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An interesting story about former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel’s daughter who is being sued for an alleged assault - she asked “don’t you know who I am? Google me you dumb f–k”, according to TMZ.com.

“In a lawsuit filed yesterday in L.A. County Superior Court, Jaroslaw Jarczok claims he was working security last August at 4:00 AM at PURE Nightclub when Courtenay (Semel) was “quite intoxicated due to alcohol and/or chemical or other substances.” He claims she got all foul-mouthed on him,” TMZ reported.

Many advances in marketing on the Web are the result of spending by the profitable and competitive porn and gambling industries. In today’s SEM Crossfire column, “Porn and Gambling: Canaries in the SEM Coal Mine?,” Frank Watson and Chris Boggs explore recent lawsuits in both industries that might help us again, by pointing out some specific areas for marketers to keep an eye on.

» Full story

Google has reached an agreement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers (AAP), which represented a broad class of authors and publishers to expand online access to in-copyright books and other written materials in the U.S. The publications will come from the library collections participating in Google Book Search.

The agreement was reached after two years of negotiations. The deal includes Google dishing out $125 million to establish the Book Rights Registry, which would resolve an existing class action lawsuit brought by the groups.

If the court approves, the agreement allows:

• More Access to Out-of-Print Books — Generating greater
  exposure for millions of in-copyright works, including hard-to-find
  out-of-print books, by enabling readers in the U.S. to search these
  works and preview them online
• Additional Ways to Purchase Copyrighted Books — Building off publishers’ and authors’ current efforts and further expanding the
  electronic market for copyrighted books in the U.S., by offering users the ability to purchase online access to many in-copyright books
• Institutional Subscriptions to Millions of Books Online –Offering a means for U.S. colleges, universities and other organizations to obtain subscriptions for online access to collections from some of
  the world’s most renowned libraries
• Free Access From U.S. Libraries — Providing free, full-text, online viewing of millions of out-of-print books at designated computers
  in U.S. public and university libraries
• Compensation to Authors and Publishers and Control Over Access to Their Works — Distributing payments earned from online access provided by Google and, prospectively, from similar programs that may be established by other providers, through a newly created independent, not-for-profit Book Rights Registry that will also locate rightsholders, collect and maintain accurate rightsholder information, and provide a way for rightsholders to request inclusion in or exclusion from the project.

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Today, together with the authors, publishers, and libraries, we have been able to make a great leap in this endeavor,” said Sergey Brin, co-founder & president of technology at Google. “While this agreement is a real win-win for all of us, the real victors are all the readers. The tremendous wealth of knowledge that lies within the books of the world will now be at their
fingertips.”

What do you think about the agreement? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Related Reading:
Google SERPs Promoting Google Book Links
Google Courts Book Publishers, Librarians

Google and Yahoo are attempting to avoid an antitrust lawsuit by working with Department of Justice on their search advertising partnership, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Details are vague, but the search engines are willing to put extra measures in place per negotiations with the DOJ in order to get the deal to go through.

Google and Yahoo have already delayed the implementation of the advertising deal, after going on offense in August and September about going through with the deal in October no matter what.

Related Reading:
Senator Kohl Wants Oversight of Google-Yahoo Deal
Yahoo Also Launches Site Defending Search Ad Deal with Google
Yahoo’s Sue Decker Weighs In on the Defense of the Search Ad Deal with Google
Google Launches Facts Site About Yahoo Search Ad Partnership
To Fear or Not to Fear: That is the Question (About the Google-Yahoo Ad Deal)

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Remember when Google and Viacom were friends? Ah, those were the days. But not anymore. Over a year ago, Viacom filed suit against Google for the copyright infringment found on YouTube videos. In the latest plot point in the ongoing saga, U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton has ruled that Google can keep its source code secret, but must hand over user logs for the popular video sharing site.

Viacom says it wanted the code to prove that Google could use it to “purposely” find the content in question. Nice try, Viacom. Google’s code, of course, is a trade secret. But it’s almost a wonder the judge protected the code, because he ruled that Viacom can have access to the user logs. Data to be released includes user names, IP addresses, and videos watched.

Google has often defended its data collection, saying it’s not a threat to privacy. It appears the argument worked a little too well on Judge Stanton.

