Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Henry Blodget can NEVER live down the tough lessons he learned “back in the first Internet boom.” the one HE helped fuel!

Nevertheless, he won’t stop trying.

At his “old” blog, “The Internet Outsider,” Blodget comes clean on his NOT welcome in the securities industry, EVER, status:

Internet Outsider provides informal analysis of Internet companies, finance, trends, and third-party research. The site is edited by Henry Blodget, a former Wall Street Internet analyst.

IMPORTANT!: Internet Outsider is a publication, not an investment advisory service. We do not offer personalized investment advice.

Henry was a Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer & Company and Merrill Lynch & Co.Henry was a party to an industry-wide regulatory complaint about conflicts of interest between the research and banking divisions of brokerage firms. He participated in the global settlement and is precluded from working in the securities industry.

Not so, however, at his new blog, co-founded with fellow Internet 1.0 veterans Kevin Ryan and Dwight Merriman, “Silicon Alley Insider.”

Blodget not only no longer advises readers that he “is precluded from working in the securities industry,” he cockily aims to rewite “first Internet boom” history; Handily ignoring the havoc he helped wreak, Blodget seeks to paint Eliot Spitzer the villain:

From 1994-2001, Henry was a technology analyst at Prudential Securities, Oppenheimer & Co., and Merrill Lynch. He ran Merrill’s global Internet research practice and was ranked the No. 1 Internet and eCommerce analyst on Wall Street by Institutional Investor. He was later keelhauled by then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in a wide-ranging complaint about conflicts of interest between the research and banking divisions of brokerage firms (for details, please see sec.gov.)

It is not surprising that Blodget is trying to live down his Intertnet past. Even Blodget, though, can not rewrite history.

Tracy Pride Stoneman, securities lawyer, on Blodget, Meeker and Internet booms:

With Henry Blodget and Mary Meeker pushing tech and Jack Grubman pumping telecom to their brokers and the investing public, it is not happenstance that millions of investors ended up concentrated in volatile, speculative securities. The sad reality is that millions of investors not only paid for this advice in the form of commissions and fees, but they also paid for it with their life savings.

Blodget is now giving Internet boom “advice” to public corporations, free of charge. In response to New York Times reporting on NBC-iVillage, Blodget offers NBC a handy four-step lesson in how to realize its dreams:

1. Viewers don’t visit web sites just because you promote them on TV.
2. Don’t decide to move Manhattan staff to New Jersey.
3. Don’t create bad TV shows to promote web sites–viewers hate bad TV shows.
4. Don’t panic and buy web properties just because Rupert Murdoch hit a home run with MySpace.

Pithy perhaps, but not productive.

The promise of integerated TV to Web and vice versa promotion is yet to be fully realized, but it is a real, driving force behind YouTube AND the networks. CBS Interactive’s recruitment of top Google exec, Patrick Keane, case in point.

Keane was named Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer at CBS Interactive, in February, after serving as Head of Advertising Sales Strategy at Google.

Keane’s role at CBS Interactive is to “implement systems to market and sell its content on a growing variety of emerging media platforms and expanding the CBS roster of advertisers.”

Specifically, Keane helps CBS “monetize new inventory generated by next-generation platforms.”

While a vice president, Jupiter, Keane extolled “the value of TV promotion in building a Web media business.’ While at Google, however, he helped spread an opposite gospel, preaching the value of YouTube promotion in building a TV network business.

Don’t aspire to be Rupert Murdoch, either, Blodget concludes. REALLY?

While Blodget is precluded from working in the securities industry for conduct unbecoming, Murdoch continues to work his media magic in the world of publicly traded media conglomerates.

SEE: Norman Pearlstine ‘Excited’ by a Rupert Murdoch Led Dow Jones and Qmecom Mass Personalized Video Ad Platform: Yahoo SmartAds, Digitas Beware

ALSO: Why Google Will NEVER Pay For a Local Ad Sales Force

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Don Dodge likens Google’s YouTube months long who cares about video copyright owners stance to Lindsay Lohan’s prediliction for flaunting drunken driving laws: How can we just forgive and forget? Morevoer, is rehabilitation even in the cards?

