There's been a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission, after all, as True/Slant's Kashmir Hill has written. Facebook altered its Privacy Policy to strip protections from data like friends lists and profile pictures. But it turns out you're not allowed to do that by fiat, you need to explicitly get permission from users, something Facebook's "transition tool" failed to do, even as it allowed users to keep other types of data private. Writes Hill, a sometime legal blogger:

In 2004, Gateway did something similar, changing its privacy policy to make it okay to sell information it had gathered for Hooked On Phonics users to third parties. It got into trouble for that. It had to revert to its old privacy policy, and pay a fine. (A little one, just $4,000.)

And then there are the private lawsuits. They're inevitable, right? Facebook is already on the hook for $9.5 million it agreed to pay to settle a class-action suit over its Beacon advertising system. The lawyer who prosecuted that case is busily milking this new legal field; he's now suing Netflix for upwards of $2.5 billion for allegedly violating its privacy policy.

Facebook's last payment of $9.5 million is not a huge dent in a company that will make more than $500 million this year. It looks like the next payout one should be bigger — or it's just a cost of doing business (as usual).

The suit was probably inevitable. As we first reported, the Sacramento-based firm of Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff has been looking for victims of scammy ads in games like Mafia Wars and Farmville to potentially file a class action suit. Less than a week later, the firm's suit has hit federal district court in Northern California.

You can read the initial complaint in full here.

Neither gaming startup Zynga nor social network Facebook actually originates the advertisements in question; instead, other companies take out ads in Zynga's games, which run on Facebook's network, and the two companies make reportedly large sums of money from the offers. Some of the ads trick users into signing up for unauthorized cell phone charges or expensive mail-order products like educational CDs, typically by disguising them as "free" offers or "free trials," or as part of an "online quiz." TechCrunch has run an aggressive series of articles, cataloged at the bottom of this post.

Zynga reportedly takes in close to one-third of its revenue from "commercial offers" like those, and Facebook does well too, as KC&R lawyers point out in their complaint. An excerpt (click to enlarge):

Swift's attorneys also point to Zynga CEO Mark Pincus' damning video confession that "I did every horrible thing in the book just to get revenues" in their complaint, indicating it will be a significant piece of courtroom evidence, just as we predicted.

The prospect of being on the hook for massive damages has to make both Zynga and Facebook's investors sweat. Facebook is the darling of Silicon Valley, with VCs having valued it in the billions of dollars, while Zynga counts the elite firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers among its major investors. Yet both companies have come to rely on greasy advertisers for much of their revenue; in addition to the game-ad scammers, Facebook is also sells ad to marketers who resort to tactics like using stolen pictures of apparent underaged girls to promote their products. If the company's are found to be liable of helping con customers by working with these sorts of slimeballs, it's hard to say where the payouts might end.

Below, an excerpt of the scams allegedly perpetrated on the lead plaintiff in the case, Rebecca Swift.

(Top pic: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, by Raphaël Labbé)

[Full court filing]

Sacramento-based Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff, LLP is looking for people who faced "unauthorized charges imposed on Facebook and MySpace users who participate in social games like 'Farmville' and 'Mafia Wars.'" The firm, which said it has launched an investigation into such scams, specializes in class action suits, among other areas.

Mike Arrington's TechCrunch has posted a series of articles on the issue of sleazy revenue models for online games, exposing the practice of sneaking mobile data subscriptions and pricey "learning CD" packages past players trying to earn online "points." Mafia Wars and Farmville creator Zynga gets a third of its revenue from such "commercial offers," while Facebook in turn gets 10-20 percent of its money from Zynga, according to Arrington.

Zynga has yanked some of its ads; Facebook, in turn, has suspended one of Zynga's smaller games. But there's evidence this issue could have been addressed much sooner. TechCrunch found video (below) shot this past spring in which Zynga's CEO said he "did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right away."

That sounded bad enough when it was reprinted on a tech blog; imagine how it's going to sound in court.

