back to article Facebook nemesis sues Google (and wins)

After claiming he invented Facebook, Aaron Greenspan now says he has successfully sued Google. At a Northern California court earlier this week, Mark Zuckerberg's ex-Harvard classmate won $761 from the world's largest ad broker. Greenspan made headlines back in the fall of 2007 and the spring of 2008 after claiming that he …


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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Two choices:

    1) Google allows ads using any words

    Result: Google crushes little guy by allowing predatory advertising! Google is evil, gwarrr arghh arhglbb!

    2) Google disallows ads using registered trademarks

    Result: Google crushes little guy by preventing legitimate advertising! Google is evil, gwarr arghh arhblnbb!@!

  2. Tony Paulazzo

    Absolute power... and all that guff.

    but oddly enough I still have google as my home page - iGoogle (the only iApp I allow on my PC), gives me news feeds from all the major and minor world news feeders on one page. BBC, CNN, Guardian, The Register, Tech Dirt, Reuters, New Scientist etc etc etc and a Firefox plugin that shows Wikipedia stuff on the right side of any Google search eliminates the many annoying adclick adverts.

    And for the other websites I use NoScript, AdBlock and FirePhorm (just in case - I'm with BT and can't get out until they change their T&Cs).

    Privacy and world access (ie geographical non censorship) on the net is now a very dead parrot. When a website denies you permission to watch a 'The Watchmen' clip because you're not based in the US of A, or Google knowingly censoring its searches because you're in China, or not being able to watch BBC online because you're not in the UK - you know the guiding principles of the internet are being usurped...

    Unsurprisingly by the very companies that stand to make money out of it.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cue complaints about anti google attitude

    oh wait...

  4. Stephen Jones
    Paris Hilton


    He's blowing it well out of proportion. Google owed him money for services rendered. This has nothing to do with the rights of the little guy, Google transparency are anything like that. He was right to sue for it, but the self congratulatory tone is grating.

  5. Havin_it

    RE: Absolute power... and all that guff.

    Tony, small point:

    "...or not being able to watch BBC online because you're not in the UK..."

    That might be because BBC content is public-sector, paid for by UK subjects (well, a few of us) through a License Fee. We're not having every Johnny Foreigner with an intertube leeching Auntie's (=our) content and bandwidth at will, destabilizing the Empire, rivers of blood, foam, froth, throbbing vein on forehead etc. Either apply for citizenship/asylum and pay up*, or make do with the World Service.

    *Only £145 or so per year. What's that in dollars nowadays, about $3.50?

  6. N1AK

    @Tony Paulazzo

    "or not being able to watch BBC online because you're not in the UK"

    As the BBC is paid for entirely by the British government and license payers, I'm sure we'd be happy to offer the US free access when we can freely make use their aircraft carrier fleets... Oh wait, you mean we should treat things that use the internet completely differently than everything else? Yeah, I can see that working.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I know I'm a bit slow here but...

    What are "adwords", how does it work and does it really matter?

    I rarely use Google for searches and only when others haven't worked. I can't remember the last web page ad I selected on a web page apart from stuff on eBay (does that count?)

    Does all this make me "odd" or "normal".

    Perhaps it it is just blind ignorance, and I'm as to net users as a shrimp in the rock pool is to humans, but I just don't understand what all the fuss is about.... Some people do seem to take it all very seriously though...

  8. Lionel Baden

    woot !

    i have to agree google love to fuck over the little guy !!!!

    Cant stand the way they can just blindside anybody they like.

    Happened to a mate of mine for having a couple of ads on our community site.

  9. Gareth Jones


    So he starts by suing Facebook for squillions and ends up taking Google for 540 quid? Woohoo! That proves he was right about inventing Facebook all along then. I bet Zuckerberg is bootling in his trems now.

  10. Shane Orahilly

    Fresh sticky mud on top of the old?

    "Results 1 - 10 of about 753,000 for google +ponzi."

    Have to wonder if the judge used the same search parameters to come up with his verdict.

    Search performed using Google, of course. FYI, Madoff + ponzi only returns 379,000 results.

