Facebook Suing FriendFinder

[EricVonDoobie]

Anyone see this? I didn't hear anything about it until just now even though it happened mid-April.

Facebook Sues FriendFinder, Peeved Over FacebookOfSex.com Website | paidContent

Facebook has filed a few different trademark lawsuits against sites it doesn’t approve of, like Teachbook and humor site Lamebook. Some of those cases might be considered close calls legally, and both of those sites are still up. But now a much bigger company is messing with Facebook’s name: adult social networking company FriendFinder Networks, which has launched a (very NSFW) website called FacebookOfSex.com.

Says they're allegedly going after 1-100 "Does" who were affiliates of the site too although it isn't really clear whether or not they just want the domains canceled for them or $100k each, eh. This will be interesting.

 

[cardine]

I'm not surprised at all. If they were going after sites like Teachbook of course they'd also be going after an adult site that uses Facebook in the domain name.

 

[Fiver]

How the fuck can they sue affiliates? They don't have anything to do with the name.

 

[Vox]

I logged in to my AFF account and this is what is posted in big red letters:

ATTENTION:

If you use the Facebook name in a URL that sends traffic to any of our sites you will forfeit all affiliate payments and be banned. In addition, any affiliate attempting to bypass our automated detection and blocking systems will forfeit all affiliate payments and be banned.

 

[EricVonDoobie]

I logged in to my AFF account and this is what is posted in big red letters:

I saw this too. Additionally they have completely taken down their main site, was up just a few days ago if I remember correctly. Very interesting shit. Hope the affiliates don't get fucked.

 

[EricVonDoobie]

How the fuck can they sue affiliates? They don't have anything to do with the name.

Affiliates who used the "facebookofsex" name in their domain as well is what I think the 1-100 "Does" refers to.

 

[csnreyes]

I see how fbofsex can get in legal trouble but using lamebook illegally does not make sense.

 

[shopdeal]

they did sue lamebook but how come they left out failbook?

 

[ebtek]

i hope they dont come after my aidsbook or poobook

 

[Compound]

FYI - FriendFinder went public today. Ticker: FFN

FFN: Summary for - Yahoo! Finance

 

[BeerNuts]

Does 4chan count as a affiliate of sexbook? They have had their ads on random for like a year. That would be a rather funny mess for Moot.

 

[EricVonDoobie]

Does 4chan count as a affiliate of sexbook? They have had their ads on random for like a year. That would be a rather funny mess for Moot.

No, the person running those ads does though which explains why they disappeared for a few days on 4chan (and people were going crazy for some reason).

This whole thing is kind of insane, I wasn't an affiliate of that EXACT program but I might wind up in some shit on my own end depending on how this pans out. Hopefully the "Does" they list are the bigger sites who had a more direct relationship with FriendFinder though.

 

[EricVonDoobie]

FYI - FriendFinder went public today. Ticker: FFN

FFN: Summary for - Yahoo! Finance

Saw this too--this is part of the reason people are speculating FriendFinder will try to settle ASAP since it doesn't look good for investors, obviously.