For a history of the Google-Viacom battle, check out these links:
Google Fights Back in Viacom/YouTube Copyright Suit
Others Join YouTube, Google Copyright Lawsuit
Viacom Would Rather Not Sue, Chief Counsel Claims
Google to Viacom: Don’t Turn YouTube into SueTube

Nikki Catsouras has achieved Internet immortality. She was an 18-year-old college freshman living in California with her parents and two sisters in 2006.

Nikki Catsouras loved to shoot videos on her camera, according to ABC News, and ironically, it a camera would memorialize Nikki’s life and death as a gruesome and macabre joke on the Internet.

Photos of Nikki Catsouras in death are now the top search results in Google. Even Wikipedia has a page dedicated to the gory car crash.

Search engines, in our view, are neither good nor evil. How people use search engines determines whether the engines benefit society.

So when the Nikki Catsouras story broke today, we weren’t surprised. It’s not the first time MySpace or other social media sites have been caught up in seamy stories.

She borrowed the keys to her father’s Porsche 911 Carrera, a car that goes zero to 60 miles an hour in less than five seconds. She had never driven the Porsche before.

According to state highway patrol reports, at approximately 1:45 p.m. last Halloween, Nikki Catsouras was traveling 100 mph on State Route 241, near Lake Forest, Calif., when she clipped another car and lost control, going across lanes over the median and slamming into a concrete tollbooth. She was killed instantly.

“Her head was more or less cut in two and sort of cleaved and then smashed. It’s nothing that anyone should ever have to see,” said Michael Fertik, the founder of ReputationDefender, a company that helps clients such as the Catsouras family remove items from the Internet. The Catsouras family was told they should never see the photos from the scene of the horrendous accident.

As the Catsouras family was grieving for their daughter, the accident scene photos showing Nikki’s mutilated body suddenly appeared on the Internet.

A fake MySpace page was created, which at first looked like a tribute to Catsouras but also led to the horrific photos.

The pictures, taken by California Highway Patrol (CHiPs) officers and e-mailed outside the department, became so prevalent that Lesli Catsouras stopped checking her e-mail. Nikki’s younger sisters were forbidden to use the Internet, and 16-year-old Danielle was taken out of school to be home schooled for fear her peers might confront her with the photos.

A lawsuit against the California Highway Patrol for allegedly releasing the accident scene pictures has been filed by the parents of Nikki Catsouras.

Of course, not only search engines and the Internet spread stories like this one. ABC News has a Primetime special on the Nikki Catsouras story tonight.

Google search results photos and images after the jump:

Click to read the rest of this post…

Apparently Chicago-based firm LimitNone is suing Google for misappropriating the trade secrets of its “gMove” application that Google allegedly used to develop its Email Uploader.

The two-count lawsuit also claims Google violated Illinois’ consumer fraud laws.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday by Kelley Drye & Warren LLP - “the same commercial litigation group which challenged Google over the company’s online advertising system,” SlashDot noted.

Details of the suit can be found in the press release sent out by the law firm.

“Its shocking that Google would engage in this type of conduct; particularly when the other party is a small software company that built its business specifically to help Google sell its existing and future products,” said Susan Greenspon of the Chicago office of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP. “People need to realize that Google is just another large publicly traded corporation that will do whatever it takes to increase its revenue, even if that means risking its reputation among developers.”

The lawsuit alleges that in February, 2007 Google launched a suite of business software applications called Google Apps. The software was designed to challenge Microsoft’s Office suite of products (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.) which has 500 million users. According to the lawsuit, unlike Microsoft’s products, Google Apps does not require a customer to download software onto his or her computer. Instead, Google Apps is a collection of web-based applications that reside on Google’s servers. The lawsuit alleges at the time of its launch, however, Google did not have a workable way to enable Microsoft Outlook users to easily migrate their email (called gMail), calendar and contacts to Google’s platform.

In early 2007, LimitNone developed just such a product to solve this problem and in March confidentially demonstrated the migration tool to senior members of the Google Apps team. According to the complaint, the Google Apps executives invited LimitNone to be part of the Google Enterprise Professional Program, to further develop and market the tool, and assured the company that it had no intention of developing a similar product.

The lawsuit alleges the tool, which was originally named “MY GRATE” was later renamed, at Google’s insistence, “gMove”. Though the product retailed for $29, Google asked that LimitNone sell it to Google’s customers for $19.

The lawsuit claims that throughout the remainder of 2007, Google promoted LimitNone and gMove and repeatedly told company executives that it would not develop a competing product. Google highlighted gMove on its website and introduced the company to its largest customers (including Proctor & Gamble, Intel, Orbitz, Morgan Stanley and Toys “R” Us). In addition, Google asked LimitNone to present the product to its technical sales personnel, to meet with the Google Open Source team and to continuously share updated versions of gMove.

