Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder, has sued YouTube and its parent company,
Google, accusing them of not reacting on time to remove content related to bitcoin scams that use his likeness.
Steve Wozniak
He is one of the 18 plaintiffs who are seeking punitive damages and the removal of all scam videos that use his name and likeness.
The lawsuit has been filed with the San Mateo Superior Court in the US state of California, which accuses YouTube and Google of violating Steve Wozniak’s right of publicity and misappropriating his name and likeness.
The Law Suit also accuses the search giant of aiding and abetting fraud, and negligent failure to warn users.
Google Inc. is yet to issue an official response to the lawsuit.
“YouTube has also featured a steady stream of scam videos and promotions that falsely use Videos and Images of Steve Wozniak, and other famous tech entrepreneurs, and that have defrauded YouTube out of millions of dollars”,
The lawsuit says. In the same breath, it also praises Twitter (American Micro Blogging Site) for “acting swiftly” after the massive bitcoin scam earlier this week. “That same day, Twitter acted swiftly and shut down these accounts and to protect its users from the scam”, the lawsuit says.
The suit further alleged that Google and YouTube did not take these videos down, even when intimated about the scam to them.
“With full knowledge of this scam, YouTube resisted taking the scam videos down, allowed the video’s to multiply.
YouTube and Google took the further step of promoting and profiting from these scams by allowing paid advertising that also targeted users who were most likely to be harmed”, it claims.
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