Again? Wal-Mart's Straight Talk 'Unlimited' Mobile Data Plan Actually Quite Limited

from the that's-not-straight-talk dept

And I thought the days of companies claiming "unlimited" data plans when they really were very very limited had died out after Verizon Wireless got fined and started backing away from claiming "unlimited" data for plans that were actually quite limited. However, with Walmart teaming up with TracFone to offer the misleadingly-named "Straight Talk" mobile phone service, some are noticing the return of very limited mobile data offers advertised as "unlimited." As is pointed out in that link, beyond simply being flat-out wrong and more than a bit deceiving, it's pretty ridiculous for a brand called "Straight Talk" to lie in its advertising, and hide the details in the very very fine print.

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Wal-Mart Abusing Trademark Law To Try To Shut Down Union Website

from the not-a-fan-of-free-speech-apparently dept

Over the years, we've seen a ton of lawsuits against so-called "gripes" sites: people who set up a site because they feel wronged by a company. Company lawyers will often try to bully such sites, and claim that they're a trademark violations, especially when they use a name like BigCompanySucks.com. The big companies almost always lose such lawsuits. That's because those sites are obviously not from the company itself and don't cause any sort of consumer "confusion" over who runs the sites. Earlier this year, we heard that lawyers were finally starting to recognize that suing gripes sites was not a good idea. First, you would almost certainly lose. But more importantly, you'd end up drawing a lot more attention to the gripes sites. However, it certainly looks like there are a bunch of folks who have not gotten the message. Soon after that article, we saw Goldman Sachs go after a gripes site, and the same story played out again. Lots more attention to the gripes site, and the all-powerful Goldman Sachs eventually forced to back down.

And yet, it keeps happening.

The latest such story takes place up in Canada, and rather than a traditional disgruntled customer or ex-employee, the gripes site in question is from a union.Michael Scott points us to the news that Wal-Mart is trying to shut down a union website using quite a creative interpretation of trademark law, to suggest it blocks out all sorts of stuff it does not:

They want the court to order the union:

• to refrain from using the names Wal-Mart or Walmart as a trademark alone, or with other indicia, in any form or format
• not to use the expressions "Walmart Workers Canada" or "Union for Walmart Workers" in any form or format
• not to use the expression "Get respect. Live better." or any other expression which constitutes a play on Wal-Mart's trademarked slogan "Save money. Live better"
• not to use photos or images of WalMart employees or people purporting to be such employees
• not to use an oval, circular or semi-circular design similar to the Spark Design that includes spokes or figures in association with trademark Walmart in any form or format
• to take down the website www.walmartworkerscanada.ca

Pretty much all of those requests seem like very questionable attempts to censor and silence organizing workers, rather than any legitimate attempt to protect trademarks against confusing use in commerce. And, of course, in doing so, all Wal-Mart is doing is drawing a lot more attention to these union claims... and to the fact that Wal-Mart appears to be acting like a big bully.

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Chinese Company Sues American Retailers For Selling 'Knockoffs'

from the yes,-read-that-again dept

Jake points us to a story that (as Jake notes) makes you read the headline twice to make sure you got it right: Chinese Company Sues in U.S. to Block "Knockoff". It's not really "knockoffs" that they're suing over. It's a patent infringement claim from Changzhou Asian Endergonic Electronic Technology Co., which is upset that Best Buy, Wal-Mart and some other retailers are selling a competitors' dashboard mount that it claims is covered by its own patent.

Now, there are a bunch of points worth discussing here. First, apparently this is the first such case of a Chinese company (based in China) suing in the US over a patent infringement claim (a claim that really surprises me). Considering the long history of China copying (blatantly) American products and then reselling them, it's really quite fascinating to see a Chinese company now complain about the "reverse." Of course, as we've been highlighting recently, there's been a big push in China to build up a belief in patents. It seems this firm has already learned the basics of the American patent system: it's suing in Texas, of course!

The other odd thing about this case is filing the lawsuit against the retailers. The company is also suing the manufacturer (another Chinese company) which makes sense, but I've never understood why going after the retailer makes sense. Best Buy, Wal-Mart and others shouldn't need to investigate every product they sell to determine whether it violates someone else's patents. Let that be handled between vendors. Dragging the retailers into the lawsuit is just a waste of resources.

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Why Does Wal-Mart Need A 3,379-Word Terms Of Use For Its Twitter Account?

from the someone-please-explain dept

Twitter only gives you 140-characters, of course, but what do you do if you're an old-school company that's been around for ages and is used to legalizing everything? Apparently, you create a 3,379-word terms of use for your Twitter account. Boing Boing points us to Wal-Mart's Twitter Terms of Use, which is really impressive if only in that if it were Twittered in 140-character increments it would take about 165 separate tweets. But, honestly, I can't figure out who this Terms of Use is directed at. It can't be those who read the various Twitter feeds from Wal-Mart employees, since most of them will never even come to this page at all (they're just following on Twitter, not on Wal-Mart's site). It's unlikely that it's for the Wal-Mart employees directly, as one assumes they don't need a public Terms of Use. So what's its purpose?

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Store Payment Info In Your Online Store? Watch Out For Patent Infringement Lawsuits

from the pay-now dept

Bill Squier alerts us to the news that a bunch of companies have been sued for daring to store consumer payment information and allow either stored value payments or one-click payments on their site. The article linked here focuses on Apple as a defendant, and notes 14 other companies were sued as well, but in researching this, I found that Joe Mullin actually wrote about another batch of companies (20 of them) that were sued back in April. The earlier lawsuit included Google, Wal-Mart, Bank of America, Capital One, JP Morgan Chase, Mastercard, Visa, Vivendi, Disney and Western Union among others. The more recent lawsuit has (as mentioned) Apple, Best Buy, Amazon, American Express, Barnes & Noble, Citigroup and eBay among others. So... basically any online e-commerce site, credit card company or big bank.

As for the patents in question, they're all a variation on a "method and apparatus for conducting electronic commerce transactions using electronic tokens." The specific patents are 7,376,621, 7,249,099, 7,328,189 and 7,177,838. Reading through the claims, this seems like an incredibly typical online system for storing payment info and seeing if the person can actually pay. Since the patent system defenders among our readers get quite upset whenever I say something seems "obvious" to me, let's flip this around. Can anyone explain how these concepts were not obvious at the time of filing?

Not surprisingly, the cases have been filed in Marshall, Texas... and as Joe Mullin figured out, the guy who is running "Actus" is a lawyer known for representing some infamous patent hoarding companies. He also discovered that the lawyer representing Actus in these lawsuits appears to share an office (or at least the same address) with the son (who is also a patent attorney) of the judge handling the case. At some point, do people start questioning whether or not there's a conflict of interest there?

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Campgrounds In Maine Can't Compete Against Free... So Want It Outlawed

from the ain't-that-great dept

Chris was the first of a few of you to send in the news of a proposed law in Maine that would outlaw the ability of any company to let RVs park overnight for free. The battle basically pits campgrounds, which charge fees, against Wal-Mart, which has always allowed RVs to park in their parking lots for free, recognizing that many who stay overnight in their parking lots will likely pick up supplies at Wal-Mart as well. There doesn't seem to be any actual rationale for the "no free overnight parking" law, other than that the campgrounds are upset that they're losing business. The whole thing seems rather silly, though. A Wal-Mart parking lot is hardly a scenic location. Are these campgrounds offering so little that they can't compete against a giant empty concrete parking lot? Of course, if this law does pass, the end result is pretty predictable. Rather than driving more RVs to campsites, RV owners may just start avoiding Maine altogether.

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Circuit City Liquidation Prices Still More Expensive Than Wal-Mart

from the liquidate-that dept

With Circuit City finally giving up the ghost last week and deciding to liquidate and close down its remaining stores, you might think there would be some decent bargains on electronics. Not necessarily. Consumerist points out that a local TV station checked out some of the prices and found that, in many cases, the liquidation prices were actually higher than buying the same items at Wal-Mart online. Apparently, the liquidation experts running the sales figure that as long as people think they're getting a steal of a bargain, they'll really believe they are.

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Today's Ridiculous Lawsuit: Wal-Mart, Netflix Sued Over Conspiracy To Create A Monopoly

from the ugh dept

Way back in 2002, Wal-Mart decided to enter the online DVD rental business, launching an almost exact replica of Netflix. Of course, Wal-Mart quickly discovered what almost every other player in that marker discovered: just offering a competing service to Netflix isn't enough to get anyone to use it. Wal-Mart had a lot of difficulty signing up customers (and keeping them once they signed up). The whole project was going nowhere fast, and eventually, Wal-Mart decided that it was a waste of time to throw more money into a project that was pretty far removed from its main business, and decided to simply let Netflix take over its online DVD rental service. This was a reasonable business move.

