True story. Meta could be forced to stop using its own brand name in Brazil after a local IT services company – also named Meta – decided to take on the tech behemoth in court over the copycat moniker.
A Sao Paulo-court ordered Facebook-parent Meta to cease using its name in the South American nation within 30 days, which translates to March 29th.
The Brazilian digital solutions and management company filed the lawsuit claiming its firm has been damaged by third parties confusing the companies.
Brazilian Meta is located in Barueri, a city in the São Paulo metro area, one of the most populated areas of São Paulo state.
According to the court filings, Brazilian Meta (Meta Servicos) registered its brand in the late 2000s with the country’s National Institute for Intellectual Property – well before Zuckerberg's company changed its name in 2021.
The small tech company said it had been wrongly included in more than 100 lawsuits and has had Instagram profiles disabled for supposedly impersonating another.
The Brazilian Meta logo (which honestly looks more appealing that Zuckerberg’s) also uses blue as its main color, and spells out Meta with a capital M.
But Instead of an infinity symbol there is a small swirl under the last a. It’s catch phrase – Digital Simple Human.
An appeals court in Sao Paulo ruled that US Meta must pay 100,000 reais ($20,201) per day if it fails to comply with the decision – although the tech giant is allowed to appeal the decision.
The Mark Zuckerberg owned company, formerly called Facebook, changed its name in a rebrand that focused on building the "metaverse," a shared virtual environment that it bet would be the successor to the mobile internet.
The decision is from Wednesday and was reported late evening on Thursday by Brazilian newspaper Valor.
Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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