Let’s Be Friends Social Networking & Trade-marks LET’S BE FRIENDS: PROTECTING YOUR BRANDS ON THE...
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Let’s Be Friends Social Networking & Trade-marks LET’S BE FRIENDS: PROTECTING YOUR BRANDS ON THE INTERNET LEXPERT By Eric Macramalla, Partner, Gowlings
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Transcript of Let’s Be Friends Social Networking & Trade-marks LET’S BE FRIENDS: PROTECTING YOUR BRANDS ON THE...
Let’s Be FriendsSocial Networking & Trade-marks
LET’S BE FRIENDS:PROTECTING YOUR BRANDS ON THE INTERNET
LEXPERT
By Eric Macramalla, Partner, Gowlings
Let’s Be Social
Most popular social networking websites:
Top Social Media
Top Facebook
5
Top Twitter
6
Brand Owners Are very Social
Of top 100 global companies…
• 65% have Twitter account• 54% have Facebook account• 50% have YouTube Channel• 33% have Corporate blog
Brand Owners
• Advertise products/services
• Communicate news and special events
• Connect with customers
• Monitor customer satisfaction
Brand Owner Perception
• More than 1.3 billion active users
• Average user has 130 friends (none of which include me)
• People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
• Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
• 150 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
• 48% all Facebook users log on in any given day
• Total number of Facebook pages = 54,200,000
• Average time spent on Facebook per visit = 18 minutes
• 18% of 18-34 year old check Facebook when get out of bed
• Number of languages available on Facebook = 70
• 75% of user outside U.S.
• Number of Fake Facebook profiles = 81,000,000
• Facebook Revenue (2013) = $6,150,000,000
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Facebook – How It’s Grown
• 200 million — April 2009.• 250 million — July 2009.• 300 million — September 2009.• 350 million — End of 2009.• 400 million — February 2010.• 500 million — July 2010.• 608 million — End of 2010.• 750 million — July 2011.• 800 million — September 2011.• 845 million — End of 2011.• 901 million — March 2012.• 955 million — June 2012.• 1.01 billion — September 2012.
• 1.3 billion – June 2013
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• 500 million users
• 500 million tweets per day – up from 400 million in June 2012
• 40% of those on Twitter don’t tweet
• Time it took from 1st tweet to billionth tweet: 3 years,. 2 months, 1 day
• 25 to 54 year old – driving force
(older than you think)
More on Twitter
• Tweets per second (TPS) record: 456 – when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 (a record at that time).
• Number of Twitter employees: 8 in January 2008 to 400 in March 2011
• Greatest number of tweets: @Yougakudan_00 – 36,407,144 (22-year-old Japanese man who loves anime/ manga, gaming and programming)
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Blogs
“Hunting for ways to boost revenue, a growing number of businesses are adding another weapon to their marketing arsenal: blogging”
- USA Today
Blogs
• 181 million blogs around the world, up from 36 million only five years earlier in 2006.
• Women make up the majority of bloggers, and half of bloggers are aged 18-34
• Bloggers are well-educated: 7 out of 10 bloggers have gone to college, a majority of whom are graduates
• About 1 in 3 bloggers are Moms, and 52% of bloggers are parents with kids under 18 years-old in their household
• Bloggers are active across social media: they're twice as likely to post/comment on consumer-generated video sites like YouTube, and nearly three times more likely to post in Message Boards/Forums within the last month
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Internet Landscape
• 1.7 billion Internet users worldwide
• Over $250 billion spent online
• $43.2 billion spent in Q2
• Top-performing online product categories: Digital content and subscriptions, consumer electronics, flowers, greetings and gifts, computer hardware, and apparel and accessories
Internet Users – A Closer Look
• Of the 1.7 billion users worldwide…
42% are from Asia24% are from Europe15% are from North America10% are from Latin American/Caribbean4% from Africa3% from Middle East1% from Australia
ISSUES FACED BY BRAND OWNERS
Social Media
&
Domain Names
Social Media: Issues Brand Owners Face
• Impersonation
• Trade-mark infringement
• Username Squatting
• Copyright Infringement
How To Protect & Enforce
Enforcement
• Sites have own enforcement policies that deal with TM, CR, etc.
• Usernames big target
facebook.com/lexpert
Twitter: @Starbucks
Twitter: Impersonation
• “…pretending to be another person or entity in order to deceive”
• May result in suspension of username
• Twitter users are allowed to create parody, commentary, or fan accounts.
• distinguish the account with a qualifier such as "not," "fake," or "fan."
• Bio should indicate parody
• Tweets can’t mislead or deceive
Twitter: Trade-mark Violation
• Using mark to confuse or mislead
Clear cases of infringement = suspension
Lack of intent to deceive = give chance to fix
Brand owner may request transfer of username
Twitter: Username Squatting
• Accounts that are inactive for more than 6 months may be removed without further notice
• Brand owner can allege squatting
• Twitter may assign to brand owner
Copyright
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Social Protection
1) Be Proactive: secure usernames on various social networking websites
2) Review sites for unauthorized trade-mark use and copyrighted content
3) Enforcement: review existing usernames
Which are a problem; which do we address
