Do no evil but looks like Facebook’s new move is not doing so well around the Internet community. Yesterday Facebook decided to file an infringement lawsuit against a website called Teachbook.com just because it has the word “book” in its name! Teachbook.com is a community site for teachers and looks nothing like Facebook. Previously Facebook forced Placebook.com to change their name to Triptrace.com.
Facebook says that if Teachbook and other websites use a name with book as part of their names, the suffix “book” might run the risk of being used as a general term for social media which will affect the value of the established brand.
Teachbook is not happy with the lawsuit. Greg Shrader, managing director of TeachBook said that he was not happy to see Facebook, a multi billion dollar company feeling threatened by Teachbook which is a small enterprise. Teachbook has already filed an official response to the lawsuit brought by Facebook in the court.
There has been some opposition to this lawsuit from other parties which included Aaron Greenspan who claimed to help create Facebook. Greenspan remarked that any firm or site having either “Face” or “Book” in its name can no way hurt an established brand like “FaceBook”. He quoted, “Google is now used as a verb but that has not hurt the company’s brand, instead increased its marketability.”
Greenspan has his own reasons to object to Facebook’s moves. He runs a company called Think Computer which offers a mobile payments app called “FaceCash“. If Facebook were to trademark the word “Face”, that could be trouble for FaceCash. Apple too will object because iPhone 4 uses “FaceTime” as its video call feature.