Businesses
The company operates two divisions: consumer internet and licensing.Consumer Internet division
The consumer internet division owns and operates more than 95 websites in seven categories. The company attracts more than 62 million unique visitors per month, with 97% of the audience originating from organic, non-paid sources. The company's strategy is to focus on specific target audiences that tend to be attractive to advertisers. On December 1, 2010, Internet Brands acquired AllLaw.com and AttorneyLocate.com, both founded by Arvind A. Raichur. SEC filings indicate that approximately 70% of the company's revenues are derived from advertising from more than 40,000 accounts—most of themHistory
The company was founded in 1998 as CarsDirect.com, launched from the business incubator Idealab. The company invented a consumer-advocacy approach to selling cars "haggle-free" online, an approach it continues to employ. In 2000, Roger Penske invested in the company and joined the Board of Directors. In 2002, Time Magazine voted the site one of the 50 best in the world. The company changed its name to Internet Brands in 2005. The company's IPO was in November 2007 on the NASDAQ exchange. INET was added to the NASDAQ Internet Index on March 22, 2010. Internet Brands agreed to be acquired for $640 million by the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman in September 2010 and was thus delisted from NASDAQ. In September 2012, Internet Brands became involved in a legal battle with the Wikimedia Foundation (the operators of Wikipedia) over the future of Wikitravel's community. Internet Brands was acquired in June 2014 byControversies
vBulletin criticism
In October 2009, Internet Brands changed the pricing structure for its vBulletin software, prompting complaints from registered users on the official forums. According to '' The Register'' those who complained were then banned from both the forums and from receiving support and updates, despite still having valid licences for the product. Internet Brands defended their position to ''The Register'' in a separate article; however, a later update to the same article stated that at least some of Internet Brands' claims were false.vBulletin and XenForo
In October 2010, Internet Brands announced that it would file a lawsuit against the XenForo team claiming copyright infringement; specifically that code in XenForo was based on vBulletin code,Wikitravel and Wikimedia
In 2012, after a lengthy history of dissatisfaction, community members at Internet Brands-owned website Wikitravel began discussing whether to fork (split off) of their work and editing activities from ''Wikitravel'' and recommence their editing activities at another website host. The dissatisfaction related to long standing discontent at poor hosting, poor site updates, and excessive over-monetarization and advertising, and eventually, interference by Internet Brands in the community's activities in breach of prior agreements and understandings. Migration FAQ at Wikivoyage, 25 October 2012 Forking is a normal or anticipated activity in wiki communities and is permitted by the Creative Commons license in use on sites such as Wikitravel, and the wiki software used by Wikitravel included the facility to take 'database "dumps"' for that purpose. This mirrored the fork of the German and Italian language Wikitravel communities some years earlier, which led to a new travel wiki site called Wikivoyage. Members of the communities concerned decided that the community at Wikitravel would move its editing efforts to merge with Wikivoyage, to create a new travel wiki to be hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, the owner of Wikipedia and a large range of other non-profit reference sites based upon aGreenlight Financial Services
In April 2013, on behalf of its client Greenlight Financial Services, Inc., the Rhema Law Group won a jury verdict trial against Internet Brands, Inc. The Orange County Superior Court jury found that Internet Brands breached a previous settlement agreement between the parties and awarded lost profits damages in the amount of $750,000.Model Mayhem
ModelMayhem.com is a social media website where models can create profiles and publish pictures. In May 2008 Internet Brands bought Model Mayhem from the original developers Donald and Tyler Waitt. Model Mayhem was involved in the court case Jane Doe No. 14 v. Internet Brands, Inc., where litigants argued that Model Mayhem was liable for damages resulting from crimes committed by users on the website.References
External links
* {{authority control Mass media companies established in 1998 American companies established in 1998 Online mass media companies of the United States Technology companies based in Greater Los Angeles Companies based in El Segundo, California Kohlberg Kravis Roberts companies 1998 establishments in California 2007 initial public offerings Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq 2010 mergers and acquisitions 2014 mergers and acquisitions