(Top pic: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, possibly calling his lawyer, by Joi Ito.)

Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom are dropping suits against eBay, to whom they sold Skype in 2005, and against a consortium of private finance companies trying to buy Skype from eBay. The founders had accused both groups of intellectual property theft. They're dropping those lawsuits in exchange for 14 percent of Skype.

But former Wall Street Journal reporter Kara Swisher reported last night on Dow Jones' All Things D website that the founders would get not 14 percent but up to 13 percent of the company — 10 percent outright and an option to buy another 3 percent. Sacrebleu! Rob Wauters of rival TechCrunch was quick to rub Swisher's face in the minor error, writing that the founders "are getting 14 percent of Skype back for rights to the... technology their company... controls... and not 10% like previously reported by other media" (emphasis from original). Meow!

The press release issued by Skype actually confirmed Swisher's reporting that the founders had to put in money to get some of their shares. Swisher later acknowledged that the figure was 14 percent, just one percent higher than she had written. But she also engaged in a lengthy Twitter fight with Wauters and his colleague Erick Schonfeld (see below) over their public nitpicking and fact-bending. Maybe everyone involved in this fracas needs to take the next couple of days off. Oh, look at the calendar!

(Top pic via)

In a $120 million suit filed this week, Thompson claims that the site inflicted emotional distress by not monitoring the nasty comments, like this one: "Jack Thompson should be smacked across the face with an Atari 2600."

Upset by all the virtual hate, Thompson, who once fought to get Howard Stern off the air, tried to reach Facebook — with a fax machine. Since the online company didn't reply, he thinks they did it all intentionally. And he's being extra drama queen about the whole thing: "If I were Charles Manson, that wouldn't warrant the postings."

In case you're wondering why Thompson lost his lawyer powers, there are many, but mostly because he constantly accused people of peddling porn and generally being sinners.

Image via pshab's flickr.

Presumably, Martin Eberhard's acquiescence comes at a price. The ousted electric-car-company founder sued Musk (pictured) for libel, slander and breach of contract barely three months ago following months of building tensions. After Tesla won hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid and started putting its affairs in order, Eberhard dropped his suit, and now the two sides have confirmed a deal, according to the blog Legal Pad.

Among many other allegations, Eberhard's suit had disputed Musk's right to call himself a founder, since he wasn't around for the actual birth of the company, while Musk claimed he could call himself that because he did so much to help the company in its early years, a dubious definition he also used to call himself a "co-founder" of PayPal. Eberhard has surrendered, and not just in a grudging manner: In an official statement, according to Legal Pad, he writes, "As co-founder of the company, Elon's contributions to Tesla have been extraordinary." Yes, Musk has made extraordinary contributions, not just managerially, but linguistically, as well.

(Musk pic: JD Lasica)

Hilden, a Yale-trained First Amendment specialist, examined a New York trial judge's decision to strip Rosemary Port of her anonymity in lawsuit brought by her nemesis, "skank" model Liskula Cohen. In reviewing Google's stance in the case, she found the company dodged big First Amendment issues and instead objected that the judge's request for blogger information was a pain in the ass; "overbroad, vague and ambiguously worded."

In short, Google took no real stand in support of the First Amendment rights of bloggers on its system, even though the Supreme Court has held that anonymous speech is often protected. The court itself noted in its opinion that Google "essentially has no substantive opposition to [Cohen's] application."

So if you want to anonymously call a model a "skank," or anonymously satirize Steve Jobs, or anonymously pick on the New York Times, maybe try WordPress.com instead, you filthy insane adorable whore skank anony-bloggers, you.

(Pic: Port)

The latest case: A decorating firm in Queens called Holiday Image has asked a court to force Google to reveal who made a Gmail account in the company CEO's name, then sent fraudulent emails to clients of the company badmouthing the company itself, and its clients.

Well! We are not lawyers but that one sounds a lot more like "fraud" than does the Liskula Cohen case, where a pissed rival girl made an anonymous blog calling Liskula a skank. That one just sounded like "dumb." But the type of dumb that should be protected by free speech!

