Infomedia18 Sued, Askme.in Down & Deap Ubhi Quitting?
Its all happening in the wrong way for Infomedia18 the arm of Network18 which acquired burrp.com and recently launched the classifieds listings portal Askme.in. We reviewed askme and clearly stated that there was nothing new in the portal. Apparently there was a lot of copied as well. Just dial has sued Infomedia18 (thanks for the comment tip) over content theft of database for Askme and won an injunction on the operations of the portal as well.
Offlate dotcom companies suing each other have been on the rise as recently two travel portals went legal route as well.
This case is interesting as it is about database on businesses and companies and not creative rights on content. Justdial’s take would obviously be that took them great pains and a ton of funding to build their database and keep it accurate and hence any plaigiarism amounts to theft.
The directive by the courts to direct askme.in to shut operations and cease to exist is also in favour of Justdial’s stance. Currently the site askme.in is giving a database error. It will be interesting to follow this story to see how it impacts future such cases in the digital space.
More trouble for Infomedia18
Recently Infomedia18 acquired burrp.com for 4.25 crore which made us question on whether it was a good deal or no. With that came the acquisition of Deap Ubhi who was the entrepreneur behind burrp. Deap joined Infomedia as the Executive vice president of new media & internet. He in a blog post on his personal blog writes about his journey and also hints at his decision to move on. Though its not officially announced it can be understood from the post that Deap has decided to move on.
Now he also mentions that his team also rolled out Askme.in. Wonder what’s going wrong with Infomedia18 but this flurry of bad news wont please those higher up at Network18 group.
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this something all wannabe entrepreneurs should take a lesson from. Startups are all about innovating – helping users with something that is actually benefitial to them – startups are not something which you copy and continue….
firstly the burrp buyout was a necessity…else ” someone ” in infomedia would have to keep paying almost 15lahs a month to keep the company afloat out of his own pocket…
well ubhi has had lot of bad luck…first gets accused by the co-founders of burrp…then manages to get 2 co-founders removed from burrp ( Rajeev sathe ) …then gets accused by employees of non payment of dues…then secretly negotiates moving to TIMES…who refuse to even entertian him….
Besides Infomedia…no one else is willing to take him on board…hence with limited options..inorder to save face..he is quittign before all hell breaks lose…
askme ..is basically another money making scam…it is just a redesigned yellow pages..that has been 2 years in the making…or rather..all we got was a XEROX…its strange…that since burrp was the one powering all their search…its going to be a slap in the face for burrp ..
This is even better than the Cleartrip cheating case…there it was just espionage…here..copyrigth infingrement…
Infomedia is a cheater, they promise stuff and take money but never get back to you, after payment emails get unanswered and phones are rejected.
After paying Rs. 15000/- for having my advt. in their directory, I never heard back from them regarding my query of why my advt. was not published in directory and online portal – they did sent me two cities directories (from total of 5 ordered) after more then 10 months of ordering – after 1 year and 7 months nothing is posted on their yellowpages site as promised.
They even go as far as promising you to get your advt. in top google results but now I can see they are a FRAUD company but with a big name behind them.
I am happy with this news, they should be punished.
My Advice – STAY AWAY FROM INFOMEDIA18.
Thanks
No doubt that a lot of effort has gone into building askme. But it’s just ridiculous for someone to think that they can build a business by scraping data off their biggest competition.
I have a strong feeling that Infomedia18 will finally get away with this – courtesy the big brother blessing of Network18. Although I am hoping that Just Dial puts up a tough fight. Just Dial has spent the last decade getting to where they are so doesn’t seem that they are going to this lying down.
I feel bad for the burrp! boys as they have given up their promising product for nothing. I wonder whether if they could get into trouble since they have built the product for Askme.
BURRP is already in bad hands…with mr ubhi at the stearing wheel who calls himself the C.E.O of burrp .after all he too has built his entire burrp database off the TIMES FOOD GUIDE…
@ insider..u seee burrp has no business model at all..makes abt 2-3 lakhs a month…its head of media sales goes to advertisers promising 6 million impressions a month from the home page…while in reality it gets just 8000 uniques a day…with a max 1 million impression using all pages and properties of burrp and In.com
Haresh chawla has invested in burrp and ask me…hoping for a big payday…but apparently thats far from happening. and its a fact..if u have ever been to their bombay office where they sit on the terrace n work..all u could see the last 2 years was just dial pages in front from where they were building their database. Yellow Pages is dead and outdated …their only last ( and now failed ) resort was to take on just dial …
all they are interestd in is making sure their stock price goes up …and raise money from investors .
very soon…Burrp will be again on the market..for sale…this time money will be offered to take it…along with the domain name of askme. in
I love Michael Jackson. He’s such a genius even after being dead for 10 months. Hope you die again.
Google was actually want to acquire burrp, but then it got sold to infomedia for dirt cheap price. why?
I agree with debjit. Its a lesson in consequences of cheating, and a good one at that! I wonder how askme.in even thought they could build and maintain a business based on theft. A landmark judgement for India and a confidence booster for companies that work hard for years to create the building blocks of their business.
@karan – dear justices, thanks taking time out for hearing of this case. now that the judgment has been passed, we can go back to our dreary and bleak corporate lives.
@Elvis Presly – your avatar photo has one black eye. I want to know the story behind it. have you ever created a web page or written a blog? now that’s a question that you don’t need to answer.
@Michael Jackson – didn’t know you were a school dropout. sorry, your grammar gave away your secret. how come your avatar photo also has a black eye? not a co-incidence, I bet.
@watblog – thanks for this mindless piece of sensationalist journalism. hey, whatever keeps your boat afloat. hope you open your third, fourth and fifth office soon.
Someone seems to have gotten really touchy here. Mmm wonder who that could be?
@watblog congrats on your new office
Khaaopiyo.com falls in to this category of copying data from different sites and they are not aware of the trouble ahead.
Let us go with our own genuine database.
ya looks like it seems to be someone with a history of good P R in the family