Jenzabar Finds 'Expert Witness' Who Will Claim Google Relies On Metatags, Despite Google Saying It Does Not
from the good-luck-there dept
It's been widely known for 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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Filed Under: expert witness, frank farance, ling chai, metatags
Companies: google, jenzabar
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Hmmm, wonder why Google doesn't like to talk about its algorithm? Is it because it considers that its IP and it wants to protect it since 100% of Google's value is based on its IP?
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(In the event the tone of this comment is question, I will clarify and say that it is most definitely SARCASM.)
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Jon Bane's sarcasm
With regard to Google, their "reputation and the quality of their product" are almost exclusive rooted in their IP. Unless you use Google products because of the clean aesthetic of the Google page, or your curiosity about the current Google Doodle.
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Re: Jon Bane's sarcasm
ideas, patents, copyrights...all great shit but useless without execution that serves a need out there in the marketplace somewhere. "ip" doesn't do that by itself. hence google's strength in their core product: search.
@ mr. bane, :thumbsup:
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I am assuming you are trying to point hypocrisy fingers here, but it's not at all the same, and it's not about IP laws. Google is not broadcasting their algorithm as content and then saying "but no, it's still ours, you can't use it because of legal limitations" - they are keeping it a good ol' fashioned secret, which is the only "real" type of intellectual "property"
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P.S. Ideas can't be owned, jackass.
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Case in point:
My sister has a cookie shop, she calls here flag ship her 'secret recipe', which is a trade secret, because she wont tell anyone.
Does she own this as IP? NO. Because my other sister, my aunts, and any female in my family know the recipe, and its from some ages old PD cook book. The public doesn't know that, so its still a trade secret, but not IP.
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Firstly, the reverse engineering of a trade secret by another party is totally legal - if someone works out the Coca Cola formula, they can start making it (except for all that other stuff to do with importing coca leaves but that is unrelated to this discussion)
Secondly, "under most trade secret regimes, a trade secret is not deemed to exist unless its purported holder takes reasonable steps to maintain its secrecy." [wikipedia]
Trade secret laws are about preventing industrial espionage and allowing for the enforcement of NDAs and NCAs. You are basically saying "we are keeping this a secret". With a patent, you are saying "this isn't a secret, but you still aren't allowed to use it"
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To get a patent, you have to spell it out to the world which is in contrast to any kind of secret, including trade secret.
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"There's a bit of (read: a lot of) difference between the type of IP generally criticized here on TechDirt and a trade secret"
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Re: Fail
Do you stop using Google?
No, because it's familiar and well branded. Keeping the algorithm secret now only serves the purpose of protecting you, the consumer.
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Any particular reason why you're making that assumption? Or was that just a theoretical question?
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Now after you learned about google bombing, tell me if it's a good idea that the world know about how google's algorithm works and EVERY WEBSITE tries to google bomb itself.
Now it's not that good of an idea for google to discuss their algorithm anymore isn't it?
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Subpoena
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Re: Subpoena
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yes, you do
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't."
"No, you don't."
"Yes, I do!"
I keep thinking of that every time I hear this "we don't use metatags" "yes, you do" nonsense.
P.S. I still put metatags on my pages, just in case Google or someone ever goes back to using them.
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Experiment Time
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tech expert
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Secrets!
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How exactly is this a trademark violation
Think google needs to make a blacklist for these company's that have an issue with this. Just don't display them at all. Or is that another trademark violation because that string of characters is in a filter?
Sue the guy with money is getting old.
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Definition
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meta tags - so what
How is the use of a trademarked name in a metatag any different than use of same in regular text, say an editorial, product review, blog, etc? Attempting to silence your critics is nothing new, and I thought that the use of trademark in editorial, product review, blog, etc has been well established in the (US) courts. This attempt to attack search indexing via metatag seems to be just another vector in the same failed attempt to silence your critics.
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He says Google indexes and uses metatags. This is absolutely true. Google uses at the very least the description metatag (although not for ranking purposes it seems). What they don't use is the keyword metatag. And it doesn't appear that they ever used the keyword metatag. if you read through the affidavit, he never says they use the keywords metatag. He does use the word keyword, but it seems like more of a general use (i.e., how many times the search term shows up on the page).
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Is Google marketing a similar product under the same name? I dont think so. There is no confusion for the potential customer here. This is a blatant attempt at silencing your critic.
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Trade Secrets are covered by IP Law
The cookie shop analogy fails the first bullet point below in that it is reasonably ascertainable by others (assuming it is a published cookbook and not some collection of index cards your grandma kept).
If it was the latter the question would then come down to if you made the proper efforts to keep it secret.
Most states have adopted some form of the Uniform Trade Secret Act (UTSA). The UTSA sought to provide some consistency in trade secret law that, until recently, was protected only by state laws. The Act defines a trade secret as:
"..information, including a formula, pattern,compilation, program, device, method, technique, or process that:
(a) Derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by, other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use; and
(b) Is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy."
When you have information that has economic value as a result of its secrecy and you use reasonable efforts to keep it secret, you have a trade secret. There is no registration of trade secrets.
There is now also federal protection of trade secrets under 18 USC 1832 that defines and protects trade secret use, copying and theft in similar fashion to the UTSA.
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Re: Trade Secrets are covered by IP Law
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Half the argument on this page was over who called who a jackass...because it's impossible to actually KNOW. There's gotta be a better way to do this.
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Is Google marketing a similar product under the same name? I dont think so. There is no confusion for the potential customer here. This is a blatant attempt at silencing your critic.
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