"The Jerusalem Post" English language daily today filed a NIS 1 million lawsuit against online information analysis company SimilarWeb. The claim was filed through Adv. Haim Ben Yakov of the Ben Yakov, Shvimer, Dolev and Keret law firm. No statement of defense has been submitted yet.
In its statement of claim, "The Jerusalem Post" accused SimilarWeb of negligence in publishing incorrect data about the exposure of "The Jerusalem Post" website in comparison with its competitors, alleging that the data published deviated unreasonably from the correct information.
According to the statement of claim, the figures published on the website do not correspond to the real situation and the exposure data of the "Jerusalem Post" website, which has consistently led its competitors by a wide margin, according to comparisons on leading Internet data analysis websites Alexa and Compete.
Before filing the lawsuit, the claimant's representative contacted the defendant, and demanded that it desist from publishing the erroneous data and publish an apology, while showing the defendant the true figures and pointing out the latter's error. The defendant admitted the error, and corrected it in one of its reports, but then reverted to publishing the false figures. The newspaper therefore decided to file suit.
Jerusalem Post Group CEO Ronit Hasin Hochman said, "The Jerusalem Post website is the leading website in the Jewish world, with between five and eight million unique visitors each month and more than 28 million page views. It serves as the homepage for most Diaspora Jews who are interested in Israel.
"While SimilarWeb professes to being a source of comparative Internet traffic data, the methods and tools they employ to obtain their data are not made public and are kept under a total blackout."
Hochman added that the Jerusalem Post Group had proved to SimilarWeb that its figures were wrong, and that SimilarWeb had corrected them, but had then gone back to publishing the incorrect data again. She stated, "The company’s data on Jewish world news websites constitute a false representation, and we will act to ensure that the injustice is repaired.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 11, 2015
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