H&R Block Sues Over Square's New Name 'Block' (cnbc.com) 68
H&R Block filed a trademark infringement lawsuit over Square's new name, "Block" on Thursday. CNBC reports: The tax preparation service seeks to keep Block from using the new name, saying in a press release that the fintech company "would improperly capitalize on the goodwill and consumer trust cultivated by Block since 1955." H&R Block said the renamed company competes with it directly in financial services, including through its recent acquisition of Credit Karma Tax for tax preparation. It alleged the name would be overly confusing for consumers, especially given the two companies' overlapping offerings. "Today's filing is an important effort to prevent consumer confusion and ensure a competitor cannot leverage the reputation and trust we have built over more than six decades," said H&R Block President and CEO Jeff Jones said in a statement.
Re: The Internet no longer exists. (Score:4, Insightful)
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The ramblings of mental illness.
Good thing Orwell convinced everyone he was nothing more than a science fiction writer back in the day.
Otherwise, he might have been locked away in an insane asylum, and millions of people would have never been warned about their amazing ability to turn 1984 into fucking reality.
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What boggles my mind is that people willingly buy 'smart' TVs with built in wifi and webcams. More disturbing is how inescapable 'smart' tech is becoming and how difficult or even impossible it is to turn it off.
For anyone who thinks the gov't isn't interested in your day to day life I ask then why do they need such astronomically huge data centres? And, ECHELON and https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
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Is that because you get so angry because your too stupid to formulate an argument that makes sense so you have to resort to threats of murder and rape instead, sucks to be you.
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They (the govt) can't keep up with enemies, much less be interested in WTF you're doing inside of your home. Corporations on the other hand, have a vested interest in figuring out how to make more capital off of each of us.
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Maybe we should stop letting sociopaths run our gov'ts then, they shouldn't be enemies, that's Neanderthal level crap. We've got big species threatening issues and we can't deal with those when the dick swinging and prioritisation of profit continues.
If gov'ts aren't interested in what we're doing in our homes then they can stop spying on us then can't they.
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Your lack of logic is astounding.
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You're right- the government doesn't care.
The advertising companies, that's who cares. They want that sweet, sweet user data like a junkie craves heroin.
For example, Vizio’s profit on ads, subscriptions, and data is double the money it makes selling TVs.
"The TV maker released its latest earnings report on Tuesday and revealed that over the last three months, its Platform Plus segment that includes advertising and viewer data had a gross profit of $57.3 million. That’s more than twice the amount
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They (the govt) can't keep up with enemies, much less be interested in WTF you're doing inside of your home. Corporations on the other hand, have a vested interest in figuring out how to make more capital off of each of us.
You really have never heard of the Donor Class, have you?
Go read up. Then you can join the rest of the adults at the big table to discuss exactly how much the government gives a shit about placating their true masters who are funding and profiting all of this.
TL; DR - HOW the hell do you think we got HERE.
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A lot of people just don't know any better.
The rest don't care, they literally don't care. (Probably because they don't know any better, but still...)
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Slow news day, the news of Adobe stock dropping 10% seems pretty irrelevant too, they may be a tech co' but that is not tech news.
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It is not news for nerds. And for them, it is not stuff that matters.
Square is a digital payments company founded by the same person that founded Twitter.
It was started as a direct response to Paypal, which was founded by the same person that founded Tesla and SpaceX.
These are all technical companies, started by technical people, specifically to serve Internet users, a technical network - one that at the point in time these people started such things, was full of and ran by more technical people than not.
The issue at hand is not that this isn't news for nerds, but more that
So in other words (Score:5, Funny)
H&R Block attempts to block name change to Block due to them being the new kids on the block.
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No mods, but Funny and pretty much sums up the article
But to me H&R seem to have a case, the only thing that made my head spin was this quote:
would improperly capitalize on the goodwill and consumer trust cultivated by Block since 1955
Maybe until the 80s this was true.
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sir.
this is not reddit.
Well crap, there goes my choice of business name (Score:2)
Shocking Development. (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, did no one at Square see this coming a mile away? H&R Block is a well known national name so I'm sure more than a few of their employees have their taxes done by them. I expected this as soon as I read the news about the name change plan before.
I wonder if this is some clever plan to get H&R Block to buy Square.
