Techdirt. Stories filed under "metatags" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "metatags"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:30:00 PST Jenzabar Finds 'Expert Witness' Who Will Claim Google Relies On Metatags, Despite Google Saying It Does Not Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091117/0835176963.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091117/0835176963.shtml years that Google does not use metatag description comments in ranking its search results. Indeed, this simple fact is part of what made Google more reliable than other search engines, since many website owners used fake metatags to "optimize" their results in search engines. While this was quite obvious for many years, Google had never publicly admitted it (it doesn't like to talk about its algorithm) until just a few months ago. Still, the company was just confirming exactly what was widely known for the better part of a decade or so.

And yet, for years, people would bring trademark infringement lawsuits, insisting that metatags represent some sort of trademark violation. In one recent case, that we've discussed, the CEO of software company Jenzabar, Ling Chai, has sued the makers of a documentary about the Tiananmen Square uprising. Chai had been involved in the uprising and doesn't like how the filmmakers portrayed her role. The filmmakers, on their website, mention that Chai works for Jenzabar, and included the word "Jenzabar" in the metatags, which Jenzabar insists violates its trademarks.

The documentary makers brought on Public Citizen lawyer Paul Alan Levy, who noted in a blog post the simple fact that even Google says it does not rely on metatags, and in response, Jenzabar tried to block his being brought into the case, by saying that Levy's pointing to the Google blog post was hearsay.

Now, the company has gone even further. It's found an "expert witness" who will claim that metatags do, in fact, influence Google results, even as the company itself insists they don't. The guy in question, Frank Farance, claims in his affidavit that "metatags are used by every Web search engine to determine search results and rankings." It's not clear how he has expertise in this particular realm or how he knows that Google uses metatags when pretty much everyone in the space has known for years it does not and Google itself has publicly denied using metatags to rank results.

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]]> good-luck-there http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091117/0835176963 Mon, 9 Nov 2009 12:14:23 PST Jenzabar Says That Google Blog Post Is 'Hearsay', Not Official Google Statement Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091106/0339376831.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091106/0339376831.shtml abuse trademark law to stifle criticism of that company's founder and CEO (who, earlier in her life, was famous for "leading" part of the student uprising in Tiananmen Square). She was upset at the makers of a documentary film that was somewhat critical of her, and she tried to use trademark law against them, after an attempt at defamation failed. There is simply no trademark violation at all in this situation... but it is a company with lots of cash suing some independent documentary film makers, so it has all the appearances of filing a lawsuit just to cause trouble for the filmmakers.

Our posts were based on some blog posts by Public Citizen, criticizing Jenzabar and its founder/CEO Ling Chai. Rather than recognizing that it's going too far, Jenzabar apparently decided to go on the attack. Public Citizen's Paul Alan Levy alerts us to the news that Chai and Jenzabar are now claiming that Public Citizen's blogging about the case is illegal.

Specifically, the complaint from Jenzabar is that Levy pointing out that Google has stated that it does not use metatags in its search algorithms is not admissible and will "cause prejudice," because it is not an official statement from Google. That, of course, is silly. Google has made it clear for a while that it doesn't use metatags, but this particular announcement came from Google's Matt Cutts (disclaimer: an acquaintance/friend of mine) and was on Google's official blog, and Matt regularly speaks for Google on these sorts of issues. Yet, Jenzabar claims that it's "hearsay." That seems like a pretty difficult position to take. Jenzabar really wants to keep insisting that Google uses metatags, even as Google is making clear it does not? And it wants to force the court to censor blog posts to keep living in that fantasy world? Good luck with that...

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]]> good-luck-with-that http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091106/0339376831 Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:48:00 PDT Is It Too Much To Expect Judges In Tech Related Cases To Understand Tech? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090917/0225446219.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090917/0225446219.shtml very questionable statements. In this particular case, a judge declared that because a specific phrase ("spoiled brats") was not found in the metatags of a website, someone who searched on that phrase "would likely not encounter" the page in question. Yes, the actual terms did appear on the page itself -- just not in the metatags. As Goldman notes:
What??? Putting aside the fact that the metatags were ignored by many of the search engines even at the relevant time (back in the late 1990s), this is a backwards way of assessing site visibility for the search term "Spoiled Brats." So what if the term Spoiled Brats wasn't in the metatags if the term was on the page?
Once again, this raises questions about how those who are technically illiterate on specific subjects are able to make rulings where a basic understanding of how the tech works could make a pretty big difference on how a judgment comes out.

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]]> just-saying... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090917/0225446219 Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:31:38 PDT MLM Company Accuses Blogging Critic Of Trademark Infringement Over Metatag Usage Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090914/0426386183.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090914/0426386183.shtml threatening a critical blogger for the sin of mentioning the company name in metatags. Well, actually, they threatened him over a lot more in their legal nastygram to the blogger's domain registrar. However, when the good folks at The Consumerist asked MonaVie for clarification, the company's lawyer claimed that the original letter was from "a new person working in our compliance department" who apparently went a bit too far. But, that the company still felt the use in metatags was a violation of trademarks. That seems hard to believe for a variety of reasons, as no moron in a hurry would confuse a blog critical of MonaVie with the company itself. This certainly sounds like an abuse of trademark law in an attempt to stifle speech.

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]]> good-luck-there http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090914/0426386183