Advertisement
  1. SEJ
  2.  ⋅ 
  3. SEO

Google & Kinderstart : As You Shout Into the Woods…

Matt Cutts noted briefly at his blog that Google’s motions to dismiss the 2nd amended complaint case without leave to amend and for sanctions against the plaintiff Kinderstart.com LLC and it’s attorney were granted by the court.

Rewind

Kinderstart.com is a content site that started monetizing the site with Google Adsense in 2003 and fell out of favor with Google in March 2005, which cased traffic to the site to plummet and AdSense revenue to drop by 80%.

Kinderstart.com filed suit on March 06, 2006 against Google. They attempted to make it even a wider spread Class Action suit, but not very much (if any) webmasters jumped in on that.

KinderStart.com, LLC, et al v. Google, Inc. (PDF), C 06-2057 RS, filed March 17, 2006 in the Northern District of California, San Jose Division.

  1. CLASS ACTION
  2. COMPLAINT FOR INJUNCTIVE AND DECLARATORY RELIEF AND DAMAGES
  3. DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL

People had a good laugh back then and called it a nice “link bait”. Social media was just on the rise and “link baiting” was new and the best thing since sliced bread.

The case was already dismissed on July 13, 2006 to nobodies surprise. Also see Eric Goldman’s comments.

Kinderstart obviously wasn’t happy about that and filed a second Amended Complaint in September 2006. Filed 9/1/2006, Case No. C 06-2057 JF (PDF)

  1. SHERMAN ACT SECTION 2: ATTEMPTED MONOPOLIZATION;
  2. SHERMAN ACT SECTION 2: MONOPOLIZATION;
  3. VIOLATION OF LANHAM ACT. SECTION 1125(a): FALSE REPRESENTATIONS;
  4. VIOLATION OF RIGHTS OF FREE SPEECH;
  5. UNFAIR COMPETITION IN VIOLATION OF CALIFORNIA B & P C CODE SECTION 17200; AND
  6. DEFAMATION AND LIBEL

Coverage by Rebecca Tushnet and also again by Eric Goldman.

The second complaint back fired obviously and will make this Linkbait a much more costly campaign. How much exactly remains to be seen. One thing is for certain, a third amended complaint will not follow.

I would be surprised, If anybody is surprised by this 🙂

It was funny when it started, but grew old within a few days back in March already. I made a few thoughtful comments at other people blogs as well and then went on with more important things.

They should have accepted the ruling from July 2006 and let it be. The additional complaint in September was uncalled for and IMO not the brightest idea. Somebody must have mistaken the filing of a complaint with blogging a nice rant mixed with some controversy and conspiracy theory.

An old German saying reads: “Wie man in den Wald hineinruft so kommt es zurück!”, roughly translated to english: “As you shout into the woods is how it comes back”

People didn’t have Google and Computers back in the days, but they already had common sense, something that seems to get lost nowadays from time to time.

Cheers!

Carsten Cumbrowski
Cumbrowski.com – Internet Marketing Resources

Category SEO
ADVERTISEMENT
Carsten Cumbrowski

Carsten Cumbrowski has years of experience in Affiliate Marketing and knows both sides of the business as the Affiliate and ...

Google & Kinderstart : As You Shout Into the Woods…

Subscribe To Our Newsletter.

Conquer your day with daily search marketing news.