In December, 2007, as detailed in the complaint Google told LimitNone that it would, in fact, be releasing a competing product and giving it away for free to its “Premier” customers. The lawsuit alleges that Google’s product, called “Google Email Uploader” steals gMove’s look, feel and functionality.

According to the complaint, Scott McMullan, a senior executive in the Google Apps partner program, told LimitNone that the potential for 50 million users – was “just too big to come from someone else” and that “this is how Google operates.”

A New York Supreme Court judge has tossed out a $100 million lawsuit against the ex-employees a doctor blames for associating his name online with hard-core porn Web sites - and creating his own obsession with Googling his name, according to the New York Post.

SEW Expert Chris Boggs has written about the benefits of Googling your name in “Confessions of an Online Reputation Management Junkie.” But Chris never warned readers of the hazards. It may be an incurable disease.

The three ex-employees sued Dr. Arden Kaisman for sexual harassment last year. Since then, Google searches under his name lead to hundreds of raunchy Web sites.

Dr. Kaisman claimed the trio and others “conspired” to have his name linked to the porn sites, and that the anesthesiologist has lost business and developed a strange form of mental distress as a result.

“I find myself obsessed with ‘Googling’ my name,” Dr. Kaisman said. “The Internet, the great information equalizer, has been corrupted to hurt me. . . . I’m told I have an ‘incurable Internet disease.’ “

State Supreme Court Justice Jane Solomon didn’t buy Dr. Kaisman’s diagnosis and said there’s no evidence the three former employees are linked to the postings.

Even if there was, Kaisman couldn’t sue over having his name linked to pornography. It seems the women complained about - and Kaisman has admitted to - e-mailing employees “sexually explicit images.”

Kaisman’s lawyer, Sidney Segall, said there’s a big difference between the types of e-mails his client was sending and the types of sites he’s now linked to.

Solomon said there are “qualitative differences” between the sites and Kaisman’s e-mails, but ruled in favor of the employees.

In a series of letters, Carl Icahn has been giving Yahoo’s Board of Directors a hard time about a severance plan that would be enacted if a “Change of Control” occurred at the company. He claims the plan would would cost $2.4 billion, making an acquisition or change of board of directors very costly.

But Yahoo has filed an FAQ with the SEC defending the severance plan and attempting to explain why the $2.4 billion number is unreliable.

• The severance plan would only take place if a Change of Control occurs.
• Voting in Carl Icahn’s board at the shareholders meeting would trigger the plan, and the closing of an acquisition deal with Microsoft would trigger the plan.
• Yahoo cannot retract the plan until 30 days after the abandonment of a potential Change of Control, including an announcement of Change of Control. Essentially, Icahn himself made a termination of the severance impossible by announcing the proxy board so soon after Microsoft abandoned its bid.
• Yahoo’s compensation consultant did not call the severance plan “nuts.” He called the idea that 100% of Yahoo employees would use the plan “nuts.”
• Icahn got the $2.4 billion number from a shareholder lawsuit filed in the state of Michigan. Using the same assumptions as the lawsuit, Yahoo says the number would be closer to $845 million if 30% left and $514 million if 15% left. This is all based on a $35 per share stock price. Icahn is urging Yahoo to sell for $34.375.
• The plan would be enacted for employees who were fired without Cause or those who left for Good Reason. Cause is used by companies to fire employees who aren’t doing their job. Good Reason could be used if an employees salary or bonus target was decreased substantially, if they were relocated further than 35 miles from their current office, or if there was a big change in an employee’s duties and responsibilities.

And what about the “poison pill” characterization by Icahn? Here’s what the FAQ had to say about that:

The term “poison pill” is widely understood to refer to stockholder rights plans which work by allowing existing stockholders (except the acquiror) to buy more shares at a substantial discount to the then current share price of the target if the acquiror purchases above a specified level of stock of the target (usually 15%) without the consent of the target’s board. As a result, this substantially dilutes the acquiror’s holdings and makes the acquisition much more expensive. The Plan, which is designed to preserve the value of Yahoo! during a period of uncertainty, has no such purpose or effect.

What do you think of Yahoo’s FAQ? Are they really looking out for their employees or are they trying to prevent an acquisition or a proxy board takeover? Sound off in the comments!