It’s been a busy week for lawyers representing Facebook, and the week isn’t over yet.
On Tuesday, Connecticut resident Shelley Albini and others filed a class action against Facebook and the game developer Zynga Game Network, Inc. alleging privacy violations. The suit comes on the heels of a Wall Street Journal investigation into the sharing of users’ personal information by Facebook and Zynga. A suit against Facebook filed in federal court in Rhode Island in June over an earlier privacy breach was amended Monday to include the latest incident reported in the Wall Street Journal.
And there’s one friend request Facebook members won’t be accepting, if the company gets its way. The social networking site is suing the website Faceporn.com and its founder, Thomas Pederson, for trademark infringement.
In a suit filed on Oct. 15 in district court in San Jose, Facebook claims the “pornographic website misappropriates and tarnishes Facebook’s reputation and abuses the trust of users in Facebook.”
The site not only displays the Faceporn mark on every page of the website, according to the complaint. Faceporn users can create personal profiles much like they can on Facebook, with pictures, personal information, and videos.
They can befriend other users, join groups, chat live, and comment on videos and photographs. But Faceporn members can do one thing that Facebook members can’t - choose their favorite types of pornography.
“We’re here to build the best adult community on the internet by combing the best of the rest to make our community become the only one you need!” the site claims.
Facebook wants the court to stop Pederson from using the Faceporn name, or any name incorporating the word “face.” It’s also asking for all revenues and profits that Faceporn has made using its current name, as well as trebled damages and attorney’s fees.
Attorneys from Cooley are representing Facebook in the matter, with a team that includes San Francisco partner Michael Rhodes, Palo Alto partner Anne Peck, and associate Jeffrey Norberg.
Lawyers from Cooley are also handling Facebook’s privacy cases, including the class action suit filed Tuesday by Albini. Plaintiffs in the Albini case are represented by lawyers from Khorrami Pollard & Abir in Los Angeles and Pogust, Braslow & Milrood in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.
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