Friday roundup: Troubles in Microsoft Live land

It hasn't been such a great Friday for the Live teams over at Microsoft.

First came the news that settlement talks between Microsoft and a company named Office Live LLC have broken down, and Office Live (the company) is suing Microsoft over Office Live (the brand for Microsoft's service add-ons to Office).

Office Live LLC said it notified Microsoft of the alleged violation of its trademark in Febraury 2006. Microsoft is planning to fight the Southern California company over the Live naming, claiming that Live is a term of "common connotation."

Meanwhile, on the adCenter side of the house, a bug in Microsoft's online advertising platform has resulted in some advertisers being grossly overcharged for prices per click.

Microsoft reported on Febraury 23, via its adCenter blog, that the company has fixed the problem.

"Some of our adCenter advertisers are seeing high cost-per-click (CPC) and spend amounts in their accounts. I will update this post with more information as soon as I have it, but I wanted to let you know that this issue is now resolved and those of you who were overcharged, we're working on a plan to credit your accounts for over-charges as soon as possible," posted a member of the adCenter team.

That's it. No other info from Microsoft so far. 

Quipped one poster on ThreadWatch:

"On my own (adCenter) accounts I have phrases that were at ten cents that have been inflated to $79 a click. Even more worrisome is that the bid amounts don't reflect the change. Looks like they have finally out done Google at something!"