Over the weekend, T-Mobile sued Starbucks over the coffee company and its new partner, AT&T offering free in-store Wifi. The details can be found at GigaOm and Rich Tehrani’s Blog

One aspect that has not been covered is the PR implications of the lawsuit. I think that T-Mobile is underestimating the PR hit that they will take if they are successful. Consider that every time a Starbucks Wi-Fi user logs in, they will be reminded T-Mobile took away their free WiFi.

The other interesting point is that if T-Mobile is successful, they would have to prove damages. In doing so, they would have to provide a public look at the profitability of the Starbucks arrangement. Since that arrangement is going away regardless of this lawsuit, the bottom line effect of the loss would become public knowledge. So winning the lawsuit would have a price.

On an unrelated issue, it definitely is cool having a blog tag on Rich Tehrani’s blog.

Written by Rob Adler

Last 3 posts by Radler

• 3 Defining Quotes From GreenBeat 2009 - December 9th, 2009
• A Social Media Fractured Fairy Tale - July 9th, 2009
• Live from the Archives - July 2nd, 2009

Tags: AT&T, GigaOm, PR Issue, Rich Tehrani, Starbucks, T-Mobile, Wifi

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 9:20 am and is filed under GigaOm, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.