Crain's: ShopLocal Settles Suit with Rival

April 4, 2006 -- A competitor of ShopLocal, LLC has agreed to stop using the Chicago company’s information for its own business, settling a lawsuit filed four months ago.

“We are very pleased we were able to reach this resolution as the protection of our proprietary content is of utmost importance to our company,” Brian Hand, ShopLocal’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.

A representative for San Francisco-based Cairo Inc., ShopLocal’s competitor, was unavailable for comment.

On Nov. 22, ShopLocal filed a lawsuit in the District Court of Northern Illinois against Cairo Inc.

ShopLocal claimed Cairo had been raiding its computers and Web site and repurposing ShopLocal’s proprietary content. Both companies are online shopping sites that track local prices and promotions. Consumers can find pricing information on various items at neighborhood grocery and general merchandise stores by plugging in their ZIP code.

ShopLocal claimed that Cairo’s automated computer program, which regularly trolled the Internet for pricing and sales information, was repeatedly tapping into ShopLocal’s Web site and host computers.

“Cairo displays ShopLocal’s content on its own competing Web site for its own profit,” ShopLocal claimed in court documents.

Now Cairo has agreed to stop accessing ShopLocal’s computers or Web sites and acknowledge that ShopLocal has proprietary rights to its own content.

Other terms of the settlement were not disclosed.