Bev Stayart Loses Yet Another Battle Against Levitra, Cialis And Search Engine Results

from the knocking-the-wall-down,-one-head-on-collision-at-a-time dept

Fri, Mar 8th 2013 5:32pm — Tim Cushing

Bev Stayart, tireless bringer of lawsuits against various search engines for their supposed besmirchment of her good name by placing it next to words like "Levitra," "Cialis," and various porn-related ads, has batted a solid .000 thus far in her legal career.

In 2009, she sued Yahoo! for violating the trademark on her name (no. really.) with its search results, which often produced listings for porn sites and malware. (She, or her legal counsel/husband, also found time to threaten Techdirt with a lawsuit if it didn't remove certain comments on the original post. Techdirt didn't and the lawsuit failed to materialize.) This suit was dismissed later that year, with the court denying her request to refile.

So, Stayart tried a different tack, suing Yahoo! for violating her "privacy rights." This suit was also tossed. In between filing suits against Yahoo! and having them tossed, Stayart filed another "pissed-off-at-search-engines" suit against Google, this time because her name seemed inextricably linked with Levitra in Google's suggestion box. This suit was dismissed as well, as she again failed to prove that her name was a marketable term eligible for trademark protection. All the while, the obvious solution has continued to elude her --- stop suing and mentioning porn, malware and Levitra in your lawsuits and your name might stop being connected with those terms by search engine algorithms.

The latest court decision keeps her hitless string intact, again finding in favor of Google. Stayart's latest angle was to claim Google "misappropriated" her name because (mostly thanks to her legal efforts), "bev stayart levitra" remains a top search suggestion.

On Wednesday, however, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals tossed her yet another loss in her lawsuit against Google, upholding a decision made by a district court in 2011. In the appellate case, Stayart argued that her rights under Wisconsin's right to privacy laws had been violated under §995.50(2)(b).

"The use, for advertising purposes or for purposes of trade, of the name, portrait or picture of any living person, without having first obtained the written consent of the person or, if the person is a minor, of his or her parent or guardian" constitutes an invasion of privacy, the law states.

But the Court disagreed.

"Stayart has not articulated a set of facts that can plausibly lead to relief under Wisconsin's misappropriation laws," the court wrote (PDF).

In fact, the court cited her own previous case against Yahoo!, in which that court found that there had to be a "substantial rather than an incidental connection between the use and the defendant's commercial purpose."

Many have tried but very few have proven (even in friendlier courts) that search engine algorithms just "have it in" for some people, linking them with ED drugs, porn, malware, Russian gang activity, etc. These many "victims" all share the same self-destructive tendency to file and refile lawsuits, with each filing further cementing the link between their names and the terms they'd rather not have connected with them.

But this lesson remains lost on Stayart. It looks like she's ready to step up to the plate again, in hopes of finally getting on base.

Stayart called Ars back, and said that she vehemently disagrees with the decision, and is considering appealing the case to the United States Supreme Court, as well as other suits. However, she noted that her counsel (also, her husband) will make those decisions.

She adds that she feels the decision was "economically-based" and favored the "one percent." I'm really not sure exactly WHY she feels this way, but I'm sure the future will be full of opportunities for her to explain herself. And when the legal paper starts flying again, Stayart will find herself relentlessly pursued across various search engines by her old nemeses, Levitra and Cialis.

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Filed Under: associated, bev stayart, lawsuits, privacy rights, search engines
Companies: google, yahoo

32 Comments

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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 8 Mar 2013 @ 5:58pm

Here we go again
Good thing "skank" is an unincorporated entity.
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S. T. Stone, 8 Mar 2013 @ 6:04pm

Re: Here we go again
Okay, that remark seems unfair.

Sure, Miss Stayart seems a little mentally deficient, and God knows you could easily describe her as �misinformed�, not to mention �lawsuit-happy� and �ignorant of her own plight�. All those terms seem to apply to Miss Stayart.

But �skank�? Come on, you don�t anything about her beyond her proclivity for filing frivolous lawsuits that do more to keep her name exactly where she doesn�t want it than to separate her name from those evil, evil search terms.

Taking frivolous legal action against a company over a situation that has now largely become a problem of her own making doesn�t make a woman a skank.

