Mark Brooks writes that FriendFinder filed suit against affiliate managers, Jack Mardack and Sean Barrett for breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets and defamation, among other charges, after they left the company and formed Profit Lab, which does consulting work for competitor Sex Search.
Shedding further light on to the Friendfinder corporate ownership matrix, the ever-diligent Markus has dug deeper into the situation, reporting that FriendFinder owns Webdate through it’s recent merger with Streamray.
Clarification – according to Timothy Chanaud, Senior PR Manager Various Inc/FriendFinder, Various and its affiliated companies do not own or operate Webdate. Their only relationship with them is a contractual arrangement where they operate cams on their site.
In March 2005, Various Inc, the parent company of Friendfinder, merged with Streamray, one of the web’s leading live cam companies. Streamray operates Cams.com and several other pay-per minute live web cam programs. Streamray is supposedly the largest provider of adult content.
It turns out that Webdate is a division of Streamray, so as of March 2005 Friendfinder is the owner of Webdate.
FriendFinder is making megabucks and continues to strengthen their position with smart mergers and acquistions. A few lawsuits here and there are to be expected. I wonder how big a deal this really is, probably settle out of court.