The bigger issue here is that if Google plans to roll over and reveal the identity of anyone doing something anonymously on the internet that pisses someone else off, we're all screwed. Here's another case that's a little more serious, courtesy of someone who is a lawyer—Anne Salisbury, who defended skankblogger Rosemary Port in the Liskula Cohen case. She notes a case in California, where a developer is suing to get Google to reveal the identities of an investigative group of journalists who wrote stories about a bribery scheme the developer was involved in:

Google has taken the position that unless it receives a written
"motion to quash" the subpoena, it will release the information to the
developer's attorneys. Many people in the free speech community are
alarmed at this potentially dangerous incursion, because of the belief
that vigorous, honest discourse will be stifled by fear of retribution
if personal, identifying information can be so easily obtained.

The problem is not anonymous insult artists or their victims. The problem is Google. Why don't you just shut up, Google?
[Pic via]

Puck, the ultimate hustler of high-end food, sought to do business with the ultimate internet land grabber, an outfit trying to lock up top-level domains like ".wine," ".nyc" and ".basketball." A case filed by the latter group in U.S. District Court in Seattle, alleging breach of contract, tortious interference and fraud, makes it clear the relationship quickly soured.

Three parties are suing Puck and his wife: Minds and Machines LLC, of California; Level Domain Holdings Ltd. of the Virgin Islands and entrepreneur Fred Krueger. The plaintiffs reached an agreement with Wolfgang Puck to co-develop the ".food" domain, but subsequently had a falling out over whether Puck and his wife were entitled to compensation for other top-level-domains developed by the parties, and whether Puck subsequently breached the agreement by yanking back rights to his name.

It could take months or years to sort out exactly what went wrong here. But it's easy to see how this case will embarrass Wolfgang and, especially, his wife Gelila.

Here's Puck insisting on giving less to charity:

The suit repeatedly depicts Gelila derailing domain name deals by enticing the plaintiffs into alternate negotiations than never panned out. One involved Vogue publisher Condé Nast:

Gelila had two children with Puck, two decades her senior and already a father, before marrying him two summers ago. A Harper's Bazaar profile depicted Gelila stepping into a J. Mendel dress, Jimmy Choo shoes and Swarovski crystal necklace ahead of a dinner party. She told the magazine she found labels "vulgar."

Odd, then, that she was positively eager to jump into the internet labeling business, judging from the court papers. In fact, she thought internet labels would give make her the next Bill Gates and the next Al Gore:

The suit also accused her of chasing off potential clients:

As we keep repeating, internet geeks and Hollywood glitterati should meet only under tightly-controlled circumstances.

Back in March fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir sued Love for libel, invasion of privacy, infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract, and intentional interference with Simorangkir's business—the fashion label Boudoir Queen—as a result of Love's misspelled and unpunctuated rants on the social networking sites—namely saying that Simorgank stole a bunch of clothes from her.

Love and her lawyer have filed a motion to strike the suit. [Note: Page Six reported on her brief on Saturday, which we missed because we were fighting through the hordes at the Barneys Warehouse Sale.] Why? Not anything have to do with free speech, but because Simorgankir is racist, homophobic drug fiend who used to be a prostitute. Oh, well, that makes it OK then. Say anything you'd like, Courtney.

The juiciest excerpts are below, but here is our favorite part:

Simorangkir repeatedly asked me both to partake in and to procure cocaine, Percoset, and other illegal and perscription drugs for herself and her husband. I told Simorangir that my "hard-partying" days were in the past and I declined to use any of her and her husband's drugs.

Screw what she said on Twitter, this is the real defamation. We still don't know what this has to do with the shit she talked on the web, but it does make for a fascinating read. Just wait for the countersuit the Love legal team has in the works.

