- ^ "Second Amended Complaint". Archived from the original on 2011-04-08. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
- ^ "Advocates Sue Yahoo In Chinese Torture Case". The Washington Post. 2007-04-20.
- ^ Sandler, Linda (2013-11-16). "Yahoo Sued for Allegedly Intercepting E-Mail". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2014-02-10.
- ^ Sandler, Linda (2013-11-18). "Yahoo Privacy Plaintiffs Want Judge Who Ruled Against Google (1)". Businessweek. Archived from the original on November 24, 2013. Retrieved 2014-02-10.
- ^ "Pincus v. Yahoo". www.scribd.com. Archived from the original on 2016-08-14.