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''Facebook, Inc. v. Power Ventures, Inc.'' is a lawsuit brought by Facebook in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California alleging that Power Ventures Inc., a third-party platform, collected user information from Facebook and displayed it on their own website. Facebook claimed violations of the CAN-SPAM Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA"), and the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act. According to Facebook, Power Ventures Inc. made copies of Facebook’s website during the process of extracting user information. Facebook argued that this process causes both direct and indirect copyright infringement. In addition, Facebook alleged this process constitutes a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). Finally, Facebook also asserted claims of both state and federal trademark infringement, as well as a claim under California's Unfair Competition Law ("UCL"). Power Ventures Inc. filed a motion to dismiss the case (or in the alternative, a motion for a more definite statement), but Judge Fogel denied the motion. In a counter-claim, Power Ventures Inc. alleged that Facebook engaged in monopolistic and anti-competitive behavior by placing restraints on their ability to manipulate users' Facebook data even when their consent was given. ==Background== N. B. Power Ventures Inc. licensed the domain power.com. At no time was the owner of power.com or the domain name power.com a party to this lawsuit. Power Ventures licensed the domain power.com and used it to create a website that enabled its users to aggregate data about themselves that is otherwise spread across various social networking sites and messaging services, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Myspace, and AOL or Yahoo instant messaging. This aggregation method is embodied in its motto: "all your friends in just one place". Power Ventures wanted to provide a single site for its customers to see all of their friends, to view their status updates or profile pages, and to send messages to multiple friends on multiple sites. Power Ventures intended and planned to enable users to access Facebook profile data on the Power Ventures site.〔Ryan Smith and Thomas F. Zuber, ''(Facebook v. Power Ventures: Facebook Terms of Use Against Scraping )'', LawUpdates.com (Jul. 20, 2009).〕 Facebook allows third parties to create applications that interact with Facebook’s services, as long as these applications follow a standardized set of protocols and procedures. Third-party developers must agree to Facebook’s Developer Terms of Service, the Terms of Use, and other applicable policies.〔Facebook.com, ''(Facebook Developers Platform Policy )'' (Mar. 23, 2010).〕 Also, "if third party websites use the Facebook Connect service, which enables users to 'connect' their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to those third-party websites, they are allowed exchange of proprietary data with third party websites." The litigation focuses on Power Ventures alleged "scraping" of content for and from users on Facebook into Power Ventures interface. Facebook sued claiming violations of copyright, DMCA, CAN-SPAM, and CFFA.〔〔Jason Schultz, ''(Intermediate Copying to Extract Information )'', Cyberlaw Cases (Aug. 31, 2009).〕 Power Ventures and Facebook tried unsuccessfully to work out a deal that allowed Power Ventures to access Facebook’s site, through Facebook Connect. In late December 2008, Power Ventures informed Facebook that it would continue to operate without using Facebook Connect. Power Ventures allegedly continued to "scrape" Facebook’s website, despite technological security measures to block such access.〔 Power Ventures subsequently signed up for its own Facebook account, agreeing to Facebook’s terms of service, then asked its members who were Facebook users to provide their username and password for the limited purpose of gaining access to their profile information and "scraping" their profile data off Facebook. Power Ventures allegedly used this scraped information to solicit other Facebook users to join its site. While Facebook has copyright claims to the proprietary content and design of the website, it does not own a copyright in its users’ profile data.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Facebook, Inc. v. Power Ventures, Inc.」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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