The lawsuit against Facebook continues in Milan.

On April 4th, the second-instance case against Facebook will begin before the Court of Civil Appeal in Milan. Facebook was convicted for the first time in Italy last summer for unfair competition and copyright infringement regarding the database represented by Faround, a geolocation application created in 2012 under the name Facearound by the Milanese company Business Competence Srl. The Specialized Corporate Section of the Court of Milan, in ruling no. 9549 of August 1, 2016, ruled that Facebook's Nearby application uses the same electronic database as Faround. Faround selects data from registered users' Facebook profiles, organizes it, and displays it on an interactive map. The map also shows the businesses closest to the user's location, along with reviews and information on discounts and offers. Although these data are not owned by Faround, who, on the contrary, obtained them by accessing Facebook as an independent developer, the way they are organised has a certain degree of originality which allows them to be protected as a database covered by Copyright In fact, "previous programs developed by Facebook (Facebook Places) and third parties (Foursquare and Yelp) did not have the same features as Faround: the former was a sort of people search that only allowed users to detect the presence of friends nearby, rather than geolocating businesses near the user. The latter were designed based on logical algorithms that worked on data entered by users registered on their respective social networks, and not on Facebook, which was much more widespread." For this very reason, Business Competence Srl accused Facebook of stealing the concept and format of the application, launching its own Nearby, which was identical in content. Furthermore, having been developed in a short time, Nearby also attracted major professional advertisers, perpetrating unfair conduct in the form of customer diversion in relation to the advertising business. The Court of Milan, after finding the two apps' functionalities to be equivalent and defining them as "overlapping," ordered Zuckerberg's company to publicize the decision by publishing it in "Corriere della Sera" and "Il Sole 24 Ore," as well as on the facebook.com homepage for at least fifteen days. It also prohibited any further use of the Nearby app in Italy, imposing a penalty of €45,000 for each day of violation of these provisions. Damages to the injured party have not yet been awarded. Facebook appealed the decision before the Milan Court of Appeal, which, although it has yet to rule on the appeal, rejected the request to suspend the provisional measure decided in the first instance.