Power.com Sues Facebook Over Internet Users' Rights

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - July 10, 2009) - Power.com, an eight million member strong online service enabling users to aggregate and control their data across multiple sites -- including Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, HI5 and Orkut -- today filed a lawsuit against social media giant Facebook. In the filing (http://static.power.com/files/power_facebook_lawsuit_071009.pdf), Power.com demanded that the company give users complete ownership, portability and control over their own data.

"YOU the user create -- and own -- almost all the content on Facebook. You put up your photos, profiles, contacts, and you own all of that. You have friends on Facebook and you own those relationships and everything you write to them," Power.com CEO Steve Vachani responded. "Although users' ownership of their own data seems self evident, Facebook has historically been criticized for not respecting its users' rights regarding their own content."*

In December 2008, Facebook filed a lawsuit attempting to prevent Power.com from providing tools and services to allow users to exercise true ownership and control over their own data. Today's lawsuit seeks to put a stop to Facebook's attempts -- in violation of California's unfair competition laws and federal antitrust laws -- to block Power.com from helping users access their own data. Power charges that the entry of usernames and passwords to access a website through a third party is commonplace in the industry and in fact is a practice that Facebook itself employs on its own site to allow its users to access contact and personal data from sites such as Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail and Gmail.

Power.com's legal counsel won cell phone consumers $299M refund in similar lawsuit

Power.com's legal counsel, Scott A. Bursor (www.bursor.com), has previously fought similar battles against wireless phone companies, challenging their longstanding practices of locking customers' cell phones and charging excessive termination fees. In 2007, Bursor achieved landmark settlements that forced Verizon Wireless and Sprint to stop locking customers' cell phones. In 2008, Bursor won a jury verdict awarding Sprint customers a refund of more than $299 million in illegal termination fees.

"This lawsuit is similar to the cell phone cases because you have a large company putting locks on its customers' property to prevent those customers from using competing technologies," Bursor said. "The cell phone cases established important precedents holding that this type of business practice is anticompetitive and unfair."

"Facebook is attempting to intimidate an innovative start-up company that it perceives as a competitive threat," Bursor continued. "Facebook is trying to lock in its users by stifling the development of Power.com's innovative new technologies that liberate Internet users from Facebook's proprietary restrictions over their own data."

Power.com is fighting to uphold its recently published User Bill of Rights:

--  Ownership: Users have the right to complete and total ownership of
    their content -- including profiles, messages, media, contacts and all
    other data.
--  Control: Users have the right to access, disseminate, transfer or
    aggregate their content on any platform, or to authorize third-parties to
    do so for them.
--  Privacy: Users have the right to protect their content and personal
    information from other users and corporate entities alike.
    

ABOUT POWER.COM

Power.com is the world's leading social inter-connectivity company. Founded in 2007 by serial entrepreneur Steven Vachani, the company received more than $10 million in venture capital funding by Draper Fisher Jurvetson (investors in Hotmail, Skype, and Baidu) and other notable investors. Power.com is a dedicated advocate for users' rights online. The company recently opened its Headquarters in San Francisco, CA and has over 40 employees in offices worldwide, including New York and Brazil. For more information visit www.Power.com.

ABOUT LAW OFFICES OF SCOTT A. BURSOR

LAW OFFICES OF SCOTT A. BURSOR, www.bursor.com, is a New York City-based law firm specializing in consumer, antitrust, class action, civil rights, and other complex litigation matters. The firm's principal attorney, Scott A. Bursor, has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in more than 60 class action lawsuits in state and federal courts throughout the country, primarily in the fields of telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, and dietary supplements.

Online copy of the lawsuit is available at http://static.power.com/files/power_facebook_lawsuit_071009.pdf

*Wikipedia Article on Criticism of Facebook - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook