Arianna Huffington fired back Thursday morning at a lawsuit filed by former Huffington Post writer Jonathan Tasini's that seeks to give himself and other unpaid contributors a slice of the $315 million AOL paid for her news website.

Huffington, in a blog post on the Huffington Post website (which she co-founded), said Tasini's suit is "so utterly without merit" and cited multiple commentators and a UCLA law professor who criticized the suit, essentially agreeing with her take.

One of the pundits she cited called it the "dumbest lawsuit ever," and another said the suit was a sign that the U.S. is becoming a "nation of Winklevosses," in reference to twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who in lawsuits and court hearings alleged that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea for the social networking website.

DOCUMENT: Read the suit

Despite her belief that the suit should be dismissed, Huffington said it "touches on so many important issues about the current state of the media."

Tasini's suit, which is seeking class-action status, was filed in a U.S. District Court in New York on Tuesday and argues that writers who have worked for free for the Huffington Post are entitled to an estimated $105 million of the $315 million that AOL paid to buy the news and opinion site last month.

"TheHuffingtonPost.com has been unjustly enriched by engaging in and continuing to engage in the practice of generating enormous profits by luring carefully vetted contributors, with the prospect of 'exposure' (which TheHuffingtonPost.com deceptively fails to verify), to provide valuable content at no cost to TheHuffingtonPost.com, while reaping the entirety of the financial gain derived from such content," the suit said.

Tasini said in his complaint that he wrote 215 "pieces of content" without pay for the Huffington Post from December 2005 to February 2011 and that about 9,000 other "content providers" have also worked for free.

In her response to the suit, Huffington, who now oversees nearly all of AOL's online news and opinion content, said unpaid contributors are part of why the Huffington Post has been a success and that "we are inundated with requests from people who want to use our platform. People are looking to join the party, not go home early."

The Huffington Post employs hundreds of full-time editors, writers and reporters who are paid, she said.

"But while our staff writers have deadlines and commitments, as well as specific assignments, our bloggers can post as frequently or infrequently as they like -- and write about whatever they like, whenever they like, or not at all," Huffington said. "On top of that, they can crosspost their work on their own sites or elsewhere -- they own the rights to their work and can repurpose it in any way they choose."

The distinction between staff writers and bloggers is part of the Huffington Post's DNA, she said.

"People blog on HuffPost for free for the same reason they go on cable TV shows every night for free: either because they are passionate about their ideas or because they have something to promote and want exposure to large and multiple audiences," Huffington said. "Our bloggers are repeatedly invited on TV to discuss their posts and have received everything from paid speech opportunities and book deals to a TV show."

The exposure that the Huffington Post provides is essentially what bloggers work for, she said in her blog post.

"Bottom line: The vast majority of our bloggers are thrilled to contribute -- and we're thrilled to have them," Huffington said.

Tasini's lawsuit ignores how the Internet, new media and "the linked economy" run on content provided for free by willing parties, Huffington said.

The complaint also fails to understand why people on the Web "contribute to Wikipedia for free, who maintain their own blogs for free, who tweet for free, who constantly refresh and update their Facebook pages for free, and who want to help tell the stories of what is happening in their lives and in their communities ... for free," Huffington said. "Free content -- shared by people who want to connect, share their passions, and have their opinions heard -- fuels much of what appears on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Yelp, Foursquare, TripAdvisor, Flickr and YouTube."

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Photo: Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post, at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York on Sept. 27, 2007. Credit: Chip East / Reuters

Jonathan Tasini, a social activist and commentator, is suing AOL and its newest purchase, the Huffington Post, over claims that he and other writers weren't paid appropriately for their work.

Tasini's suit, which is seeking class-action status and was filed on Tuesday in a New York U.S. District Court, argues that none of the $315 million AOL paid to buy the Huffington Post has gone to the writers and producers of the news and opinion website, while estimating that about $105 million should have.

DOCUMENT: Read the suit

Between December 2005 and February 2011, Tasini said in the suit that he contributed 216 "pieces of content" for the Huffington Post and was never paid for any of his work. Tasini also alleges in his complaint that as many as 9,000 other "content providers" have also worked for free for the Huffington Post.

"TheHuffingtonPost.com has been unjustly enriched by engaging in and continuing to engage in the practice of generating enormous profits by luring carefully-vetted contributors, with the prospect of 'exposure' (which TheHuffingtonPost.com deceptively fails to verify), to provide valuable content at no cost to TheHuffingtonPost.com, while reaping the entirety of the financial gain derived from such content," the complaint said.