It just makes said woman a dumbass.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Mar 2013 @ 6:35pm

Bev, I'll Save You!
Bev Stayart, Goat Dismemberment Expert
Bev Stayart, Supreme Commander of Phlegm
Bev Stayart, Resident Tree Whisperer
Bev Stayart, Abstract Art Abuser
Bev Stayart, Destroyer of Worlds
Bev Stayart, Dyslexic Sycophant
Bev Stayart, Prejudiced Against People With Brown Eyes
Bev Stayart, Allergic to Hair
Bev Stayart, Functionally Illiterate
Bev Stayart, Hates Boxes

You're welcome, my bill is in the mail.
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 8 Mar 2013 @ 6:38pm

I don't understand why they keep attaching my name to these things. I keep posting my name next to them over and over in my filings and it never gets any better!
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DOlz, 8 Mar 2013 @ 6:42pm

It's amazing
It's amazing that people can keep shooting themselves in the foot and never figure out how the bullets got there.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Mar 2013 @ 7:06pm

Bev Stayart, Goat Dismemberment Expert
I searched for Bev Stayart, Goat Dismemberment Expert and only found it here. This is terrible, I think that if Bev Stayart is a Goat Dismemberment Expert, then everyone should be able to seek out her expertise. Please help this poor woman!!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Mar 2013 @ 7:10pm

It's worse than that. You are about to be unemployed from your job...
Ms. Bev Stayart, I think we all recognize the importance of dismembering goats in an expert fashion. As a premier Goat Dismemberment Expert,everyone should be able to seek out your expertise. I call upon the techdirt community to right this wrong, and help this poor woman in reestablishing herself as a goat dismembering expert. To your browser people!!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Mar 2013 @ 7:11pm

Perspective, comma, different
Ms. Stayart is missing an opportunity for personal revenue enhancement courtesy of Google et al. If, despite being commanded to cease and desist, Google (and other search engines) insist upon continuing to associate her name with That Which is Naughty or Distasteful, she should endeavor to trademark her name (which shouldn't be much of a stretch, given that she's obviously already using it for commercial purposes on the Internet), and concentrate on licensing its use for branding products and services that fall under the rubric of That Which is Naughty or Distasteful. Duh?

When Google hands one lemons, one should endeavor to improve the quality of the lemonade, no? Maybe she should fire her putative "legal counsel" and hire a business adviser in his stead.

(Has this suggestion been made before? If so, apologies. If not, why?)
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Mar 2013 @ 7:15pm

Re: Bev, I'll Save You!
You forgot:

Bev Stayart, one percent
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gyffes, 8 Mar 2013 @ 7:22pm

Bev Stayart uses Levitra?
I'd never have known had I not heard of these lawsuits.

I wonder what Bev Stayart's opinion of Cialis is? Does Bev Stayart think Levitra and Cialias are in common use in the porn industry? Does Bev Stayart work in the porn industry? Is that how Bev Stayart knows about Levitra, Cialis, and all those porn stars?

_I_ only know these things thanks to Bev Stayart's endless lawsuits concerning Levitra and Cialias. Oh, and I like porn.

Wonder if Bev Stayart does?
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Mar 2013 @ 9:08pm

An argument claiming Google favours the one percent? I think we just found out_of_the_blue's long-lost living relative, lads...
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Trails (profile), 8 Mar 2013 @ 9:14pm

Re: Bev Stayart uses Levitra?
I heard she's an expert at goat dismemberment.
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alanbleiweiss (profile), 9 Mar 2013 @ 12:27am

1. She's the CFO & Director of Business Development at Stayart Law Offices.

2. She's attempted various rookie Online Reputation efforts - hopefully without actually paying someone for those efforts. Alternately, someone looking to annoy her did that work just for kicks. I doubt that's the case because bevstayart.com bevstayart.org and bevstayart.net all register to the same IP block.

3. her own sites as well as her VisualCV profile contain content referring to her suing AdultFriendFinder for misappropriation of her name. Heck- that little tidbit is even in the meta Description that shows up in Google results for her name.

Why would it show up in Google? Because the VisualVC site has no meta Description. So Google grabbed the OPENING SENTENCE from the profile SHE (or someone who said "trust us") set up. Because I guess, that was, at some point, one of the things she was showing up for specifically. And now she's in "counter-warfare" mode.

Which is, of course, like filing more such lawsuits, just throwing fuel on the overall fire.
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alanbleiweiss (profile), 9 Mar 2013 @ 12:28am

Re:
crap wish there was an "EDIT" option here. MIKE! We need an "edit" option for the little mistakes we make. "VisualCV" not "VisualVC"...
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PlayNicely, 9 Mar 2013 @ 2:10am

There is a kind of professional who tends to think that every problem can be solved by applying the own profession's toolset. This is what "if all you've got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" is about.

