Out-Law News 1 min. read
06 Jan 2009, 9:23 am
Facebook is one of the world's biggest social networking sites, allowing people to share information, photographs and links with each other.
Power.com claims to allow someone to receive and send information through the site to a number of social networking sites including MySpace, Orkut, MSN and Facebook. A user logs into Power.com and tells it their username and password for each of those sites, allowing the Power.com system to retrieve and post information there automatically.
Facebook claims in its suit that the use of subscribers' Facebook accounts is unauthorised, that the system sends spam to other Facebook users, that the use of the Facebook computer network is unauthorised, and that the system infringes Facebook trade mark rights and copyrights.
Facebook said in its suit that it has a platform by which third party developers can integrate software with Facebook, called Facebook Connect, and that Power.com should use that.
Power.com said in a statement on its website that it is working to create a new version of the site by late January that uses Facebook Connect.
Facebook said in its lawsuit that it did not want third party sites holding username and password information.
"Facebook is dedicated to protecting the privacy and security of its users," it said. "Facebook tightly controls access to its network, and implements a variety of features in order to protect the privacy and security of its users' personal information. One such security measure is the prohibition of soliciting or sharing user login information."
"[Power.com] has knowingly and wilfully disregarded Facebook's protocols and procedures for accessing information stored on Facebook computers and is offering a product that solicits, stores, and uses Facebook login information to access information stored on Facebook computers without authorization and to display Facebook copyrighted material without permission," the lawsuit said.
Facebook's suit said that Power.com chief executive Steven Vachani had told it in December that he would change the way that the site worked and use Facebook Connect within two weeks, which would have been by 26th December.
Facebook said that it received a subsequent email from Vachani saying that it would remove all infringing integration whether or not it had implemented Facebook Connect by 26th December. It said that Vachani then told it that Power.com had taken a "business decision" to continue the integration until it could implement Facebook Connect.
The case also claims that Power.com uses the Facebook trade mark, and that that could confuse people about whether or not it is affiliated to Facebook.