The suit also alleges that, of the $315 million AOL paid for the Huffington Post, "the value
added by the content provided by Plaintiff and the Classes to TheHuffingtonPost.com's price
was at least $105 million, none of which was shared with Plaintiff and the Classes."

Mario Ruiz, a spokesman for the Huffington Post, said the suit was without merit.

"As we've said before, our bloggers use our platform -- as well as other unpaid group blogs across the Web -- to connect and help their work be seen by as many people as possible," Ruiz said. "It's the same reason hundreds of people go on TV shows to promote their views and ideas. HuffPost bloggers can cross-post their work on other sites, including their own. Aside from our group blog, to which thousands of people from around the world contribute, we operate a journalistic enterprise with hundreds of staff editors, writers, and reporters, all of whom have commensurate responsibilities -- and all of whom are paid."

In a post on his personal website, Tasini explained a bit more about why he filed the lawsuit.

"The Huffington Post was, is and will never be, anything without the thousands of people who create the content," Tasini wrote. "Ms. Huffington is acting like every Robber Baron CEO ... who believes that they, and only they, should pocket huge riches, while the rest of the peons struggle to survive. Ms. Huffington stance has been clear: only she deserves the fruits of the labor of the people who work for her.

"Actually, Arianna Huffington is worse than the CEOs of the banks, the Walton family of Wal-mart. At least, they pay their workers something -- even if those wages aren't enough to make ends meet.

"Huffington pays zero. Nothing. Nada."

Tasini's complaint against the Huffington Post isn't the first the writer has lobbed agianst a publication he's worked for.

In Tasini's Huffington Post biography, the writer is described as having been both a writer and activist in labor issues for more than 25 years.

"From 1990 to April 2003, he served as president of the National Writers Union (United Auto Workers Local 1981)," the bio reads. "He was the lead plaintiff in Tasini vs. The New York Times, the landmark electronic rights case that took on the corporate media's assault on the rights of thousands of freelance authors.

"For the last 25 years, he has written about labor and economics for a variety of newspapers and magazines."

In 2010, Tasini also made an unsuccessful bid for Congress.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Image: A screenshot of huffingtonpost.com on April 12, 2011. Credit: Huffington Post Media Group/AOL

AOL has tapped Twitter co-founder Biz Stone as a strategic adviser to the Huffington Post as the struggling Internet company looks to increase its involvement in social causes.

Stone, who long has been an evangelist for the role of technology in changing the world, will work on initiatives such as connecting people with volunteer opportunities in their communities and a video series that showcases companies funneling resources into philanthropy.

In a statement, Stone said he would focus on rallying companies to "new ways of doing business."

A Twitter spokesman said that nothing would change in Stone's role at Twitter.

In a blog post, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington wrote: "Biz has shown that having a healthy balance sheet and a healthy moral center are not mutually exclusive."

The announcement came on the heels of AOL's $315-million deal to buy the Huffington Post, an online news and commentary site,  as it looks to generate more content and advertising. Check out the AOL press release for other announcements, including the hiring of John Montorio, a former L.A. Times managing editor.

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Photo: Biz Stone, co-founder and creative director of Twitter, talks about his company during an interview at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco on March 11, 2011 in California. Credit: Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP Photo/Getty Images

AOL is cutting its workforce by about 20% worldwide, according to a company memo sent by CEO Tim Armstrong and obtained by Bloomberg.

According to the memo, more than 900 of AOL's 5,000 employees are set to lose their jobs as AOL continues to integrate its operations with the Huffington Post and as part of an ongoing restructuring process to turn the company back toward revenue growth, Bloomberg reported.

AOL officials were not available for comment on Thursday morning.

On Monday, AOL closed its $315-million purchase of the Huffington Post, an online news website that both aggregates news from other outlets and produces original content. On news of the purchase being finalized, AOL's stock closed at  $19.26 -- at that point, an all-time low -- before closing at $19.24 on Tuesday and $19.14 on Wednesday.

Armstrong wrote in his company memo that the plan is to trim as many as 200 jobs in the U.S. and 700 in India, Bloomberg reported. But 300 of those who will lose their jobs in India could be moved to new jobs at AOL's outsourcing partners and continue to do work for the company, the report said.