I decline opining on Lohan’s difficulties in obeying motor laws, but I will speak, loud and clear, to the Google CEO’s inability to respect the copyright ownership of others and to his disdain for standard content licensing protocol.

I asked yesterday: Google DMCA Game: Viacom Gets Last $1 billion Laugh?, underscoring that Google has not met any of its prior publicly declared timetables for YouTube “filtering” technology, originally promising it for December 2006.

What’s more, Google comments in court on Friday about the latest supposed impending cure for “massive copyright infringement” at YouYube were not consistent with how Schmidt has long characterized his position regarding a possible YouTube proactive blocking of unauthorized uploads of copyright videos: NOT a Google option.

It has always been, and will always be: Google’s DMCA way, or the highway. UNLESS Viacom prevails in its $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube.

In March, I anlayzed what the Google CEO really thinks about the YouTube business model, after listening in to his Morgan Stanley Technology Conference discussion in San Francisco and his talk to the Bear Stearns Media Conference in Palm Beach.

When Schmidt approaches a video content company about working with YouTube he begins by declaring YouTube has the “fans” that the video producers want to reach, no matter that they are uploading copyright content without authorization.

Google starts its YouTube pitch to media content owners with an almost ultimatum: Users are going to make copies of your copyright content, so you may as well get used to it and embrace it.

Is Google oblivious to copyright ownership rights then? Of course not, Schmidt is careful to note, by referencing what he deems to be the Google and YouTube unalieanable right to host any videos it wants to, thanks to the DMCA.

What about the Google YouTube “Claim Your Content” plan, is it a copyright protection program? Think of it more as a fast-track to DMCA takedowns, Schmidt advises.

Schmidt resommends that video content companies make it even easier for “fans” to use unauthorized copyright content uploads, rather than try to deprive them of the content they are “fanatics” about.

What will the video content owners really get out of their “fans” exploiting unauthorized uploads of their copyright content? That is “unclear,” even to Schmidt; He oozes confidence, however, in the millions of YouTubers as “potential monetizable targets.”

How else does the leader of the $160 billion market cap number one search engine in the world REALLY feel about the $1 billion legal pickle it finds itself in, due to Viacom standing up for its copyrights and Viacom shareholders?

IN A NUT SHELL: Google CEO Schmidt–Anti-Microsoft Lawyers Good, Viacom Lawyer in Chief Bad

ALSO: How Google Abuses DMCA, NOT Universal Music: Sorry EFF & ‘Mom’ and Eric Schmidt: Google Cures What Ails the World

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

If Mark Zuckerberg is called to personally defend himself in a court of law against charges of fraudulently enabling tens of millions of Facebook “friends” would he arrive in the judicial temple in flip-flops?

If so, our honors would not be as forgiving as the Zuckerberg enamored techies that honored the Facebooker in chief in May were when he gave to the world the “Facebook platform.” Or would they?

The federal judge that is presiding over the ConnectU misappropriation of trade secrets lawsuit against Zuckerberg and Facebook appears to be overtly in the Facebook camp, despite being bound by principles of neutrality.

Public reports of Judge Douglas Woodlock’s interactions with the lawyers representing ConnectU interests during a hearing yesterday appear to indicate mocking commentary by the Judge.

Judge Woodlock did not grant the Facebook request for dismissal of the lawsuit, postponing a ruling until at least August 8. Woodlock advised the ConnectU team to return to court with what he would deem to be a stronger case.

Woodlock expressed disdain for the plaintiff’s efforts.

Dorm room chit-chat does not make a contract (between Facebook and ConnectU)

No? Dorm room chit-chat certainly makes for a thriving Facebook platform though! Moreover, oral agreements are often given credence in courts of law.

Judge Woodlock is also said to have insinuated ConnecU is merely toying with the judicial system as a way to blackmail Zuckerberg for a settlement. Really? Then why does the ConnectU team’s legal efforts to seek retribution from Zuckerberg date from his cash-strapped days at Harvard?

One need not be an officer of the court to look the inherent derivative origins of Facebook in its face; Even Wikipedia gets it:

The name of the site refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of the campus community that colleges and prepatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff.

Nevertheless, the Facebook legal team is supremely confident in the supreme Zuckerberg:

Only one had an idea significant enough to build a great company. That one person was Mark Zuckerberg. 

ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY MARK!

PLUS: OMG! How LinkedIn Trumps Facebook Pokes and Twitter Grams

ALSO: RH Donnelley Means Business.com: Google Feeling Vertical Search Heat and YAY! Google Ads To Follow Our Every Mobile Step, with Sprint

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Insider Chatter presidential campaign 2008 special series on what I am calling “User Generated Politics”

The winner of the YouTube fueled democratic debate last evening? GOOGLE! 

Sergey Brin has proudly underscored to Wall Street that there is no obvious ceiling to Google monetization. There is obviously no ceiling to Google’s ambition for power, as well.

Who is helping “choose” the next president of the United States? Google, and Google’s YouTube.

Google funded last May’s Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) “Technology is Changing Politics” conference in New York City, a masterful Google PR cum Political Business Development stroke, undoubtedly had by Google for a very reasonable price, CEO Eric Schmidt keynote honors included.

Google not only operates as if it is the “gateway to the Internet,” it aims to be the virtual Universe. Schmidt asserted at the PDF forum:

I don’t know that the Internet is more important than health care, but it almost is,” people need access to the (Google) Internet, for access to the modern world.

(Unfortunately, however, Google is NOT helping the world gain access to the Internet, despite its bravado about “open” broadband platforms; SEE Africa NOT Online: Will ‘Open’ Google ‘Put Up or Shut Up’?)

Speaking of health care, Schmidt spoke in depth about it at the Googleplex earlier in the year, Google’s version of it that is, in a tete a tete with the presidential front runner, Hillary Clinton. The result? Between Schmidt’s charm and Googlers’ money, Hillary for President is also Hillary for Google branded Personal Health Records.

(SEE Google, Hillary Clinton and U.S. Health Care)

Google is determined, in fact, to not only control all the world’s information, but to make sure “the presidential campaign trail winds though the Googleplex” as well. 

The Google top brass, led by Googler in Chief Eric Schmidt, is enjoying the political fruits of intimate sit-downs with all who hope to become the next president of the United States, AND the not so humble, but very merry, band of Googlers are having their say, and their way, with the candidates, as they dutifully pay homage to the most powerful Internet company, and gateway sponsor of presidential debates.

Schmidt is fond of calling the Mountain View meet and greets part of the ultimate job interview for the top job in the U.S.

Google is succeeding in requiring the next president of the United States personally answer to Googlers, and to Google’s YouTubers.

ALSO: Google Masters Art of Influence Peddling and User Generated Politics Slams U.S. Royal Dynasties

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Google waxes poetic at its new Public Policy Blog on how the Internet is a “powerful tool for diverse voices to speak and be heard.” Google itself is increasingly taking to its blogs to put forth “diverse” Google positions, but the not so Googley moves are bombing on Google.

Google’s “negative” insertion into the health care debate in the name of (more) Google Health Advertising dollars is being viewed as a crass, self-serving attempt at piggy-backing on a controversial movie to fuel Google profits.

What’s more, Google disingenously uses Michael Moore’s controversial new film to stir up additional controversy with the goal of building demand for Google Health AdWords. While decrying the Moore portryal of the medical sector as purely ”money and marketing driven,” Google engages in its own pure “money and marketing driven” blog effort to drive more Google Health advertising sales.

Google also bombed earlier in the month at its Google Checkout Blog by instigating a sarcastic anti PayPal campaign designed to hurt eBay in a highly publicly embarrassing way: Crashing the annual eBay Live user celebration.

Google flaunted disrespect for its key AdWords client by posting a public invitation to eBay power sellers to join Google in “protesting” eBay’s ban on Google Checkout by “abandonning” eBay Live to partake of free Google food and drink.

When eBay responded by canceling its multi-million dollar AdWords party, Google sheepishly retracted its anti-PayPal party invitations.

What’s more, Google launched its new Public Policy Blog with high falutin, touted notions of changing the world for the common good. Although Google talked of selfless public transparency, Google’s public policy counterpart at Cisco unmasked the Google lobbying tool for what it really is: a Google marketing device.

