On October 28, 2021 Facebook filed for a trademark on the word Meta. Of course, that’s not surprising, since Facebook announced that they are changing the company name to Meta. If you go to the website meta.com you’ll be redirected to this web page on Facebook.com. I’ve read quite a number of trademark applications over the years, as part of my expert witness work, but also as part of DNAccess, but when I looked at the Meta trademark application from Facebook, my jaw dropped. I have never seen a goods and services description as long and long-winded as what’s in the Meta trademark application. [Read more…]

If you were a member of the settlement class of the Google Plus Profile Litigation, then you may have received a payment from PayPal. Just like others are reporting via social media posts, I received my settlement payment of a whopping $2.15 to my PayPal account today. If you have not received your $2.15 via PayPal, then you may still receive the payment. Based on what I’m seeing, several people previously received their payments a few days ago, and I just received my payment today. I can imagine that sending out millions of PayPal payments takes time, even if it’s an automated process via PayPal. They can’t send them all at once, or all of them in one day, I can imagine. [Read more…]

Google Webmaster Tools, now called Google Search Console (for several years), has moved their Twitter account from @googlewmc to @googlesearchc. This is in line with their launch of the Google Search Central, where they’re changing their name, consolidating documentation, and refreshing how we look–including a new sidekick for Googlebot. [Read more…]

Facebook is giving away $100 million dollars of grant to 30,000 small businesses that have been affected by Coronavirus and COVID-19. The Facebook Small Business Grants Program, this week, is beginning to accept applications from small businesses located in New York City, Seattle, the San Francisco Bay Area, and in other cities. There are specific requirements to be eligible to apply as a small business for one of these grants. I’ll outline all the requirements, and how you apply. [Read more…]

Yahoo Groups is shutting down. On October 21, 2019 they will lock down Yahoo Groups so that no one can upload any more content. Then, on December 14, 2019, all previously posted content will be removed forever. I have been getting used to Google shutting down services such as Google Plus and Google Bulletin, and even certain Google Groups. But it’s been a while since we’ve seen a Yahoo service being shut down permanently. [Read more…]

A list of keywords that the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uses to watch all social media accounts has been revealed. If you use one of these keywords on one of your social media posts, there is a chance that it may cause the DHS to start monitoring your social media accounts. If you want to stay off of a government watch list, I suggest that you don’t use any of these keywords on your social media posts. [Read more…]