Drug firms fall out over a Facebook page

A GERMAN PHARMACEUTICAL firm has a bone to pick with Facebook over the ownership of its social networking page.

It is a fairly convoluted story that involves two firms, both called Merck. The first Merck, Merck KGAA is a German firm, while the other, Merck & Co, is US based.

The German Merck is suing Facebook over the rights to the Merck Facebook page, according to a report at the BBC, and claims that where once Facebook had given it the page, it had since removed the account from its administrative hands without even a by-your-leave.

A Facebook spokeswoman said, "We are looking into it," when we put the question to the social network, and we are still waiting for responses from the two Mercks.

According to the BBC the German Merck's lawyer calls the situation, "the apparent takeover of its Facebook page", and indeed when we visited the page it was a US company that we were seeing.

German Merck said that despite it having had administrative control of its company Facebook page since May of last year that changed in October 2011, at which time the page was turned over to Merck & Co.

It told the BBC that Facebook is "an important marketing device [and] the page is of great value", and it bemoaned the thought that this confusion might take some time to resolve. µ