"Today, we are announcing an organizational structure that will significantly improve AOL's ability to focus on growth," Armstrong wrote in the memo, according to Bloomberg. "Our strategy remains clear: create high-quality content experiences for consumers, at scale."

AOL, one of the first major Internet portals that helped turn e-mails into ubiquitious form of communications, has reported revenue declines over its last four consecutive quarters, Bloomberg said.

[Updated 12:13 p.m.: AOL spokesman Graham James confirmed that indeed, AOL is planning to lay off 900 of its employees -- 200 in the U.S. and 700 in India.

The majority of the U.S. job cuts will take place in AOL's New York and Dulles, Va., office.

"AOL is an editorial driven company, and that's not changing," he said. "That's technically increasing with the addition of the Huffington Post. This workforce reduction is the result of the integration of the two companies; making them fit together."]

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Photo: Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL, speaks during the 2011 Bloomberg Media Summit in New York, New York, USA, 10 March 2011. Armstrong said 10 March 2011 that the company is cutting 200 jobs in the US and 700 in India following its purchase of the Huffington Post. redit: Andrew Gombert/EPA

What is the average e-mail user like? Not to stereotype or anything, but Hunch has an idea.

The New York-based Web application, which is building a “taste graph” of everyone on the Internet using algorithms mixed with user-curated content, looked to its own users for clues.

What it discovered was a very specific archetype for each e-mail provider.

Gmail, the most popular option among Hunchers, is most likely to attract thin, college-educated men aged 18 to 34, according to the site. They tend to be politically liberal city-dwellers who read blogs, own iPhones and laptops and get their music on MP3s and computers.

Hotmail, on the flipside, attracts women of average build in the same age range. These are politically moderate high school graduates living in the suburbs, who enjoy magazines and contemporary fiction and usually own a laptop.

Both groups are often single, childless and extremely well-traveled.

Yahoo draws an entirely different crowd, according to Hunch: Overweight women ages 18 to 49, who tend to be in relationships of one to five years with children, residing in the suburbs or rural areas.

AOL users are most likely to be overweight women ages 35 to 64, who are in a relationship for more than 10 years and are also parents, living in the suburbs.

Both groups feature high school graduates who are also political moderates, Hunch concluded. They are also laptop or desktop owners who listen to the radio and CDs and watch TV on DVRs and don’t travel much out of the country.

All four sectors tend to be nonreligious, Hunch said.

And Hunch also figured out the more personal preferences of users. Gmailers and Hotmailers often sport a T-shirt and jeans, but while the former munches on salty snacks, the latter likes sweets. Yahoo users lounge in pajamas.

Hunch posted its findings in much more detail in a blog post Wednesday.

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Photo: Profile of the most likely Gmail user. Credit: Hunch

AOL's purchase of the Huffington Post closed Monday, and the same day, AOL's stock sank to its lowest price ever.

As noted by Business Insider's Chart of the Day, shares of AOL fell about 4%, or 79 cents, to $19.26 -- its lowest closing price so far. That was down about one-third from the one-year high it reached in April, Business Insider noted.

The decline in stock price may show a lack of investor confidence in Chief Executive Tim Armstrong's attempt to turn AOL around. Much of that plan is pinned on the combined vision of Armstong and Arianna Huffington, who is becoming president and editor in chief of a new Huffington Post Media Group inside AOL.

AOL, looking to capitalize on the success of the Huffington Post website and brand, is putting the majority of its online publishing properties under Huffington's control.

AOL announced February 6 that it was buying the Huffington Post for $315 million.

Last month, Armstrong personally bought $10 million in AOL stock, possibly to breed confidence in his plan to return AOL to leadership standing in the tech industry. Under Armstrong, AOL has launched a redesign of AOL.com and bought the technology blog TechCrunch.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

AOL Inc. Chief Executive Tim Armstrong is putting his money where his mouth is.

He has invested more than $10 million in 477,000 shares of his company's stock, according to a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He bought the shares at an average price of $20.97 each on Friday. He nearly doubled his stake in the company to 4% after the stock dropped on news of AOL’s $315-million acquisition of online news and opinion site Huffington Post.

It was the largest acquisition for AOL since the former Google Inc. executive joined AOL in April 2009. Armstrong is betting that his turnaround strategy for AOL will eventually pay off. He is hoping that the additional traffic from Huffington Post will make AOL more appealing to advertisers. AOL has struggled since spinning off from Time Warner Inc. in December 2009, ending a troubled decade-long marriage.

