Law.com Subscribers SAVE 30%

Call 855-808-4530 or email [email protected] to receive your discount on a new subscription.

Whole Foods' CEO Mackey: Poster Child for Sock Puppeting's Pitfalls

By Samuel Fineman

Creativity is king, and on the Internet you can be anything imaginable: a man posing as a woman, an undercover agent impersonating a curious boy, or the chief executive of a Fortune 500 company pretending to be an adoring fan of ' himself?

So goes the strange tale of John Mackey, the chief executive officer of Whole Foods Market, who used a pseudonymous identity on the Yahoo! message boards for nearly eight years to lambaste competition and promote his supermarket chain's stock, according to documents released by the Federal Trade Commission ('FTC') last month.

This premium content is locked for Entertainment Law & Finance subscribers only

  • Stay current on the latest information, rulings, regulations, and trends
  • Includes practical, must-have information on copyrights, royalties, AI, and more
  • Tap into expert guidance from top entertainment lawyers and experts

For enterprise-wide or corporate acess, please contact Customer Service at [email protected] or 877-256-2473

Read These Next
Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the Rough Image

There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.

Blockchain Domains: New Developments for Brand Owners Image

Blockchain domain names offer decentralized alternatives to traditional DNS-based domain names, promising enhanced security, privacy and censorship resistance. However, these benefits come with significant challenges, particularly for brand owners seeking to protect their trademarks in these new digital spaces.

Removing Restrictive Covenants In New York Image

In Rockwell v. Despart, the New York Supreme Court, Third Department, recently revisited a recurring question: When may a landowner seek judicial removal of a covenant restricting use of her land?

Judge Rules Shaquille O'Neal Will Face Securities Lawsuit for Promotion, Sale of NFTs Image

A federal district court in Miami, FL, has ruled that former National Basketball Association star Shaquille O'Neal will have to face a lawsuit over his promotion of unregistered securities in the form of cryptocurrency tokens and that he was a "seller" of these unregistered securities.

Why So Many Great Lawyers Stink at Business Development and What Law Firms Are Doing About It Image

Why is it that those who are best skilled at advocating for others are ill-equipped at advocating for their own skills and what to do about it?