Gawker: valleywag, overstock

Users sue Facebook and its Beacon partners for ruining Christmas

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:40:00 EDT

Thirty-two Facebook users signed onto a class-action suit against Facebook and several of its Beacon partners, including Blockbuster, Fandango and Overstock, Hotwire, STA Travel, Zappos.com and Gamefly. Facebook Beacon was the service that reported to a Facebook user's friends that user's activity on partnered sites elsewhere on the Internet. The suit alleges that between November 7, 2007 and December 5, 2007, Facebook did all this without asking first. Technically Facebook did ask, with little pop-up dialogue boxes on partner sites, but apparently they were hard to spot. Still, Beacon did spoil the surprise of a fair number of Christmas gifts, which, as we understand the tradition, are supposed to remain a secret until opened.

The users want Facebook and its partners to delete all stored information, the return of any "ill-gotten gains" — of which we understand there to be none — and for the court to "award restitution." If the plaintiffs win the case it'll at least be interesting to see how much our justice system values a good Christmas surprise in monetary terms. Meanwhile, the technology behind Facebook Beacon is back, but now its called Facebook Connect and now its entirely opt-in.

Overstock.com CEO: Wikipedia Has Become An Instrument Of Mass Mind-Control

Alex Chasick — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:11:33 EDT

Reader Adam forwarded us this bizarre email from Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com.

After announcing deals on watches and exercise equipment, the email invites readers "Take 5 with Patrick, " which involves the CEO likening Wikipedia to mind-control and Wall Street corruption. Apparently the feud between Wikipedia and Overstock goes way back. Back in late 2006, someone from Overstock edited the company's Wikipedia page to read like an advertisement. This was reverted by one of the site's editors. Over the next few months, Overstock's "director of social media," Judd Bagley, used dozens of Wikipedia identities to revert Overstock's entry and harass editors. Overstock also began a site called antisocialmedia.net, run by Bagley. Fed up, Wikipedia banned all Overstock. IP addresses from editing Wikipedia pages. Since then, Byrne has used his "Take 5 with Patrick" postings to disseminate articles such as "Social Media - Hijacking the Discourse," "How to Handle a Corrupt Reporter," "A Small Thing Called, the First Amendment," and "Our Corrupt Federal Regulator the SEC."

Take 5 with Patrick
Forbes journalist Gary Weiss's posts about Overstock

While you were sleeping: Here come the "0verstock" jokes

Nick Douglas — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 11:54:16 EST

Bill Gates goes in with a Saudi prince to offer $3.7 billion for the Four Seasons. Or as someone put it on Reddit, "Gates uses monopoly money to buy hotels." [Washington Post]
Newsflash! USA Today says that in this world of increasing gadgetitude, people don't like tech support! Actually, the stats are disturbing: "About 85% of those polled said they've become so flustered, they've ended up swearing, shouting, experiencing chest pains, crying or smashing things." [USA Today]
What do you do when your company's stock price plummets from over $77 to under $15? Well, if you're Overstock.com, first you sue a hedge fund and a research firm for bad publicity. Then you admit your site's no good. And then you announce that you may soon ask for more funding. [NY Times]
PayPal, sick of supporting eBay while divisions like Skype sucked all the money from the company, says it will offer $100 million in holiday rebates and free shipping. It's a Christmas thank-you to all the customers who didn't bomb their HQ. [LA Times]