"Hey Steve. It's John at Cisco. We've got a trademark that's just a descriptive combination of two common English words. We've noticed you're using one of those common words in a different three word combination as your trademaek. We demand you give us your domain name, because, ummm, derp…"
Could anyone seriously trust these guys with their social graph data after they've pulled a stunt like this? Like you say "It's business". This behavour seems to be a clear indication of how this "business" will treat _your_ rights when they think their business would be more profitable if they ignore them.
I don't really see how you've come to that jump in logic. They seem justified in this specific case and I see no reason how them doing this means they would sell customer data or anything like that. They have not done it with the amount of users they already have. I'm sure they've been approached at this point by a company looking to get in while they can for cheap. It just seems like you are overreacting a bit.
I guess we disagree then, but I find it a hard enough stretch to think they've got any sort of justifiable trademark claim over "Who's Near Me" just because they've got "Who Here" registered. For them to push past that, and apply their VC backed legal muscle to try and get him to hand over the wnmlive.com domain based on their "Who's Here" trademark seems, from where I sit, to be a pure evil misuse of the legal system.
While their success in getting through to summary judgement seems to indicate they've won this battle, I hope in the longer term that the repercussions for Bryant Harris & Stephen Smith & Synerge Tech Solutions & Lightbank make the outcome of "the war" somewhat less attractive for them. I know those four names have been added to my list of people who've demonstrated a failure to conduct business honorably, and any decisions or advice I make about whether to use or recommend services they're involved with will be informed by their previous behaviour.
Could anyone seriously trust these guys with their social graph data after they've pulled a stunt like this? Like you say "It's business". This behavour seems to be a clear indication of how this "business" will treat _your_ rights when they think their business would be more profitable if they ignore them.