However, nearly four years later, a lawsuit has been filed claiming that Netflix and Wal-Mart "conspired to create a monopoly" in the online video rental market, and as a result of that monopoly, Blockbuster raised its prices. Read that sentence again. Netflix and Wal-Mart are being accused of creating a monopoly -- and because of that monopoly another major player in the space raised its prices.

If there's another major player in the space, there is no monopoly.

Besides, the folks bringing the lawsuit are going to have to convince a judge that the relevant market is online DVD subscription services, rather than any kind of home movie viewing service (which includes store rentals, purchases, internet downloads, subscription services and more). This seems like a random bogus lawsuit targeted at a company with deep, deep pockets (Wal-Mart), rather than anything serious.

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Wal-Mart Now Going After Search Engines For Linking To Sites With Black Friday Ads

from the gotta-keep-the-lawyers-busy dept

It would appear that Wal-Mart's lawyers need to come up with excuses to keep billing Wal-Mart every year around this time. Despite the fact that Wal-Mart employees admit that sites posting "Black Friday Ads" help drive more business, Wal-Mart's hired guns keep threatening sites for posting the ads, falsely claiming a copyright on the content (hint: you can't copyright prices). This year, they've stepped it up a notch and are claiming that it's illegal to even link to a site that has such content.

Specifically, Wal-Mart's high-priced law firm has sent a takedown notice to the site SearchAllDeals.com, which is a search engine/aggregator of various deals sites. The site doesn't host any content itself, but that didn't stop Wal-Mart from sending a false DMCA takedown claim to the site (and, of course, a false DMCA takedown is illegal). So, we have Wal-Mart, whose employees think deal sites are helpful, getting its lawyers to send out bogus takedown notices over content that isn't copyrighted, and then sending them to search engines that don't even host the content in question.

It makes you wonder how much the lawyers are charging Wal-Mart... and if the fees are being paid out of the legal budget, or the marketing and promotions budget.

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Don't Complain To WalMart About The Empty Laptop Box You Bought With Stolen Credit Cards

from the scammer-vs.-scammer dept

Well here's one for the dumb criminals series. Apparently, some guys with a bunch of forged credit cards and stolen credit card numbers went to Wal-Mart and bought a laptop. Except, somehow someone at Wal-Mart scammed them... and sold them an empty box. The guys got pissed off and went back to Wal-Mart to complain. Not surprisingly, the Wal-Mart employees thought the guys were trying to scam the Wal-Mart -- not with the fake credit cards -- but with the empty box. So they called the police, and hilarity ensued, as one guy tried to run away and dropped a bunch of the stolen credit cards. But, of course, the real kicker is that the guys weren't lying. Wal-Mart had accidentally sold them an empty box. Still, it makes you wonder what the hell the guys were thinking when they went back to complain about the empty box that had been sold to them using stolen credit cards.

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Surprise, Surprise: WalMart Changes Its Mind, Keeps DRM Servers Running (For Now)

from the and-again dept

A couple weeks back, we noted with surprise Wal-Mart's decision to turn off its DRM servers with little warning. After all, both Yahoo and Microsoft had tried to do the same thing, but eventually backed down in front of rather public backlash from customers. It's hard to believe that no one in charge of Wal-Mart's music offering was aware of that. But, still, the company tried to shut down the DRM servers. And, surprise, surprise, there was widespread backlash. So, not surprisingly, Wal-Mart has backed down and promised to keep the DRM servers running for the time being.

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Wal-Mart Threatens Site Over Black Friday Ad Deals

from the didn't-we-do-this-already? dept

Want to know how we know the holidays are coming? It's not the Christmas decorations already showing up in stores; it's the annual ritual of retailers threatening any website that posts the deals from their "Black Friday" (the day after Thanksgiving) sales circular prior to that day. Last year, Wal-Mart went beyond what others stores had done, in pre-threatening sites. In the past, companies like Target and Best Buy had simply threatened to sue sites after the ads went up. But Wal-Mart took it a step further and threatened to sue before the ads even went up, ignoring, of course that they don't own pricing data. The data on sales prices are not copyrightable and cannot be owned. Wal-Mart simply has no legal leg to stand on in demanding the data from the circular be taken down.

But why let that stop them? An anonymous reader alerts us to the fact that Wal-Mart is already sending the notices out to various sites, threatening legal ramifications if the sites were to post the prices prior to the date Wal-Mart makes them "official."

