From the moment AOL said it had acquired the Huffington Post for $315 million, it seemed likely that the site's cadre of bloggers would regret having contributed to the company for free.
Today, one filed a class-action suit against AOL and the Huffington Post for deceptive business practices and unjust enrichment. "TheHuffingtonPost.com has been unjustly enriched by engaging in ...
the practice of generating enormous profits by luring carefully-vetted contributors with the prospect of 'exposure' (which TheHuffingtonPost.com deceptively fails to verify), to provide valuable
content at no cost," states the complaint, filed by freelancer Jonathan Tasini in U.S. District Court in New York.
Tasini, who has unsuccessfully run for the Democratic nomination to Congress,
says in the lawsuit that he personally wrote more than 216 pieces for the site. Additionally, he says, he publicized the posts he authored on Twitter and Facebook at the site's request, resulting in
"substantial internet traffic to TheHuffingtonPost.com."
The complaint additionally alleges that absent the contributions by unpaid bloggers, "TheHuffingtonPost.com would not have been an
attractive merger target and would have sold for at least $105 million less than the merger price."
It's not surprising that Tasini -- and other bloggers -- feel taken advantage of now that
the site has been sold. Still, it seems unlikely that a federal judge will order the Huffington Post to retroactively change the terms of the site's deal with its writers.