Plenty of people will be paying attention to this suit, not only because Love is crazier than a meth addict in a fun house, but because it will have an impact on future lawsuits about what people can and can't say about others over the internet. In England, they're already throwing kids in jail for cyberbullying. Damn, Courtney, maybe that move to London isn't such a good idea after all.

Oh, Courtney, you haven't put out a record in five years, but you still manage to provide us with endless entertainment.

Horizon Group Management's complaint says the claim of mold is false — though it offers no evidence — and seeks $50,000 plus court costs. Unlike the "first" Twitter libel suit, against Courtney Love, this one involves no other social networking services (the Love suit also involved MySpace postings), and only a single tweet. Our adorable microblogging service is growing up so fast! The offending tweet:

[Chicago Now]

At least, that's the way Musk is telling it:

Given that Daimler prides itself on integrity and conducted exhaustive due diligence, they would not have insisted that I remain CEO as a condition of the deal if Eberhard's attacks had merit.

Daimler's "cash infusion" (Musk's word) should be crucial to Musk's electric car company; just before the money came in we reported Tesla was running on fumes after nearly running out of cash last fall. So Musk will be awfully hard to oust if the Daimler deal really does lock him as CEO, if only because Tesla needs all the liquidity it can get.

Musk is said to have kept cash tight at PayPal to advance his control of the company; the Daimler clause accomplishes a similar goal at Tesla, albeit by different means. It would appear Musk is in the driver's seat, at least until another sugar daddy comes along.

There's apparently two kinds of Tesla employees — current employees and former employees suing Tesla. Frankly, we're not surprised Eberhard's suing Musk and Tesla. We're more surprised that it took this long to happen especially given Musk's propensity for diarrhea-of-the-mouth types of comments. For the moment, the only thing we have to go off of is the PDF file from the California Superior Court — which you can see here.

In response, we're told Tesla plans to counter-sue Eberhard. That went over real well with Henrik Fisker — let's see how well it works here. All we know is we're just proud Eberhard quotes former-Valleywag Owen Thomas in his court filing. Gotta love the V-wag love! (Hat tip to Owen!)

Photo Credit: Yodel Anecdotal @ Flickr

Greenspan's suit argues he originated the company's name and that the company's trademark is thus invalid. It's been in court for six months. The company has resolved the case just as it prepares to buy out employees antsy to cash out their shares and as it raises new funding to provide a "buffer" against the economy.

It's especially nice to resolve those sorts of problems if you're going to IPO, as Business Insider notes. And while we're not questioning founder Mark Zuckerberg's sincerity when he says the company won't go public for several years, at this rate we wouldn't be surprised if it happened sooner.

(Pic via Think Computer)

The morosely moribund newspaper industry is looking for a bailout. The government and Google are the only people with cash on hand these days; even superstar investor Warren Buffett, who owns stakes in the Post and the Buffalo News, says he won't put more money into the business.

A government handout to watchdog institutions is unseemly, so the papers are understandably targeting Google. Howard Kurtz reports in the Post that his employer is talking to Google about "improved ways of creating and presenting news online." Timesblogger Brian Stelter has Twittered that his bosses are doing the same.

Oh, so the newspapers want preening, self-important executives like Google VP Marissa Mayer to boss around their Web designers the way they do underlings at the Googleplex? Unlikely. They want cash, and soon.

It's sad that their writers are resorting to tactics they accuse bloggers of, like inventing facts out of whole cloth to serve their arguments. Take Times columnist Frank Rich, who insulted every non-newspaper journalist on the planet with this fabrication:

Just because information wants to be free on the Internet doesn't mean it can always be free. Web advertising will never be profitable enough to support ambitious news gathering. If a public that thinks nothing of spending money on texting or pornography doesn't foot the bill for such reportage, it won't happen.

Tell that to to CNET News, the tech news site which has won awards for its reporting. Or the citizen journalists of the Huffington Post, whose scoops shaped the last election. Or the experienced ink-stained wretches of Politico, some of whom worked not long ago at the Times and the Post. For that matter, the implication that journalism only happens when readers pay is nonsense. Look no further than the decades-old traditions of deep, original reporting found on radio and TV institutions like NPR and 60 Minutes, whose broadcasts come absolutely free of charge.