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Reason #9,358 For Not Buying DRM'd Music: Wal-Mart Shuts Down DRM Servers

from the and-again dept

Following the misguided lead of both Microsoft and Yahoo, it appears that Wal-Mart has decided to turn off its DRM servers, basically screwing over anyone who trusted Wal-Mart to make sure that music bought from Wal-Mart would keep working. What's amazing is that Wal-Mart would do this after seeing the backlash that made both Microsoft and Yahoo eventually back down (with Yahoo even going so far as to offer refunds). Wal-Mart, on the other hand, just told people they have a week to burn their music to a CD and re-rip it -- or they lose it entirely. Obviously, by this point, you should know that buying DRM'd music is a mistake, because you're leaving the music in a situation where the company you bought it from can "turn it off" at some point, but what's more amazing is that Wal-Mart would make the exact same mistake after seeing what happened to both Yahoo and Microsoft.

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HP And Walmart Get Rid Of Laptop Box; Buy The Computer And Get It In A Messenger Bag

from the about-time dept

Having bought my fair share of laptops over the years, I've noticed that the packaging has gotten smaller. I remember years ago buying a laptop and receiving a huge box with the actual laptop suspended in a styrofoam suspension system. More recently, I've seen laptops coming in much smaller boxes. However, Wal-Mart and HP have apparently decided to try ditching most of the packaging altogether, and letting you walk out with your new laptop in a messenger bag, rather than a box. Yes, there are still boxes from when the machines are shipped from HP to Wal-Mart, but the company can now fit 3 laptops to a box, significantly reducing packaging and making life easier on customers in the long run.

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Don't Blame One Wal-Mart Employee For Dumb Copyright Comments

from the wrong-target dept

A bunch of folks have submitted this BoingBoing story about a Wal-Mart employee making some dumb (and incorrect) comments concerning copyright to a guy who was trying to scan some century-old photos of his family. Wal-Mart and some other convenience stores have had policies in place for years that they won't reprint or scan images that might still be under copyright. Yes, it's a silly policy, but the convenience stores feel they need to do this to avoid ridiculous lawsuits from copyright holders, which we all know are far too common these days. The problem here is copyright law, not necessarily the Wal-Mart policy, no matter how ridiculous the end results are. In fact, Wal-Mart has supported important changes to copyright law, such as an orphan works bill, that would enable it to avoid such liabilities.

So the fact that one slightly ignorant Wal-Mart employee took that policy to an extreme in stopping this guy from scanning century-old photos of his family shouldn't be seen as Wal-Mart's problem. It's a problem of the way copyright works these days, the nature of copyright-related lawsuits these days, and the general culture of "content ownership" that's being promoted by vested interests that make folks, like the ignorant Wal-Mart employee, think that copyright lasts forever, and scanning 100-year-old photos of your grandparents is copyright infringement. When the entertainment industry is allowed to go into schools with its own "educational" programs on copyright, that pretty much ignore fair use, it should come as no surprise that Wal-Mart workers don't know what's going on. So, don't blame this one Wal-Mart employee -- blame the copyright system and the worldview (and legal environment) that its strongest supporters have created.

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Dear Wal-Mart Executives: You're On Candid Camera... And There's A Big Market For Those Videos

from the oops dept

Allen Funt, the creator of the famed Candid Camera TV show eventually donated the archives of the show to Cornell University, where it could be used for psychology research -- and to entertain the nearly 2,000 students in each year's psych 101 class. Now another long running set of "candid" videos is getting released, but not for academic purposes. A small company named Flagler Productions has, since the 1970s, filmed Wal-Mart's internal meetings for archival purposes. Wal-Mart was, effectively, Flagler's only client (it had a few others, but Wal-Mart represented 95% of the company's business). In 2006, Wal-Mart fired Flagler, basically taking away nearly all of its revenue. Rather than shut down or find new clients, Flagler realized it possessed an asset and started selling access to the behind-the-scenes videos of Wal-Mart executive meetings. Apparently it's been of tremendous interest to folks involved in all sorts of lawsuits against Wal-Mart -- especially for the clips showing execs mocking women (for a sexual discrimination case).

Of course, some might immediately question whether or not Flagler owns the rights to these videos, but no contract was signed between the parties and no transfer of rights was made -- and copyright law basically says whoever recorded it owns the copyright. Of course, the simplest solution would be for Wal-Mart to pay Flagler for the rights -- but it would appear there's something of a gap between asking prices. Wal-Mart has offered $500,000. Flagler wants $145 million. Apparently Flagler realized the best way to bridge the gap was to start selling access to the videos. Wal-Mart hasn't started any legal proceedings (it's probably trying to figure out if it has any case at all), but in quite the understatement, noted: "Needless to say, we did not pay Flagler Productions to tape internal meetings with this aftermarket in mind." Indeed.

