Rotem Guez

Rotem Guez is an Israeli Internet entrepreneur who is currently in a legal battle with Facebook. Guez attracted public attention when he legally changed his name to Mark Zuckerberg (after the social networking site's CEO, Mark Zuckerburg) in response to a lawsuit Facebook filed against him.
Legal battle with Facebook
Guez is the owner of the Like Store, which sells advertisers Facebook Likes for their pages. The Like Store promises to give companies more traffic by offering Facebook users free content only if they Like a given company’s page. Because this practice is in violation of Facebook’s terms of service (TOS), Facebook asked Guez to shut the Like Store down. Guez has acknowledged that his company violates Facebook’s TOS, but he claims many US companies offer similar services.
On January 29, 2011, Guez sued Nana10 MASA, Facebook’s local affiliate in Israel. He said Facebook was unwilling to return his Facebook profile for no “apparent, legitimate reason.” Facebook had kicked him off the service for selling Likes and creating fake accounts.
On September 1, 2011, Facebook’s law firm Perkins Coie responded with a cease and desist statement, claiming that Guez and his Like Store violated Facebook’s TOS by selling Likes to advertisers. Facebook disabled his profiles and Pages, revoked his license to use the site, demanded that Guez close his company and never access Facebook’s services again.
On December 7, 2011, Guez went to the Ministry of Home Affairs to change his name on both his passport and identification card to Mark Zuckerberg.
On December 14, 2011, just one week after Guez changed his name, Facebook again threatened him with a lawsuit.
In the first letter, Perkins-Coie requested that Guez comply with its demands by September 5, 2011. In the second letter, the law firm extended the deadline to December 19, 2011. In both cases, the letters demanded of Geuz to “confirm that you, your agents, your employees, your affiliates, and/or anyone acting on your behalf (collectively, You or Your)”:
# Have stopped and will not in the future access Facebook’s site, services, platform, or network for any reason whatsoever.
# Have stopped and will refrain from developing, promoting, selling, offering, and/or using websites or applications, including but not limited to www.like-store.info and i-share.co.il, that sell “Likes,” incentivize Facebook users to “like” any page or website or to use Facebook social channels.
# Have stopped and will not in the future mislead Facebook users; and
# Have removed references to Facebook from any websites or other promotional material that You control, including but not limited to www.like-store.info and i-share.co.il.
A Facebook spokesperson later said in a statement: “Protecting the people who use Facebook is a top priority and we will take action against those who violate our terms.”

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu