Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Traverse Internet Law Federal Court Report: September 2010 Hacking Lawsuits


The facts are unproven allegations of the Plaintiff and all commentary is based upon the allegations, the truthfulness and accuracy of which are likely in dispute.


MICAH BREDEN and FORESIGHT HOLDINGS, INC. v. TC CORRIHER IMPLEMENT COMPANY, INC., ET AL.
WESTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA (ASHEVILLE)
1:10-CV-00210
FILED: 9/24/2010

This whole problem arose because the retailer signed a three year contract promising to pay 4% of the costs of goods sold through its website each month in exchange for search engine optimization services. These types of agreements are fundamentally problematic because compensation to the search engine optimization service provider is not tied directly to its performance, but rather to the overall performance of the retail website irrespective of the success of the search engine optimization efforts. When you are creating these types of vendor relationship take great care in structuring an agreement that makes sense.

Plaintiff is a search engine optimization company and Defendant is a retailer that hired the Plaintiff to provide search engine optimization services for its retail website. The Defendant, or an agent, is alleged to have obtained a domain name log-in and password through unauthorized access to the Plaintiff’s computers and took possession of disputed domain names.

The lawsuit alleges copyright infringement, unfair and deceptive trade practices, and violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Plaintiff requests that the Court grant preliminary and permanent injunctive relief along with actual damages, treble damages, interest, and any other relief the Court deems appropriate. Traverse Internet Law Cross-Reference Number 1446.

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