MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands is an American

new media New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...

company based in El Segundo, California, United States, that operates online

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, villag ...

, and

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain mana ...

sites in vertical markets. The company also develops and licenses internet

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

and

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...

applications.

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 them small and medium enterprises. The company's portfolio of websites include many with

features: social network services, user generated content,

blogs A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...

, wikis, and

internet forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least tempora ...

History

The company was founded in 1998 as CarsDirect.com, launched from the

business incubator Business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services starting with management training and office space and ending with venture c ...

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 ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on M ...

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 Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...

(the operators of

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read ref ...

) over the future of

Wikitravel Wikitravel is a web-based collaborative travel guide based on the wiki format and owned by Internet Brands. It was most active from 2003 through 2012, when most of its editing community left and brought their contributions to the nonprofit ...

's community. Internet Brands was acquired in June 2014 by

KKR KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strateg ...

from Hellman & Friedman for 1.1 billion dollars. KKR is making its investment in partnership with Internet Brands chief executive officer Bob Brisco and the Internet Brands management team, who will hold a minority stake in the company and continue to run the business. In January 2016, Intuit Inc. announced an agreement to sell Demandforce to Internet Brands.

Controversies

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 ''The Register'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information tech ...

'' 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 Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...

; specifically that code in XenForo was based on vBulletin code, breach of contract, and engaging in

unfair business practices Unfair business practices encompass fraud, misrepresentation, and oppressive or unconscionable acts or practices by business, often against consumers, and are prohibited by law in many countries. In the European Union, each member state must r ...

. In November 2010, Internet Brands sued Kier Darby, a lead developer of XenForo, who had previously served as a lead developer for Internet Brands' vBulletin, claiming that Kier had not returned confidential information from Internet Brands regarding the vBulletin software. The XenForo team has denied the claims. In February 2013, the lawsuit was dismissed.

Wikitravel and Wikimedia

In 2012, after a lengthy history of dissatisfaction, community members at Internet Brands-owned website

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

, the owner of

and a large range of other

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

reference sites based upon a

wiki community A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...

. The merge and move were endorsed by the editing community, but opposed by Internet Brands who litigated against two users it accused of unlawful actions related to the proposal. The allegations were strongly rejected by the individuals and the (non-party) Wikimedia Foundation who stated the case was an example of a

SLAPP Strategic lawsuits against public participation (also known as SLAPP suits or intimidation lawsuits), or strategic litigation against public participation, are lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with ...

lawsuit intended to deter and frustrate lawful conduct. On November 19, 2012, the claims by Internet Brands were dismissed by the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

Greenlight 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