At the Cisco public policy blog, John Earnhardt attempted to advise Google of the need for an authentic conversation, not a Google rules monologue. Google’s head of public policy, Andrew McLaughlin, answered Earnhardt back with a sarcastic retort:

Thanks for the warm welcome and sage advice, John. I definitely want the Google policy team members to talk out of school.

In particular, I’ve warned the team to resist the overwhelming temptation to lavish praise on me and my enlightened leadership (it’s so embarrassing!); I keep saying that as long as everyone adheres to our rigid doctrines and parrots back our fixed talking points, it’s all going to be OK — that’s what blogging’s all about, right?

Your long-time reader, first-time commenter, –andrew

Will Google ever be able to blog speak without flippant sarcasm?

Google aims to control all the world’s information within its massively scalable worldwide infrastrcuture. The more Google attempts to manipulate that information though for its own massively for-profit advantgage, not only is the world increasingly at risk, so is Google.

PLUS: Why Google Health IS Sick (o): $2 trillion Medical Target

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

A non-lawyer who represents himself in a court of law has a fool for a client, the saying goes. What about non-lawyer bloggers who claim to “understand Internet law”?

In the latest tirade against an individual or organization who dares to take a stand against Google’s “unconventional” way of doing business, Nathan Weinberg, “Inside Google,” headlines by name-calling the Google accsuer “another idiot,” who doesn’t “understand Internet law.”

Presumably, then, Weinberg, himself, is an expert in “Internet law.” Surprising, given that so-called “Internet law” continues to challenge the top legal minds in courts and law shcools around the world. Court cases and ultimate decisions are, in fact, serving to SHAPE the law of the Web.

Weinberg’s legal credentials? Apparently NONE! His Blogger “profile” is of little use and there is no bio available at his blog. According to his “profile,” Weinberg is: 251 years old, male, Aries, year of the Rat, communications or media or journalist, NYC AND he has been wishing for someone to buy him “Radeon 9600 SE 128MB DDR Video Adapter,” since 2004!

Weinberg on the legal matter at hand, a lawsuit against Google in the United Kingdom, instigated by Brian Retkin: “I don’t know if Mr. Retkin is a scammer, but he is a moron.”

According to the UK Independent, Retkin has brought defamation proceedings against Google because the search engine directed users to Web pages contianing “deeply offensive and commercially damaging” material about his businesses. 

Weinberg weighs in with his legal opinion: “International law is clear that service providers are not repsonsible for the actions of their users in these sort of regards.” Actual lawyers are not so certain, though.

Weinberg is nevertheless firm: “Google has no responsibility for the entire Internet.” He even provides a prognosis for a dispostion of the case: “Retkin is in for a rude awakening when the court tells him tro go to hell.” Not a very judicial way to chaaracterize things!

What do lawyers actually say about the issue?

Lilian Edwards, Lecturer in Private Law, University of Edinburgh on “Defamation and the Internet: name Calling in Cyberspace” noted two “early” US cases “failed to settle in detail the issue of whether ISPs should have the benefit of an innocent dissemination defence; Cubby v CompuServe and Stratton Oakmont Inc. v Prodigy Services.”

John Dean, former counsel to both the President of the United States and the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives, characterizes “defamation immunity on the Internet” as “an evolving body of law” that has been stretched beyond its limits.

Google itself is well aware that it does not operate under a truly blanket “safe harbor.” CEO Eric Schmidt in his legally mandated report to shareholders on the real legal risks the Google business model faces:

The laws relating to the liability of providers of online services are currently unsetteled both within the U.S. and abroad. Claims have been threatened and filed under both U.S. and foreign law for defamation, libel, invasion of privacy and other data protection claims, tort, unlawful activity, copyright or trademark infringement, or other theories basd on the nature and content of the material searched and the ads posted by our users, our products and services, or contrent generated by our users.

Compliance with these laws is complex and may impose significant additional costs on us.

CEO Schmidt is not an “idiot,” for exposing Google’s legal vulnerabilities, and neither is the U.K citizen using legal remedies available to him in a Google-centric world.

READ my exclusive interview with prosecutors of class action lawsuit against Google: YouTube Copyright Infringement Claims ‘tip of the iceberg’

ALSO: Google Health: Lambast Doctors, Sell Medical Ads

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN