Over the last few months we’ve been following a lawsuit between well known Internet marketing guru Jeremy Schoemaker and a Google employee named Keyen Farrell. The story so far: Schoemaker is suing Farrell for using his trademark “Shoemoney” in the ad copy for one of Farrell’s sites, which is against Google rules. Farrell has denied any wrongdoing, citing the fact that Google’s automated system should have caught the trademarked term.
Today, Farrell is going one step further by counter-suing Schoemaker, seeking damages for “defamation of Farrell’s reputation and tortious interference.” We’ve embedded the full document below.
Portions of Farrell’s accusations and defense come from articles reported by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land. In one of his early articles on the case, Sullivan quoted Schoemaker calling Farrell a “corrupt employee”, which has allegedly led to “public scorn and ridicule as a result of Schoemaker’s public comments”.
One of Sullivan’s follow-up posts is also being used to demonstrate Farrell’s innocence. In the post, which is titled “Google Finds No Data Misuse In Shoemoney Trademark Case”, Sullivan wrote that Google blamed the AdWords violation on human error on the part of an employee other than Farrell. Google included the following response (which is also being used as supporting evidence in the defamation case):
The privacy and security of our users and advertisers’ account information is a top priority for us, and our internal policies prohibit any use of non-public advertiser data for personal gain. After a thorough investigation, we found no indication that any employee purposefully tampered with or circumvented any of those policies, processes or procedures, including our trademark filtering process. Due to an unrelated human error, however, some ads with the “Shoemoney” trademark in the text were unintentionally allowed to run. The error has since been corrected, and the ads ran only for a short time.
However, in a post covering today’s news, Sullivan writes that Google has not explictly cleared Farrell, but rather that it has found that none of its policies had been overtly bypassed:
Originally, I had a headline on the article saying that Google had cleared Farrell. They quickly called and asked that it be changed — that they weren’t clearing Farrell in particular but rather asserting that none of their policies had overtly been circumvented or tampered with by any employee. They wanted to stress there was no “data misuse,” which I ended up altering the headline to reflect.
The fact that Google didn’t want to directly clear Farrell is strange — given that apparently none of its policies have been circumvented, why not just clear him entirely? In effect, the company has left some wiggle room for Farrell to have behaved wrongly without abusing his position as a Google employee, though he may not have done so. We’ll continue to follow the cases as they develop.
Schoemaker has provided us with the following response:
I received word that Keyen Farrell filed a lawsuit against me today for a statement I made in connection with the trademark infringement lawsuit I filed in April against him and his father. Farrell’s lawsuit is a transparent litigation tactic that he is using in an attempt to deflect attention from the trademark infringement allegations I previously made against him. There is no merit to Farrell’s lawsuit and I intend to vigorously defend against these claims. I am confident that I will be successful in defending against these baseless allegations. This will not deter me from pursuing legal action against people who infringe upon my intellectual property for their own commercial gain.
eerr, ummm, ok, round one fight!
Amazing the steps this guy has taken for this case to NOT get to the discovery proccess…
First he tried to get the cased dismissed… denied
Then tried to get jurisdiction… denied
Then tried to get some other thing which i forget… denied.
Now as a last ditch effort tries to counter sue?
Can we just move to discovery already. I want to see some testimony! Dont settle shoemoney!!!!!!!
You are a moron. The guy sent a C&D letter to Farrell, and the guy complied the same day. Then Shoemoney demanded $10K.
As far as I’m concerned, Shoemaker has made much more money by defaming Farrell rather than the business Farrell probably garnered off the Shoemoney clicks (i’m sure this can be quantified).
Shoemaker has overplayed his hand. He looks like a real idiot/ass now.
Wrong. Ferrell is the idiot, he obviously commited a crime when he tried to scam the google system and capitalize off of the shoemoney success train. I guess this makes you an idiot as well.
Google should terminate the shady bastard. Ferrell is going to have to sue himself now, no one has damaged his reputation more than himself.
So do you think google should fire Ferrell or Farrell? Also if by capital gain you mean 7 hits on the shoemoney adwords you must be right. If not I think your the idiot.
this is a funny story both parties suing the other.
What do you expect, it’s a nerdfight. I’m rooting for them both to somehow lose.
Yes, shoemoney deserves to lose since he is a scam and has fooled tons of folks. I saw it first hand
careful there buddy, you might be next
Google cleared ITSELF, so that they won’t become a co-defendant in the trademark dispute.
Shoemoney, seems like Farrell bites back, eh! You Both of you will get nothing except for a nice bill from your attorneys.
My favorite line in Shoemoney’s response is “Farrell’s lawsuit is a transparent litigation tactic…” Does anybody really believe that Shoemoney could put together the referenced sentence above?
You two guys should get together, buy a round of beers and tequila shots and call it even.
It’s time for both of you to back down and agree and be civil. Solving out of court and without expenses is definitely better than huge payouts. There’s no return on two completed court cases aside from the possibility of ego massage and some money to help cover the lawyer(s).
Just think about it.
Shoemoney will definitely continue with the case. How else do you think he will receive more followers and get some much needed publicity.
This is looking really entertaining(suing game). :0
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
ugg what a nightmare, poor shoe.
what really bothers me is google employees are allowed to run adwords campaigns. that seems like a HUGE conflict of interest.
I believe certain someone is going to get banned from a certain search engine.
I believe *a* certain someone is going to get banned from a certain search engine.
I am pretty sure that no matter the fallout Shoemoney did the right thing in suing, not to mention the fact that he sure as hell can afford this lawsuit to drag on for a while just for shits n gigs.
interesting developments in this case. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.
They should settle it MMA style…in a cage…I would pay $49.95 to see it.
This whole thing has been orchestrated to get Shoemaker’s name on every tech blog he can. It’s about building street cred and free press.
It’s called linkbait
who is gonna win at the end ?
benefit of doubt to Farrell, Farrell in his reply to shoemoney says he has removed the ads.
Farrell got the intimation from shoemoneys attorneys he promptly removed his ads.
that should be sufficient, does not matter if he did it knowingly or unknowingly
it is the interesting story about the shoemaker, Shoemoney will definitely continue with the case so he get more followers on google.
I am astonished at the lack of support for the defense of intellectual property rights. The display of cynicism is beyond belief.
Going to make this comment on the DL as I don’t want backlash from SHOE.
I think SHOE’s in the wrong a bit here. First, the guy complied and took his ads down. Then when he did, the lawyer said ‘there, you admitted it!’ and wanted him to pay $10000.
Total RIAA-esque bullshit.
I think SHOE got a little money and decided to sue with it.
Nice job, Jeremy. You’re part of the Bullshit now.
Well…. it certainly gets them free publicity since techcrunch and other blogs are writing about it
Leason learned: lawsuits are good as linkbait
Wow, never thought I’d actually see ‘tortious interference’ in a real lawsuit.
A dork and a fat guy walk into a bar… nevermind I don’t want to get sued.
LMAO vote +1
Seriously, what does Shoe expect? He used this kid’s name, reputation and the fact that he works for Google to make a mountain out of a molehill. Further he did not verify any of his facts before taking his case straight to the court of public opinion. I’d sue him too!
Hmm the facts look pretty dead on. Have you read any of the documents?
this case is such a joke.
Shoemoney is a complete idiot. What is even more ridiculous is those that keep calling him a “marketing guru”. What a joke! The moron barely finished high school and can’t even speak or write proper English. Shoemoney you will loose!!!
its basically the ego which play between them. I would suggest they leave this sue game and get back to their work and concentrate more on earning money.