"We don't believe that any of our branding is related to theirs," Pollak said, in an article published yesterday by Boston magazine. "Our logo is completely different, different colors, different fonts."
Pollak and Clark say their name was inspired by the design books they used in school. It's a "really specific thing when you're an engineer... It's your prototype book, where you keep track of your projects, your ideas, and your inventions."
Facebook hasn't commented on the situation, but Pollak describes it as a case of "trademark extortion and corporate bullying."
"What about a phonebook?" he asked. "What about a yearbook? What about a notebook or a scrapbook? All of those things have the name 'book' in them and the truth is, a lot of those things are an aggregation of profiles."
Facebook has asserted rights to both the prefix "face" and the suffix "book" in the social networking space. The company has been through a few trademark brawls in recent years. In 2010, the company sued Teachbook, an online community aimed at schoolteachers, which fought back for a while before agreeing to change its name to TeachQuest in 2012. Other sites, like Placebook, agreed to change their name without a lawsuit. Adult website owner FriendFinder Networks created a site called FacebookOfSex, which, no surprise, folded after Facebook quickly filed suit.
Original Submission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @10:40AM
So when's the merger between Google and Facebook to defictionalize that Bluebook we've all heard about?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @10:45AM
Forget your stupid movie, when will Facefuck try to sue Kelley Blue Book into oblivion, fucking lose, and go bankrupt?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Gravis on Saturday June 06 2015, @11:10AM
Designbook may sell, rent, lease or otherwise provide the Non-Personally Identifiable Information or Personally Identifiable Information that you supply to Designbook (or that Designbook generates from any Non-Personally Identifiable Information or Personally Identifiable Information or any other information), other than credit card numbers, social security numbers or any other sensitive financial information, to any third party including, without limitation, as permitted by law to: (a) providers of direct marketing services and applications, including lookup and reference, data enhancement, suppression and validation; (b) e-mail marketers; and (c) direct marketers. The aforementioned third parties may bring selected business, retail, product, service, sale, or other opportunities to you, with or without Designbook endorsement.
you gonna get spammed. ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @11:16AM
I won't notice because I never read my email.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @11:20AM
fuckface.com is apparently available. facefuck.com, unfortunately, is already taken.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @11:25AM
Sure, if you want to buy fuckface.com from a cybersquatter, go ahead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @12:55PM
What about fuckbook? I got spam for them at least twice a week for years in my junk folder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @11:25AM
Back in the '90s after Netscape struck it rich, I remember a wave of startups with names that either began with "Net-" or ended in "-scape". Suing would've been a colossal waste of time and money, so they didn't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @11:37AM
They didn't because they couldn't afford it. Netscape was nowhere near as rich as Facebook.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @11:42AM
Everybody who applies for any trademark should owe Facebook money.
(Score: 5, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday June 06 2015, @11:54AM
Other sites, like Placebook
No, you've got it all wrong. It's a website for promoting the beneficial psychological effects of taking otherwise ineffective sugar pills.
placeboOK.com
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Informative) by GungnirSniper on Saturday June 06 2015, @03:50PM
Back in ye olde tymes, a facebook was a yearbook for incoming college students. [yahoo.com]
So how did Zuck take ownership of a generic term?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]