Let’s Be Friends Social Networking & Trade-marks LET’S BE FRIENDS: PROTECTING YOUR BRANDS ON THE INTERNET LEXPERT By Eric Macramalla, Partner, Gowlings

Let’s Be Social Most popular social networking websites:

Top Social Media

Top Facebook 5

Top Twitter 6

Brand Owners Are very Social Of top 100 global companies… 65% have Twitter account 54% have Facebook account 50% have YouTube Channel 33% have Corporate blog

Brand Owners Advertise products/services Communicate news and special events Connect with customers Monitor customer satisfaction

Brand Owner Perception

Facebook More than 1.3 billion active users Average user has 130 friends (none of which include me) People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events 150 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

Facebook 48% all Facebook users log on in any given day Total number of Facebook pages = 54,200,000 Average time spent on Facebook per visit = 18 minutes 18% of year old check Facebook when get out of bed Number of languages available on Facebook = 70 75% of user outside U.S. Number of Fake Facebook profiles = 81,000,000 Facebook Revenue (2013) = $6,150,000,000 11

Facebook – How It’s Grown 200 million — April million — July million — September million — End of million — February million — July million — End of million — July million — September million — End of million — March million — June billion — September billion – June

Twitter 500 million users 500 million tweets per day – up from 400 million in June % of those on Twitter don’t tweet Time it took from 1 st tweet to billionth tweet: 3 years,. 2 months, 1 day 25 to 54 year old – driving force (older than you think)

More on Twitter Tweets per second (TPS) record: 456 – when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 (a record at that time). Number of Twitter employees: 8 in January 2008 to 400 in March 2011 Greatest number of – 36,407,144 (22- year-old Japanese man who loves anime/ manga, gaming and programming) 14

Blogs “Hunting for ways to boost revenue, a growing number of businesses are adding another weapon to their marketing arsenal: blogging” - USA Today

Blogs 181 million blogs around the world, up from 36 million only five years earlier in Women make up the majority of bloggers, and half of bloggers are aged bloggers are aged Bloggers are well-educated: 7 out of 10 bloggers have gone to college, a majority of whom are graduates About 1 in 3 bloggers are Moms, and 52% of bloggers are parents with kids under 18 years-old in their householdbloggers are Moms Bloggers are active across social media: they're twice as likely to post/comment on consumer-generated video sites like YouTube, and nearly three times more likely to post in Message Boards/Forums within the last month 16

Internet Landscape 1.7 billion Internet users worldwide Over $250 billion spent online $43.2 billion spent in Q2 Top-performing online product categories: Digital content and subscriptions, consumer electronics, flowers, greetings and gifts, computer hardware, and apparel and accessories

Internet Users – A Closer Look Of the 1.7 billion users worldwide…  42% are from Asia  24% are from Europe  15% are from North America  10% are from Latin American/Caribbean  4% from Africa  3% from Middle East  1% from Australia

ISSUES FACED BY BRAND OWNERS Social Media & Domain Names

Social Media: Issues Brand Owners Face Impersonation Trade-mark infringement Username Squatting Copyright Infringement

How To Protect & Enforce

Enforcement Sites have own enforcement policies that deal with TM, CR, etc. Usernames big target  facebook.com/lexpert 

Twitter: Impersonation “…pretending to be another person or entity in order to deceive” May result in suspension of username Twitter users are allowed to create parody, commentary, or fan accounts. distinguish the account with a qualifier such as "not," "fake," or "fan." Bio should indicate parody Tweets can’t mislead or deceive

Twitter: Trade-mark Violation Using mark to confuse or mislead  Clear cases of infringement = suspension  Lack of intent to deceive = give chance to fix  Brand owner may request transfer of username

Twitter: Username Squatting Accounts that are inactive for more than 6 months may be removed without further notice Brand owner can allege squatting Twitter may assign to brand owner

Copyright 27

Social Protection 1)Be Proactive: secure usernames on various social networking websites 2) Review sites for unauthorized trade-mark use and copyrighted content 3) Enforcement: review existing usernames  Which are a problem; which do we address

The End.com/lexpert