Hashrocket execs (not Obie) charged in $425 million mail fraud case

Post by hga » Sat, Aug 07, 2010, 1:46 PM UTC

obiefernandez wrote: post #23

Importantly: 1) Hashrocket has absolutely nothing to do with the criminal complaint 2) In the USA people are innocent until proven guilty Now if you're interested in this case, read on... There are hundreds of independent yellow pages (including Yellow Pages United) that legally use the term Yellow Pages and the "walking fingers" logo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Pages My partners have been doing direct mail…

See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1583135; not surprisingly based on your and adam_lowe accounts the Feds have filled a motion to drop all charges (I hope with prejudice). See the link for a bit more editorializing by various people including me, but when you compare this to their usual behavior it's very clear the Feds never had a case.

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 07, 2010, 10:51 PM UTC

marclove wrote: post #109

adam_lowe wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify per what was presented by both the prosecution and the defense in the case the walking fingers logo and yellow pages name are public domain. The various local phone companies engaged in the exact same business model have no more claim to them than anyone else. The only difference being that most of them were given the advantage of government subsidies and a bureaucratic pseudo monopoly blessing.

True, although I'm betting the local phone companies' distribution model more accurately fits the traditional definition of "the Yellow Pages". When people think "Yellow Pages" they think of a free telephone directory distributed to all residences and businesses in the area being advertised in. According to the complaint, United Directories published 27,626 copies of the book in 2009. Exhibit A of the complaint is an…

[deleted]

Re: Hashrocket execs (not Obie) charged in $425 million mail fraud case

Re: Hashrocket execs (not Obie) charged in $425 million mail fraud case