Consumer Law

Last month commercial real estate company, Costar Croup, Inc. filed a lawsuit alleging that a competitor, Loopnet, Inc. violated the federal Lanham Act by repeatedly misrepresenting the number Loopnet registered members and by deceptively associating "registered members" with "active users."  With respect to the latter claim, the complaint asserts that since Loopnet has been accumulating members since 1995, its claimed 2.5 million members include people that did not view property, are no longer interested in viewing property, and are bots or non-human visitors.  Some of the claims noted in the complaint, such as "massive users," sound like puffery.  However, claims regarding the number of members or users are factual claims that are commonly used to promote online communities -- and strike me as the type of claims that might be taken for granted. 

Download costar_group_v. Loopnet.pdf