Staples, Office Depot, OfficeMax Are Sued For Their Web Sites—And Much Of The Rest of E-Tail Could Be Next
Written by Frank HayesSeptember 2nd, 2010
Staples, Office Depot and OfficeMax are standing in for the rest of the E-tail world in a lawsuit filed last Friday (Aug. 27). The office-supply giants are being accused of illegally using patented technology in their Web sites--though it's not clear what features of the sites are violating the law. The suit, filed by a company Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen owns, also names E-Commerce companies eBay and Netflix, along with search engines Google and Yahoo, social networking sites Facebook and YouTube, and Apple and AOL.
Retailers aren't usually hit with patent lawsuits. Those are usually reserved for manufacturers, although the ways retailers handle debit cards, gift cards, micropayments and site accessibility have attracted litigation in the past. This time, though, it's their Web sites that have the office stores under legal attack. But there's nothing special about these Web sites that make them dramatically different from other large E-tailers. That means if these retailers lose in court--or settle the case--every other major retailer will soon be looking down the barrel of the same legal gun.
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Is there really an improvement between a mag swipe and contactless tap if multi-factor authentication is required?
-Ed
