Marc's Voice

Yah gotta love precedent test cases

The recent counter lawsuit by Power.com is a key event in out on-going battle for user’s rights.  Power claims that Facebook will not let them export user’s data - and they’re right.

There have been similar precedent text cases that have been squashed early on, so we were never able to resolve key issues.

We’re waiting for precedent cases on the GPL license and MySQL’s dual-license approach.

We never got to air the issues of PVRs (otherwise known as TiVO boxes) to record and jump over ads - as the Replay lawsuit was shut down early on.

So with excitement, anticipation and “how long can I hold my breath” - I eagerly await the outcome of the lawsuit that Power.com just filed - against Facebook.

This is the main reason why Joseph Smarr and myself created the “Bill of Rights for users of Social media”.

This has been the reason why why, despite continued good things, support for OpenID and general innovation - Facebook is still being criticized for their TOS (terms of service) and general ‘walled garden’ approach.

But it took a venture capital funded company to afford to pay for the lawsuit that has brought this issue to a precipice.  Who else can afford to ‘fight these fights’?  I certainly can’t!

But I support them 1,000,000,000,000%!

Go for it!

Of course, as Jason Kincaid points out - what Facebook is doing may not be illegal as everyone agrees to the Facebook TOS when they sign up, but all the more onerous of them

It reminds me when I asked John Doerr about governance, ethics and the payoffs going on - with MacroMind’s board.  He says to me “didn’t you read the new bylaws we passed?”