Ad-tech firm EDO, co-founded by actor Edward Norton, must pay rival iSpot $18.3 million for breach of contract after a federal jury found it improperly used iSpot's data to build a competing product. The verdict highlights the fierce competition and high stakes surrounding proprietary data in the TV measurement industry.
Blueprints for a breach: The lawsuit centered on claims that EDO, while a client of iSpot from 2014 to 2018, secretly scraped proprietary data to build its own analytics platform. iSpot's legal filings alleged this was a "blatant breach of its promises and representations," effectively using iSpot's own platform as a blueprint.
A partial victory: The ruling wasn't a total win for iSpot. The jury rejected more serious claims of trade secret misappropriation, and the $18.3 million award was less than half of the $47 million iSpot had sought. EDO framed this as the jury seeing through "attempts to characterize standard industry innovation as theft."
The verdict sends a costly warning about the lines between competitive intelligence and data theft in the ad-tech world, a fight that isn't over as EDO plans to appeal and has a pending countersuit alleging iSpot sabotaged an $80 million funding round.
The legal battle comes as EDO continues to gain ground, expanding its partnership with Disney to measure streaming outcomes. Meanwhile, co-founder Edward Norton has publicly framed the company's mission as a challenge to the industry's old guard, calling incumbent Nielsen's methods "Stone Age tools."