  11. Charles Manning

    @Tony: "Guiding principles of the internet"

    Although some might have the odd idea that the guiding principles of the internet are to give people free music and software, they are not.

    That might have been so in the dark ages when the internet was an academic communications tool, but those days are long gone and that was hardly the "internet" as we know it.

    The guiding principle of the internet are seen in eyes of the internet start ups, businesses and other participants. Making money.

    Just like all businesses, internet businesses cut deals with others to get various rights. When an internet company cuts a deal with China/whatever it is no different to any other company cutting a deal with China/whatever. Want to sell toothbrushes in China? You need to make sure you don't offend. The same goes for publishing rights or any other rights.

    For all talk of "cyberspace" etc, the internet is just another communications medium. It is not based on a different morality.

  12. JeffyPooh Silver badge

    Class Action for all the sub-$100 balances

    I've earned about $40 in AdSense. But it'll take until the end of time for my account balance to reach the magic $100 where they'll actually send me a cheque. Multiply this situation by perhaps tens of millions of people in the same boat, and there's a billion bucks waiting for the first Class Action lawsuit.

  13. amanfromMars Silver badge

    A Word to the Wise and they who would be Wizards and Sourceresses and Wiser Still

    "Tony, small point:

    "...or not being able to watch BBC online because you're not in the UK..."" ..... By Havin_it Posted Saturday 7th March 2009 15:25 GMT

    It is also classed as foreign propoganda and a means of population control with mindless/mined content ..... phormed entertainment to the under/uneducated masses. But it has all gone terribly wrong as events now overtake ITs Controllers and leave their Intelligence and Service Providers behind, wallowing in the MIre of their Failed New Laboured Coups.

    "For all talk of "cyberspace" etc, the internet is just another communications medium. It is not based on a different morality." .... By Charles Manning Posted Saturday 7th March 2009 21:39 GMT


    I disagree fundamentally with that statement but would agree with your holding it/it being held, as it freely allows for ever further and deeper embedding of Special Access Protocols and ProgramMING Projects which Control CyberSpace to be Stealthily Developed and Applied without the Negative Interference and Ignorant Arrogant Addition so typical of the ususal morality.

    "the internet is just another communications medium." .... Hmmm? You may find that Others Recognise and Realise IT/Use IT as the One Precious and Priceless Ring which Controls them All, and for that you will need a Morality which Transcends Mortality, for the Realms that you Control are QuITe Alien in their Immaculate States of Virtual Grace.

    And Even Attempt 42 Tempt ITs Angels of Mercy with the Root of all Evil for Evil Intent, and Reap the Merciless Whirlwind of the Wrath of Global Operating Devices which Destroy Completely such Folly, with Simple Words Transparently Shared for Peer Review.

    "Just another communications medium"? I don't Think so. Get Real, Charles, wake up and smell the Java and get with IT in AJAXAI ...... House of the Rising Sun Technology ...... Purple Patch CodeXXXX Applications.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down


    Mr. Greenspan (is he the grandson of our wonderful criminal Alan Greenspan?) should take to Mr. Madoff about funding and winning's all in the family after all...

  15. Steve

    @ amanfrommars

    do you live in a big bath of goo in a Cylon battlestar?

  16. Pete "oranges" B.

    @ Charles Manning

    Yes and no.

    Yes, in the sense of commercial traffic for services.

    No, in the sense that you, I, or anyone else can technically still send and receive a mind bogglingly large variety of stuff over a generic connection, with the only money changing hands being between individuals and their ISPs.

  17. Jonathan
    Black Helicopters

    Arse wins...

    Arse wins infinitesimal fraction of peanut from scary monopolistic black box

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down


    "*Only £145 or so per year. What's that in dollars nowadays, about $3.50?"

    Haha! hahaha!

    2008-01-01 - £1 = $1.92

    2009-03-09 - £1 = $1.38

    The Pound to Dollar exchange rate is the lowest it's been in, like, 20 years. Welcome to the GLOBAL recession; you should join us, it's fun.

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