MP court summons Zuckerberg over complaint of taking down startup biz page

A court in Bhopal has issued summons to Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg on a petition filed by a city-based startup which accused the social networking giant of taking down the page, and thereby, hampering and interfering in its business.

Civil judge Parth Shankar Mishra on April 23 asked US-based Zuckerberg to appear in his court on June 20.

The judge directed that the summons be sent by email.

The judge was hearing a civil suit filed by one Swapnil Rai, who runs a web portal thetradebook.org, which he claimed is a business networking platform. In the suit, Rai said Facebook had stopped midway his paid advertisement campaign aimed at promoting his portal.

The campaign was scheduled to be run between April 14 and April 21, 2018, but it was “abruptly and wrongfully” stopped on April 16, the petitioner’s counsel Ravi Kant Patidar said.

The campaign aimed at promotion of the webpage www.thetradebook.org containing registered trademark “tradefeed”, he added. Patidar said Facebook stopped the paid campaign without citing any reason and in the process “hampered” his client’s business which was benefiting from the campaign.

The plaintiff said Facebook took money to promote the web page containing the registered trademark “tradefeed” for one week, but stopped it after three days, which it claims is breach of contract.

The plaintiff said he has the trademark “tradefeed” registered in his name, but Facebook was using “newsfeed” which he claims is similar to “tradefeed” to disseminate trade and business related information.

The suit demanded that Facebook be restrained from infringing the trademark and interfering in the business of “thetradebook.org”, Patidar said. Besides, it demanded that “thetradebook.org” page be restored and Facebook take corrective measures to ensure its rightful business is not hampered, he added.

“I hold Mark Zuckerberg in high esteem. He has done a remarkable job by connecting people (through Facebook), but I had no option but to move the court to get my grievances addressed,” Rai said.