This legal professional seems to be under the false impression, that the (perceived) problem of being associated with unpleasant things by search engines must have a legal solution.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Mar 2013 @ 2:16am

Re: Re:
An edit button is too easily abused. Once a comment has been posted people can start responding, and therefore is should no be changed without a history of the change being visible.
Otherwise think of the fun the trolls could have by editing a post to try and make responders look stupid.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Mar 2013 @ 7:42am

Re: Re: Re:
Make the "edit" button only capable of adding text?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Mar 2013 @ 7:44am

Re:
... and a sense of entitlement, they deserve special treatment because they are "somebody".
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bubba, 9 Mar 2013 @ 8:01am

Stayart Law Offices
Is this the Stayarts that funded all those child molestation videos? I'm not sure, so why would they open their own law firm I thought they were all in prison? And the llama raping? These must be different people, I guess...such is the troublesome nature of the internet...
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gorehound (profile), 9 Mar 2013 @ 10:32am

Re: Bev Stayart, Goat Dismemberment Expert
LOL !

You just made me think naughty thoughts about what she might do with all those Goat Heads !
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Mar 2013 @ 1:00pm

Re: Re: Bev Stayart uses Levitra?
That's where the Levitra comes in... you'll never guess what she uses to dismember them.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Mar 2013 @ 5:51pm

Re: Stayart Law Offices
Suppose it could be worse. What if that godless attention whore, ootb, were to show up and start commenting on Bev Stayart, too? Why, she could possibly show up under with those search terms, too!
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apauld (profile), 10 Mar 2013 @ 12:40pm

Re: Perspective, comma, different
Her legal counsel is apparently her husband, Gregory Stayart.
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John Fenderson (profile), 10 Mar 2013 @ 1:18pm

Re: Re: Re:
When I ran a popular blog, this was my concern as well. My compromise position was to allow comments to be edited freely up until someone replied to it, then editing was disallowed.
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nasch (profile), 10 Mar 2013 @ 5:23pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
My compromise position was to allow comments to be edited freely up until someone replied to it, then editing was disallowed.

Around here many people don't use the reply link, so better to only allow edits to add text. Then again, people have been asking for edit capability for years, so I wouldn't hold your breath. :-)
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Bev Stayart smelly cunt, 10 Mar 2013 @ 9:05pm

Bev Stayart smelly cunt
Bev Stayart smelly cunt. There, I'm helping her get rid of the Levitra and Cialis references. $50,000 please for SEO.
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 11 Mar 2013 @ 3:16am

Re: Re: Bev Stayart uses Levitra?
And I heard that she hates boxes with a passion.
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Ninja (profile), 11 Mar 2013 @ 4:30am

I'm not sure which is greater here: her failure to understand how the fuck search engines work or Techdirt (and everybody else who did it) reporting it and making her name even more associated with the terms she doesn't like.

I'll provide some contribution to this by quoting the impossibly funny Ac above:

Bev Stayart, Goat Dismemberment Expert
Bev Stayart, Supreme Commander of Phlegm
Bev Stayart, Resident Tree Whisperer
Bev Stayart, Abstract Art Abuser
Bev Stayart, Destroyer of Worlds
Bev Stayart, Dyslexic Sycophant
Bev Stayart, Prejudiced Against People With Brown Eyes
Bev Stayart, Allergic to Hair
Bev Stayart, Functionally Illiterate
Bev Stayart, Hates Boxes

And adding the terms Levitra, Cialis, Google and Yahoo just for the heck of it. =D
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Mar 2013 @ 9:03am

Bev Stayart = sleepless Porn Queen
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Mar 2013 @ 9:27am

Bev Stayart needs Levitra
While I had heard of this twat before and laughed it off as "never gonna work" but this latest story has inspired me. Let's make sure her name never gets disconnected to Levitra and is always the top result

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=bev+stayart+levitra
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mermaldad (profile), 11 Mar 2013 @ 7:36pm

Ahh, Bev
My 2013 is so much better now that Bev has appeared in it. She never ceases to amuse me. Some of the other commenters seem to want to associate new terms with her name. However, I am confident that she would be able to do so without any outside help.
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Martin Thomas (profile), 14 Mar 2013 @ 8:14am

I just searched Google for 'bev stayart' and the suggested searches included:

beverly stayart yahoo
beverly stayart google

They are clearly using her name to promote themselves!
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