An installation-art company called META (or Meta.is) is suing Meta (or meta.com)

This site is just tried to fake a chrome update for me. Serving up malware.<p>Viewing source their wordpress for sure has been hacked.<p>Obfuscated JS at the bottom of every static js file. Must be something random that it targeted me. cant seam to make it trigger again.

Back in the day I worked at MetaCreations née MetaTools[0]. We had a web browser plugin that rendered streaming, progressive, interactive 3D - well before WebGL et. al. It shipped with IE and was available for other browsers as well. The MetaStream logo[1][2][3] was surprisingly similar to the Meta one.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;MetaCreations" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;MetaCreations</a><p>[1] It was surprisingly hard to find a copy of the logo on image search.<p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;browserengine.net&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;metastream3plugin4.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;browserengine.net&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;metastream3plug...</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Salliemeta&#x2F;status&#x2F;1454571901381058562&#x2F;photo&#x2F;1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Salliemeta&#x2F;status&#x2F;1454571901381058562&#x2F;ph...</a><p>Nothing new under the sun...

While I am not a fan of Facebook&#x2F;Meta, I actually hope that they do not lose this case. If you want to name your company after a word that is in common usage, then you should have to deal with the fact that others may use the same word for their own purposes. JP Morgan seems like a name that hardly limits anyone trying to name their company. Apple or Meta are just words in common usage.

I also occassionally mourn the death of the word Meta, It was such a beautiful and succinct word.<p><pre><code> Meta means about the thing itself. It&#x27;s seeing the thing from a higher perspective instead of from within the thing, like being self-aware. </code></pre> Not to forget the words like Metadata, Meta-physics, Meta-analysis, Metameme.<p>Long live Meta[adjective].

Interesting. Given they&#x27;ve dealt in the VR space before, and registered the trademark, this would seem to be a compelling case. I wish them the best.

What if meta.is decides it needs no money and asks FB (I mean meta.com) to do a re-branding :D

Reminds me of eToys vs eToy in the late 90s. Hacking groups targeted eToys and caused many late nights for the ops team. I joined eToys shortly after as a Perl dev and decided to nmap scan ToysRUs and eToys cybersecurity team was on a hair trigger after the eToy hacks. Someone literally came thumping down the hallway and walked straight into my office. I put my hands up and started apologizing profusely and they let it slide.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.artforum.com&#x2F;print&#x2F;200003&#x2F;etoys-vs-etoy-278" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.artforum.com&#x2F;print&#x2F;200003&#x2F;etoys-vs-etoy-278</a>

I published a NFT app named &quot;Meta&quot; weeks before Facebook was changed to Meta.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.google.com&#x2F;store&#x2F;apps&#x2F;details?id=com.ai.art.nft.creator.generator" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.google.com&#x2F;store&#x2F;apps&#x2F;details?id=com.ai.art.nft...</a>

&gt; The name Meta is primarily a female name of German origin that means Pearl.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;babynames.com&#x2F;name&#x2F;meta" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;babynames.com&#x2F;name&#x2F;meta</a>

Ah yeah - I&#x27;ve been bummed that people now think <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;metacademy.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;metacademy.org&#x2F;</a> is about meta.

META looks set to make a lot of money.

How can we sue something for being meta when everything is meta?

The term “metaverse” was first used in Neil Stevenson&#x27;s 1982 novel Snow Crash. IANAL but it seems dubious to me that anyone besides Neil gets to claim dibs on the word &quot;meta&quot; as used in the context of VR.

There&#x27;s loads of companies out there with extremely similar names. It&#x27;s hard to come up with something totally unique. I believe, legally, it just can&#x27;t be identical to a name already registered in the same state. When I was trying to name my own business, it was amazing to see how many names were already taken just in my state. Not that it makes it right for Meta&#x2F;Facebook to do whatever they want but any rebranding they chose would probably have stepped on someone&#x27;s toes.