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Wal-Mart Ditches DRM... And Lots Of Major Label Music With It

from the so-long,-goodbye dept

Over the last few months, the meme has taken hold that the big record labels had finally come to terms with the fact that DRM didn't help and only frustrated users -- and was finally okay with getting rid of it entirely. That sounds good, but it appears that the labels are still having trouble letting go. Wal-Mart's online download store has finally abandoned selling any DRM'd tracks, but with it, it's lost almost all music from major labels like Sony/BMG and Warner Music. Considering that some really major acts appear on both labels, this seems like a rather huge limitation of the Wal-Mart online store which should be trying to present a rather strong front against iTunes. It's unclear who's at fault here. Wired blames Wal-Mart for launching the DRM-free store before it was really ready, but there's an equal chance that the fault is on the part of the record labels who still don't seem completely comfortable with finally killing off DRM.

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Wal-Mart Plays Hardball on CD Prices

from the everyday-low-prices dept

Please note the update at the end concerning the timing of this story. Good news for consumers: Rolling Stone is reporting that Wal-Mart is using its considerable negotiating power to demand lower CD prices from the recording industry. Wal-Mart and other retail stores have been using CDs as a loss leader to get customers in the door sell higher-priced merchandise. Now the retail giant has issued an ultimatum: give us CDs for less than ten bucks or Wal-Mart we'll sell DVDs and video games on those shelves instead. It seems unlikely the labels have much leverage here. The CD market is steadily shrinking, and will probably disappear entirely within the next decade, so Wal-Mart has relatively little to lose if it cuts the space it allocates to recorded music. Of course, the labels' bargaining position might not be so weak if they hadn't spent the last decade trying to kill online business models that might have given them alternative revenue sources. On the other hand, the labels could be pleasantly surprised by the result of these price cuts. Demand for music is likely to be pretty elastic, so even if they're earning less per sale, some of that might be made up through greater volume. Update by Mike: As noted in the comments, it turns out this story is from a few years ago. I'm guessing Tim found it on Slashdot, which made a similar mistake. Either way, I, personally apologize for letting this through and will be more careful in the future. That said, I think Tim's analysis is sound, even if the original effort is from a few years ago. The fact that the situation has only gotten that much worse over the past four years shows how little the record labels have been able to come to terms with what's going on out there in the marketplace.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Wal-Mart's Trademarked Smiley Face Turned Upside Down; Parody Isn't A Trademark Violation

from the not-so-smiley-now? dept

Paul Alan Levy writes "In a new decision, a federal judge in Atlanta has rejected a claim by Wal-Mart that parody t-shirts and bumper stickers sold over CafePress.com, using the phrases "walocaust," and "wal-qaeda," violate its trademark. The court ruled that the fact that the parodies are sold on t-shirts does not detract from the non-commercial nature of the expression, which takes them outside the scope of trademark dilution law, and requires a treatment of infringement claims that is sensitive to free speech rights. The court also rejected out of hand Wal-Mart's outrageous claim that has trademark rights in the yellow "smiley-face" that the parodist used in one of his anti-Wal-Mart designs."

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Gibson Sues More Than Just Activision Over Virtual Music Concert Patent

from the who-else-can-we-sue dept

Remember how Activision had preemptively sued Gibson for a declaratory judgment that it didn't infringe on a really questionable patent concerning a computerized guitar for a "virtual" concert? Well, Gibson has now struck back, and it's not just suing Activision, but almost all the retailers who sell it as well, including Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart, Amazon.com, Toys 'R' Us and GameStop. The idea, clearly, is to have those retailers put pressure on Activision. Update: Wired reports that the lawsuit also covers a bunch of other companies. Basically, Gibson is suing anyone even remotely connected to video games that involve fake guitars.

Of course, there are all sorts of questionable things about this lawsuit. As we pointed out when Activision first sued, Gibson's patent doesn't seem similar to "Guitar Hero" at all. It talks about playing a real concert, with a real guitar (with strings) attached to a head mounted display. Also, as Activision points out, Gibson didn't care about the patent as long as Activision and Gibson had a marketing agreement. They only started calling for patent infringement after the marketing agreement ended. Finally, suing retailers for selling the game is quite sketchy. In fact, the Supreme Court just heard a case looking at whether or not that was legit, and the Justices sounded quite skeptical. Gibson is clearly posturing to try to push for a settlement -- and in the process, showing yet another way to abuse the patent system.

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