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'Mark Zuckerberg' Hopes Facebook Won't Sue its 'Founder'
Everyone loves being mistaken for a celebrity from time to time, right? Depending on who you may (or may not) resemble, it can be flattering to be thrown into the same bucket as Zach Galifianakis, or Emma Watson, or Tyra Banks, et cetera. And it's even better when you know someone who shares the same name as a celebrity: Watching your buddy Thomas Cruise try to make dinner reservations never gets old.
It's a little trickier if you're that person, but you're trying to make a legitimate social network profile to represent yourself instead of your celebrity doppelganger. And as one Israeli entrepreneur has learned, it can be downright disastrous when your name is that of a social network's well-known founder.
To be fair, Roten Guez wasn't born with the name he now uses: Mark Zuckerberg. And it's not just a clever little edit on his Facebook profile that's led to his account being disabled by Facebook HQ. Guez's legal name, as of this article's writing, is indeed Mark Zuckerberg.
Were one able to see Guez/Zuckerberg's Facebook wall, you'd probably notice a big life event happening on December 7 – the official date of Guez's name change. The big story behind his reasoning for doing so is a bit of a cat-and-mouse game but, in short, Guez was hoping that Facebook would somehow find it difficult (or a strange PR move) to sue the name of the company's founder. Facebook has had a considerably easier time threatening to sue Guez otherwise.
The animosity between the social network and its not-really-founder started around January of this year. Guez had filed a lawsuit against Facebook and sales affiliate Nana10 MASA claiming that the company had refused to restore his (original) Facebook account for no "apparent, legitimate reason" following an alleged hacking attack. The likely reasoning, we suspect, was related to Guez's business: A company called "Like Store," which promised to boost the number of likes on a branded Facebook page for a fee ranging in the hundreds of dollars.
Facebook's law firm, Perkins Cole, responded with a cease-and-desist letter in September that informed Guez he was prohibited from accessing Facebook at any point in the future (for business or personal interests). Guez changed his name in December and started using it to create a new Facebook profile. This "unofficial" Mark Zuckerberg profile was subsequently banned by Facebook, although Guez's "I'm Mark Zuckerberg" Facebook page still exists as of this article's writing.
Guez has since received a second letter from Perkins Cold demanding that he stop accessing Facebook, and it remains to be seen how each side will react to the other's actions going forward. Or, as Guez asks on his webpage, will Facebook (now) sue Mark Zuckerberg?
Article from: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397780,00.asp
good luck to mark #2 lol