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I wonder if this is some clever plan to get H&R Block to buy Square.
You might have that backwards. The company formerly known as Square is roughly 2-3x the size of H&R Block across most metrics (e.g. number of full-time employees, annual revenue, total assets, etc.), so if there’s going to be a buyout, it’s going to go the other way.
Moreover, having used both H&R Block and Credit Karma Tax to file my taxes within the last decade, I don’t think the former Square would have anything to gain, given that they already have a far superior product. The on
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I know I always confuse a well-known tax-prep company that's been around for decades with a digital payments service.
I can hardly tell 'em apart!
Doing them a favour (Score:2)
"Block" is a shit name for a company. Maybe they'll come up with a better one, or you know, just use the name they already have.
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Re: Doing them a favour (Score:3)
The solution should be obvious: they should just skip the 3D shape and skip to "Hypercube."
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I propose "Quadrilateral", despite the fact that ~%40 of the population wouldn't know how to pronounce it or have a clue what it means.
So block tries to block square from being a block? (Score:2)
Why all the blocking action?
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Re: So block tries to block square from being a bl (Score:2)
They should try renaming to Deny instead of Block. See if that one goes through. :-)
Why do companies feel the need to rename? (Score:4, Insightful)
Square is already a well-recognized brand in the online financial space, and it's a DAMN GOOD brand name. Simple. Recognizable.
"Block" is no better and could have some negative connotations, and the conflict with the tax company is utterly predictable. Who the hell thought that was a great idea?
Re:Why do companies feel the need to rename? (Score:5, Funny)
They obviously felt the company lacked... depth.
Re: Why do companies feel the need to rename? (Score:2)
Employees were tired of being called Squares and wanted to be Blockheads instead.
Their new CEO is Charlie Brown.
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Who the hell thought that was a great idea?
Probably the people who saw Long Island Ice Tea Corp change their name to Long Blockchain and their shareprice skyrocket as a result.
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> Who the hell thought that was a great idea?
Jack rage-quit Twitter and renamed Square the same day to signal that he's a Bitcoin Maxi.
I guess it's time to move to the next logical step (Score:2)
The company that was Square that is now named Block will change their name to hypercube.
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I like that way of thinking. Don't know why they picked Block in the first place though. The logical progression would be Square-> Cube -> Tesseract-> Decateron
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Maybe simplify it to Hyperbole.
H & B Block (Score:1)
At least debatable (Score:3)
Hey, this is at least debatable. I mean "let Block do your taxes!" C'mon.
Called it ... (Score:3)
I noted [slashdot.org] on Dec 1 in the thread Jack Dorsey's Square Changes Corporate Name To Block [slashdot.org]:
Square, now Block, and H&R Block are both in the financial services arena. The latter has been around for a *while* and I can't imagine they wouldn't have some complaint about this name change to something so similar, but I can't decide if if I should get out the popcorn or not...
Popcorn it is ... !
Can they both lose? (Score:2, Insightful)
H&R Block is a POS company. They exist because of a convoluted and outdated tax system, and they lobby against any attempts to fix it.
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By your logic every company in the world is a POS company because they exist due to a need for their expertise and they actively campaign against changes that would make them obsolete.
No company actively campaigns for their own demise or sits by and just watches it happen. And if they did, well you find out about those companies by looking through bankruptcy registers.
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By your logic every company in the world is a POS company because they exist due to a need for their expertise and they actively campaign against changes that would make them obsolete.
Definition checks out. Like the way GM tore up the streetcar and trolley tracks to force people to buy cars. Yes, I said "force", because without streetcars, getting to work became magnitudes more difficult for people.
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Absolutely 100% true.
Anyone that's knows anything about H&R Block knows they're scum who love to hide their "free" tax forms so people can't use them.
Most people looking for them just give and and pay them otherwise they'd never be able to file their taxes.
Recently there are so many pathetic lawsuits (Score:1)
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No. You are an idiot. Your post was bad, and you should feel bad for posting it.
This is one of the FEW examples of a legitimate complaint.
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I'm having second thoughts now... (Score:2)
... about the monicker for my new male chastity device.
And with Square's CEO leaving recently... (Score:2)
...we're all wondering who will become the new Block head.
No confusion (Score:2)