

Twitter’s Response To PeopleBrowsr Lawsuit: ‘This Is Contracts 101′ - busted
http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/28/twitter-responds-to-peoplebrowsr/

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abootstrapper
If Twitter hadn't been acting like a jerk to their developer community for the
last 2 years, I would completely side with Twitter on this.

However, given Twitter's recent behavior of backpedalling on expectations they
set for developing on their platform, and their disrespect for developers
who've been cheerleading and building apps for them the last 6 years, I'm glad
to see someone fight back the best they can. If for no other reason than to
illustrate that they're acting like jerks. Unfortunately, given Twitter's
response and hand waving dismissal, I don't think they received the message.
They could have at least paid a little lip-service. Ya' know, act like they
give a damn.

Humbug!

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shantanubala
This lawsuit seems like crap, and it makes me feel really uncomfortable --
what if I don't have millions in VC funding? It basically means that a random
person with enough resources can tie me down with a bogus lawsuit even if I
have a legally-sound contract that is _supposed_ to protect me.

I agree that Twitter backtracked on their API and platform, but a bogus
lawsuit is the exact opposite of the right way to fight back. Even though
App.net and others have their flaws, that is the "right" way: developers have
to steal people's attention away from Twitter instead of going for a lawsuit
that doesn't make sense.

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joshAg
> It basically means that a random person with enough resources can tie me
> down with a bogus lawsuit even if I have a legally-sound contract that is
> supposed to protect me.

yes, that's pretty much the state of things in the US. Anyone can file a
lawsuit for any reason; granted if someone files for something stupid it will
almost certainly be laughed out of court immediately, but you will still have
to spend time and money defending yourself from it.

And this is in no way limited to companies. You can be sued for asking the guy
behind you in line to talk into his cellphone quieter. That'll almost
certainly be dismissed with prejudice, but you'll still need to either
research the law yourself or contact a lawyer to deal with that idiot.

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shantanubala
Somewhat. The person filing the lawsuit has to be able to convince a lawyer to
pursue the case. In other words, that person needs to have money.

In a situation like this, people should be publicly shaming PeopleBrowser
(people publicly shamed Twitter for going back on their API!), and I'm happy
that the tone of the TechCrunch article at least portrayed PeopleBrowser in a
negative light.

Where the legal system fails, social pressure is the next best option.

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joshAg
agreed. Honestly, I'd be more worried about a laywer than anyone else because
the lawyer only needs to convince himself and is always willing to work this
case pro bono.

"What we didn't know about <him> was that he was a retired lawyer, and which
is one of the dangerous breeds of lawyer because they have nothing but time to
crawl right up your ass" -Stephen Colbert [1]

[1]:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0fnHcbQJiYM#t=130s)

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jbwyme
It strikes me a little odd that twitter doesn't want to have a larger hand in
their data distribution. Having some one else handle it seems like something a
non-tech company would do. Scaling and automating the distribution to
subscribers doesn't strike me as a problem twitter would have a hard time
solving and I hardly doubt they need any one else to sell it for them from a
marketing standpoint. What, from a business perspective, do you suppose is
driving their decision to only work with three companies?

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skrebbel
Are you sure that Twitter is a tech company?

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jbwyme
For what Twitter is today, I'm sure they are. They are essentially the world's
largest chat room except every participant gets to curate their own experience
(plus it's all indexed). Maybe their revenue stream won't be directly a tech
product but will certainly be the result of one.

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fredoliveira
What do you mean by "won't be directly"? It seems like you're implying they're
not making money today, which they most certainly are. They do have a revenue
stream. Several, really, between promoted tweets, promoted accounts, and the
firehose.

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ChuckMcM
Its an interesting twist, if you reason that part of Twitter's enterprise
value is its Firehose data then unwinding these contracts is in Twitter's best
interest. However I have experienced first hand problems with contracts
written "pre-success" that didn't anticipate what success would look like.
Depending on the players those have generally been amended amicably. On the
other hand it does seem like it will damage Peoplebrowsr's product to lose
access. Perhaps its just a money question?

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lnanek2
This happens especially a lot with companies that don't actually have and
programmers on staff. Changing means of access means they basically have to
buy their outsourced app all over again...

