Hey, there! Log in / Register

Medical diagnostics company says when it asked YouTube to take down bogus fake videos with its name on them, the platform left them up and took down the real ones instead

By adamg on Mon, 07/22/2024 - 6:12pm

A Salem company that makes makes testing systems for various gastrointestinal disorders is suing YouTube, alleging the video platform screwed up and took down instructional videos about its products rather than the fraudulent ones bearing its name it had asked repeatedly to be removed.

Commonwealth Diagnostics International (CDI) sued YouTube in Essex Superior Court in Salem last month. Today, YouTube, based in California, "removed" the case from there to federal court in Boston.

CDI says it has been dealing for years now with somebody - it doesn't say who - who posted seven YouTube videos under the name Commonwealth Diagnostics Int'l that purport to be official CDI training videos but which, in fact, "are factually incorrect and have caused confusion and harm to CDI's patients and physician clients" who use its products.

CDI alleges it repeatedly complained, via the "Report" link, to YouTube about the bogus videos, which have titles such as "Taking a Lactose Intolerance/Lactose Malabsorption Breath Test" but that YouTube did nothing. In February, the company says, YouTube asked for proof of trademark ownership, which the company's lawyer sent.

Then, in April, the lawyer sent a formal complaint under the Massachusetts consumer and fair-trade law demanding the videos be taken down. According to the complaint, YouTube responded on April 24 that "We reviewed your legal complaint and restricted the content in question."

Only problem, CDI charges: YouTube left the imposter videos up and instead took down both CDI's videos and its YouTube page.

This has caused CDI substantial damages and further damaged and harmed CDI's healthcare providers and patients. CDI immediately contacted YouTube to advise YouTube of its reckless actions in terminating and restricting the wrong account. To date, despite numerous requests, YouTube has failed and refused to take corrective action, and CDI's authorized YouTube account has been totallly suspended while YouTube has recklessly allowed the Impersonating Account to remain on the YouTube website.

CDI charges all this is a breach of contract, copyright infringement and violation of the state deceptive-trade-practices law. It's seeking a restoration of its videos and company YouTube page, treble damages under the state law and attorneys' fees.

As of this afternoon, at least, the fraudulent videos and page have been removed, while CDI's YouTube page and its videos - including the one on lactose intolerance - are back.

Complete complaint (2.3M PDF).

Neighborhoods: 
Salem
Topics: 
Business
Free tagging: 
YouTube
Lawsuits


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

By MisterMagooForYou on Mon, 07/22/2024 - 6:43pm.

Magoo is thinking about starting a YouTube channel called Magoo’s Munchies featuring Magoo stuffing Magoo’s gourd with nom noms. Magoo.

up
13

By Snoofy on Mon, 07/22/2024 - 7:47pm.

FDA just issued new guidance for how to deal with misinformation:
https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents...

up
10

By Rwgfy on Mon, 07/22/2024 - 7:58pm.

Are they saying their breath tests are not bogus?

By SwirlyGrrl on Mon, 07/22/2024 - 9:06pm.

Share and enjoy!

By Luke Warmer on Mon, 07/22/2024 - 10:24pm.

of anything google-like. where you can get fucked because, a) you are the commodity being traded and b) you are the commodity being traded. but for help you can try our "online community." nice to know the shit end is not just for the individual.

up
10

By Don't Panic on Tue, 07/23/2024 - 1:57am.

YouTube appears to have been negligent. I wonder if they (YouTube) depended on an algorithm to fix the problem. I understand that corporations are people now but I don't think corporate algorithms are covered as employees.

up
11

By cybah on Tue, 07/23/2024 - 7:11am.

Youtube is awful about this stuff. Gotta love companies who office a service and do not have real people in the US reviewing stuff. No, its all algorithm based or some call center staff in some other country who do this.

I had a paid website where i had videos of myself doing stuff. (yup its what you think) Someone had gone and done screen caps of all my stuff and was posting it to you tube.

But good luck trying to get it taken down. You can file a report, which their form is doesn't leave much wiggle room. I reported from my actual youtube account with videos of my face to verify that the uploads elsewhere were not me.

Took several of these reports and getting hundreds of my social media following to go and flag the account as fake for them to even wince. And even then it was a battle with me sending links to video after video of the original un-watermarked copies I had to get them to do something.

Overall it took 2 months for this to be taken care of.

But OMG if I upload 10 seconds of a copyrighted song in a video.. it's blocked before I can finish filling out the upload information (name, video description, etc).

up
17

By Kaz on Tue, 07/23/2024 - 9:26am.

I had a paid website where i had videos of myself doing stuff. (yup its what you think)

Building IKEA furniture?

By cybah on Tue, 07/23/2024 - 12:04pm.

You actually are right here. This was one of them. I assembled ikea furniture. I had another one where I painted my bedroom. Another where I repaired my kitchen sink.

Of course that doesn't sound that bad.. and I charged a monthly subscription fee for this?

But what I've left out is what I was wearing when I did it. And yes I was fully clothed. I was never nude or showed off my no no parts. It was just the outfit that seemed to do it for people.

Amazing how a fat hairy old dude with a huge gut can wear a very tight construction outfit and do rando shit around his house and charge 17.99/mo for it. (and had over 5000 subscribers at one point watching)

I stopped because a) people got weird with requests b) Half my videos I had to spend time editing out me laughing so much, as these videos were suppose to be very serious.

I just laughed because.. well truly I laughed because I was laughing all the way to the bank.

Would I do it again? Nope. I realized for the effort i was putting into it, even at 5k subs, I still made more at my day job. Not worth giving up a Sunday to make 4,5,6 videos for the week.

up
10

By Kaz on Tue, 07/23/2024 - 9:26am.

Dear adamg,

Your comment field doesn't like emojis evidently.

By Tim Mc. on Tue, 07/23/2024 - 12:48pm.

Probably a problem with the MySQL character encoding, either on the connection or the DB table itself. (MySQL is notoriously bad about this.)