Kurtz, too, indulges in the occasional unreported fiction posing as fact:

Hanging over the talks is the reality that the search giant, while funneling vital traffic to news sites, vacuums up their content without paying a dime.

This "reality" is more of a collective delusion shared only by the newsrooms of America.

Then there are straight-out guilt trips: If Google doesn't pay for journalism, who will?

None of these tactics — begging, propaganda, guilt — seem to be working. That's because Googlers are smart, and they see that the newspapers have absolutely no leverage. We have a simple proposal for the executives of the Post and Times: Sue Google.

If they believe in their arguments, that Google is doing something improper with their content outside the bounds of fair use, then they should make their case in a court of law. Yes, they'll get brickbats from the blogosphere, but they're already losing in the court of opinion. And until there's a threat hanging over Google's head, there's absolutely no reason for them to open up their pocketbook.

It's a risky course. Google might respond with an alternative proposal: Instead of paying for the newspapers' headlines, why doesn't it charge them for the traffic it sends to their websites? There's ample precedent.

Larry Kramer, the newspaper executive who founded MarketWatch and now works as a venture capitalist, once told me a story about his company's dealings with Yahoo Finance. The stocks website was sending MarketWatch tons of free Web traffic through links on its site. MarketWatch executives were thrilled. But as it readied itself to go public, MarketWatch's investment bankers got nervous. What if Yahoo pulled the plug on the links? MarketWatch ended up signing a contract to pay Yahoo, in exchange for a guarantee.

Google has long resisted such pay-for-play links in its search results, segregating out commercial links as clearly marked ads. But the newspapers' whiny intransigence might test its morals. We'd like to see both sides put their money where their mouth is, and act to back up their stances — the newspapers, that content is worth paying for, and Google, that links have value. Better than this namby-pamby talk of talks.

Lavandeira has won a case against PerezRevenge, a gossip site which styles itself as an antidote to Hilton's "meanness." U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess has ordered the blog's owners, Margie Rogers and Elizabeth Silver-Fagan, to stop using the PerezRevenge name, turn over the site to Hilton, and desist from "using the term 'Perez' to designate any platform, medium, and/or website that contains entertainment or celebrity news or gossip."

Which is laughable, when you think about how Hilton got his start. He first blogged on a site called PageSixSixSix, until he got a nastygram from the New York Post, which objected to his free-riding on the name of its famous gossip column. Lavandeira then came up with his play on the name of the famous hotel heiress, and became Perez Hilton. He also routinely doctors celebrity photos, arguing that sprinkling cocaine dots on them is a transformative use, entitling him to publish them. A couple years ago, several photo agencies disagreed and slapped him with lawsuits. Still, it's all fun and fair. It seems like he's just upset that someone else has joined in on the game.

Natalie Cedeno, FriendFinder's former director of human resources, was fired in January without cause, she says, after a series of run-ins with management over practices she believed were improper or illegal.

Cedeno claims the atmosphere at the company changed substantially after Penthouse Media Group acquired Various Inc., the operator of Adult FriendFinder and other websites, in 2007 and changed its name to FriendFinder Networks. Various was buttoned-up, she says, despite operating websites where users planned hookups. Penthouse, by comparison, was pure frat-boy raunch — an attitude which culminated in an incident where a Penthouse Pet draped her boobs on an unwilling female employee in a staged photo meant to humiliate her.

