Court documents obtained by Wired.com, said that Facebook is suing the start-up, which has yet to launch, for “rid[ing] on the coattails of the fame and enormous goodwill of the Facebook trademark”.

Facebook is understood to have filed the complaint in a Californian district court last Wednesday. The social network, which signed up its 500 millionth member last month, has also accused Teachbook of trademark infringement, trademark dilution and unfair competition.

Teachbook, an American-based web company, which is set to fully launch later this year, currently has 47 members.

Greg Shrader, a managing partner at Teachbook, told CNN: “At the end of the day, they’re just trying to bully us and we’re not going to roll over. We have every intention of filing an opposition in a month or so.”

He also said that Facebook’s filing struck him as “greedy. We’re a two-person company – I don’t know how a multibillion-dollar site sees us as a threat”.

Shrader added that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved Teachbook’s company name in 2009, despite Facebook’s protests at that time.

Facebook, in its lawsuit, has accused the company of “creat[ing] its own competing online networking community in a blatant attempt to become Facebook ‘for teachers’”.

A Facebook spokesman told The Telegraph: “It’s not that they are using “book”. You’ll notice that we have no complaint against Kelly Blue Book or Green Apple Books or other [such sites].

“However, there is already a well known online network of people with “book” in the brand name. Of course the Teachbook folks are free to create an online network for teachers or whomever they like, and we wish them well in that endeavour. What they are not free to do is trade on our name or dilute our brand while doing so.”

However, previously Facebook has forced other web start-ups to remove the word ‘book’ from their company name. Travel site, TripTrace, prior to complaints from Facebook, used to be called PlaceBook.

On TripTrace’s blog, the company says it ended up changing its name after Facebook stirred up a fuss, because “as a start-up we were in no position to fight.”

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Rahul Gandhi is a hit on Facebook.

He has a fan page following of 67,921 people which could be among the largest for any leader in the country on the popular social networking site.

Moreover, Gandhi’s facebook account, which Congress says has not been created by him, has 4,999 friends listed in it. It has photographs and videos as well as regular updates.

Rahul’s sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too has a fan page with 17,469 people listed as followers and another page named as “Priyanka Gandhi politician” having 163 followers.

Party President Sonia Gandhi has a page which lists her as an author with 1,283 people liking it while another page with politician listed along with her name has 503 people who like it.

When contacted, Chairman of the Computer Department of the Congress, Vishwajeet P Singh, went through the pages and accounts on Facebook and said some of the pages give information taken from Wikipedia and are “definitely” not created by the office of either Rahul or Sonia Gandhi.

“It has definitely not been done by the Computer Department,” said Singh, adding it is very easy to set up a page and these are open forums.

Singh also dismissed the possibility of taking action as no one claims to have created the pages.

Asked whether such pages and the internet increase the reach of the party, the Congress leader said that the penetration of internet in India is not like that in the United States and it will take time to have the kind of impact which is there in the US.

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New Delhi: Government on Saturday said it has issued a notice to Internet search giant Google for depicting Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir as part of Pakistan.

“Any wrongful depiction of Indian map and its boundaries is liable for action under the India Information Technology Act. Google has been asked to immediately correct this inaccuracy,” Minister of State for Telecom and IT Sachin Pilot said.

Google Insights for Search, a tool which shows search volume patterns across specific regions, has shown a map of India as part of Pakistan.

Insights for Search is a service by Google which provides a visual representation of regional interest on a country’s map.

When contacted, Google said the product group has been asked to correct it immediately.

Pilot also said the IT Department has been asked to survey all such companies showing inaccurate maps. He said the government will wait for Google to respond and then take “appropiate action at an appropriate time”.

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Looks like August isn’t a particularly good month for Google India. It was exactly a year ago – in August 2009 that Google’s popular maps service Google Maps was mired in controversy regarding the depiction of Arunachal Pradesh being a part of China.

Back then, Google had admitted that it goofed up and had the maps rectified. A year on, Google’s Insights For Search tool has depicted Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) as being a part of Pakistan – when in all actuality, it is still a disputed area.

When bought to attention of Google officials, they have confirmed that necessary steps would be taken and the relevant product group would be intimated for further action, reports the Times of India. Back in 2005, Google Earth was shown depicting PoK as a part of Pakistan and had lead to a similar controversy.

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