There's more. The complete lawsuit is included below, but here are the highlights — or lowlights:

25. In or about April, 2008 plaintiff received complaints regarding racist comments concerning employees and prospective employees being made by the company's Controller, Al Mercado. Mercado made racially disparaging comments regarding Indians, Asians and people whose spoke English as their second language, which he admitted to Plaintiff. Plaintiff met with and counseled Mr. Mercado on three separate occasions, yet his discriminatory conduct continued. The complaints regarding Mr. Mercado's racially disparaging comments were received from Accounting Supervisor, Brinda Calori who had asked to be given a new assignment because she was distressed by Mercado's conduct. Plaintiff went to Carmela Monti and recommended that Mercado be discharged. Monti refused to terminate Mercado and instead ordered that Ms. Calori be terminated. Plaintiff objected to Monti's decision to terminate Ms. Calori and complained to the Vice-President of Finance who refused to become involved. Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that Ms. Calori has filed a complaint with the EEOC for retaliatory discharge resulting from her complaints.

28. In May 2008 FriendFinder brought two Penthouse Pets and a male model into the Sunnyvale office to serve ice cream to the employees. The Pets were dressed in revealing attire that caused a female supervisor to complain that their presence and the fact that they were "porn stars" made her so uncomfortable that she would stay in her office away from this activity. The Pets went up to the supervisor's office and one of them placed her breasts on the employees head while two other employees' took pictures. The supervisor came to Plaintiff's office in tears. She was visibly shaken and upset and informed Plaintiff that she was afraid the photos would be put on the Internet. Plaintiff had previously telephoned Carmela Monti, informed her that the Pets were pinching the nipples of the male employees, rubbing their bare chest and inappropriately touching staff, and asked that Monti allow her to have the Pets removed from the office. Monti had refused Plaintiff's request and after the incident involving the supervisor Plaintiff called Monti again, asking that the Pets be removed because their behavior violated the company's sexual harassment policy. Monti again refused Plaintiff's request that she be authorized to direct the Pets to leave the office. COO Tony Previte appeared supported Monti's decision, stating that the employee who complained was a "trouble maker."

39. In or about August or September, 2008, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the Las Vegas office, Jason Rasberry, made inappropriate sexual comments concerning a female employee (TE). The CTO said to 5-6 male coworkers in the presence of TE (the group was standing together on a smoke break) "I've had seen TE naked and her breasts are too small." The CTO admitted having made the comment. The CTO had a history of previous misconduct in the workplace for which he had received disciplinary action. Prior to this incident the CTO had asked a male applicant who was interviewing for a position in the company's Technology Department to "chose any item and he would have one of the girls on cams.com insert it into her vagina."

FriendFinder appears to be facing severe financial trouble. The company filed for a $460 million public stock offering in December, in an effort to pay off more than $400 million in debt incurred during the Penthouse acquisition. That IPO has yet to happen. But the stock market remains unfriendly to IPOs, and FriendFinder has defaulted on some of its debt, according to a new SEC financing. A tipster tells us the company recently laid off eight marketing staffers in an effort to cut costs. And top executives seem to disagree on whether the company can afford to keep publishing the print edition of Penthouse. (FriendFinder's corporate website now softpedals the company's porn business, highlighting G-rated social networks like BigChurch.com instead.)

Cedeno v. FriendFinder - Get more Legal Forms

WPP, the advertising conglomerate, is suing Grouf and Spot Runner's other board members, charging them with a massive scheme to enrich themselves to the tune of $54 million while the online-advertising startup bled $80 million in losses. WPP is seeking $13 million in damages. (The lawsuit is embedded below.)

So many people believed Spot Runner's story — a startup ostensibly dedicated to simplifying the process of buying television ads, a challenge Grouf experienced firsthand while working on John Kerry's failed presidential campaign in 2004. Media giants from WPP to Grupo Televisa to CBS invested more than $100 million in the company — some of which WPP charges went into Grouf's pockets instead of into the company's coffers. Bob Pittman, a Spot Runner board member, is also accused of selling his shares, as are Battery Partners and Index Ventures. Spot Runner claims WPP just wants to get back its investment in a declining ad market.

Everyone loves an upstart. In 2006, as it raised its first round of venture capital, Spot Runner cast itself early on as the David against Google's Goliath as the search engine was starting to dabble in brokering television commercials.

Grouf told a gullible Kara Swisher last summer that the company was "scrappy," bragging about the low rent it paid on its headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. But the company lurched from business plan to business plan — first hiring dozens of video producers to churn out cookie-cutter TV ads, then buying a search-advertising startup, then switching from selling TV ads to small businesses to wooing national advertisers. Executives came and went, and the company laid off hundreds in waves starting last fall.

John Gentry, the company's president, blamed the economy, telling Fortune Small Business that "everyone's hard hit." But the WPP lawsuit has revealed the economy excuse as an obvious lie. Spot Runner took in $5 million in revenues in 2007 and lost $35 million. 2008 was hardly an improvement: The company took in $9 million and lost $45 million. (Spokeswoman Rosabel Tao would not comment specifically on those figures, saying that WPP's filing had "inaccuracies.") At those figures, Spot Runner didn't have anything resembling a real business, let alone one that would wax or wane with the swings of the economy.

WPP alleges that Spot Runner's executives and board members, including some of its early venture-capital backers, sold shares to new investors, pocketing the proceeds rather than putting the money in the company's treasury.

Spot Runner is now betting the company on something called Project Malibu, a digital system for buying television ads. Wait a second: Wasn't that the initial idea, to use technology to make buying TV ads easier? The fantasy of perfectly liquid markets has long entranced entrepreneurs, who can't understand why all business processes aren't as efficient as the equations they studied in college. But it's hard to imagine a business less efficient than one which loses $5 for every $1 it makes.

The picture painted by WPP charges are of a market that functioned very efficiently for Grouf and his pals. Too bad it didn't have anything to do with advertising.

The $60 million in lawsuits cover a series of botched deals for art, real-estate and other expensive toys. The root cause, however, as PEHub's Connie Loizos writes, is that Minor has been "living like a billionaire." (Coincidentally, $60 million is also what he hoped to spend on a Gulfstream jet — a deal that he claims fell through because of a lender's misdeeds.)

Minor is contesting all of these lawsuits, and has filed some countersuits of his own. But think about what it says that all these institutions devoted to serving the wealthy are suing the entrepreneur. If they thought there was money to be made with Minor down the road, would they be contesting his dealings in court as opposed to quietly working out a settlement?

What Minor doesn't have, according to at least one lawsuit filed against him: cash on hand. He's being sued by Sotheby's and Christie's for nonpayment of artwork he bid on. Merrill Lynch is suing over a $25 million loan it extended. Silverton Bank, the lender for a Charlottesville hotel, is suing for $10.5 million in missed payments.

Sotheby's says Minor told its employees that he couldn't pay because he didn't have the cash, a charge he testily disputes. In his lawsuit with Merrill, he contends that the investment bank's move to freeze his account forced him to sell other investments at a loss — again, a move he wouldn't have had to make if he had the cash on hand. He also claims Merrill's merger with Bank of America scotched the financing for his Gulfstream jet.

His splurges, chronicled in Portfolio last year include:

• A divorce which cost him roughly half of the $100 million fortune he walked away from CNET with, as well as the $300 million he made as an investor in Salesforce.com.
• An estate in Charlottesville, Va.
• A $15.3 million plantation in Williamsburg, Va.
• A $20 million home in Bel Air, which he's been trying to sell without success; it's now listed at $11.4 million.
• 
  
• A $22 million house in San Francisco's Presidio Heights neighborhood, for which he'd hired celebrity designer Michael Smith to oversee a $15 million makeover.
• A $30 million luxury hotel development in downtown Charlottesville, now on hold amidst a lawsuit.
• A $3 million deposit on the $58.5 million Gulfstream G650 jet.
• A modern art collection, including several works by Richard Prince, whose estimated value runs into the tens of millions of dollars.
• A host of startups under the umbrella of his investment firm, Minor Ventures. One of them, 8020 Media, flamed out spectacularly earlier this year.

The picture that these lawsuits paint is one of an angry dotcom mogul with a vanished fortune who's looking for someone else to blame for his woes. As a riches-to-rags story, it makes for great art.