Armstrong's enthusiasm for AOL's future as an online media powerhouse is not echoed by Wall Street analysts. AOL shares, which have dropped nearly 20% since November, on Monday closed up 2.9% at $21.83.

Armstrong told me in an interview in October: "AOL is playing offense. We believe we have the right strategy and we are executing against it heavily."

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Photo: AOL CEO Tim Armstrong with Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post. Credit: Jin Lee / Bloomberg 

AOL's purchase of the Huffington Post was a surprise to many, including one of AOL's top properties -- TechCrunch.

Tim Armstrong, AOL's chief executive, sent a memo at midnight (Eastern time) to all AOL employees announcing the deal, except TechCrunch.

"They don't trust us with anything," wrote Erick Schonfeld, co-editor at TechCrunch.

The scoop on the AOL purchase of the Huffington Post was given to All Things Digital, the tech website owned by News Corp.

Armstrong and Arianna Huffington even sat down with All Things Digital for an exclusive video interview at the Super Bowl in Arlington, Texas, where the agreement was signed.

AOL has agreed to buy the Huffington Post for $315 million and is angling to make the site known for its news aggregation and opinion the cornerstone of a comeback for the struggling company.

Though he wasn't included in the original e-mail blast for the HuffPo/AOL memo, Schonfeld got a copy of the message and wrote about it for the tech news and rumor website.

Schonfeld said that "in between the corporate speak" Armstrong outlines an organizational structure with Arianna Huffington serving as Editor In Chief of all of AOL's media properties, including TechCrunch and and its colleague/competitor Engadget, as well as other popular sites such as Autoblog, Joystiq and Moviefone, among others.

Looks like Schonfeld will have a new boss.

AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong said Monday that the acquisition of the Huffington Post for $315 million was "a big score for AOL" and that the deal would help the company on its path to reestablishing a weakened brand.

Left with a shaky foundation after it split from Time Warner in late 2009, AOL is trying to survive the inexorable decline of its once-massive dial-up business, which still accounts for the vast majority of its profits even though most of those paying subscribers don't even connect via telephone anymore. Hoping to revitalize the company by making it into a major online news and media destination, Armstrong has given AOL a new homepage, and bought up a series of news websites and other online businesses, with Huffington Post as the largest so far.

"We believe this transaction will add significant acceleration to our company, to our strategy and to our shareholder returns," Armstrong, joined by Huffington, said in a conference call with investors. "The Huffington Post is one of the best properties on the Internet."

Armstrong said he wants AOL, with Huffington's guidance, to focus on local news and women's content, both of which he sees as relatively untapped markets online. The company said it expected the deal to help it reach its goal of growth in operating income growth by 2013. (Technically, OIBDA growth -- or operating income before depreciation and amortization).

But investors and analysts have been skeptical about AOL's chances of pulling off a turnaround. That doubt seemed to show as AOL's stock price was down slightly in early trading Monday. The stock has slid nearly 14% in the last three months.

The Huffington Post is being sold to AOL Inc. for $315 million.

As part of the deal, which Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington announced on her blog and AOL announced in a news release, Huffington is to become president and editor in chief of a new Huffington Post Media Group division at AOL.

The purchase of the popular news and opinion website will increase AOL's news portfolio as it competes against Yahoo's growing online news publication profile and Google's news efforts as well as traditional media companies online.

Huffington will gain control of additional AOL news websites dealing with news, technology, women, entertainment and video content.

The combination of AOL's media efforts and the Huffington Post will reach about 117 million viewers in the U.S. and 270 million globally, AOL said.

In a statement, AOL said it is using about $300 million in on-hand cash in the purchase.

The deal still has to meet government approvals, but the boards of directors of each company and shareholders of the Huffington Post have approved the transaction, AOL said.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of the first quarter or the early part of the second quarter this year, AOL said.

"The Huffington Post has already been growing at a prodigious rate," Huffington said. "But my New Year's resolution for 2011 was to take HuffPost to the next level -- not just incrementally, but exponentially. With the help of our CEO, Eric Hippeau, and our president and head of sales, Greg Coleman, we'd been able to make the site profitable. Now was the time to take leaps."

Huffington said her staff set goals early this year to expand into more local news coverage for the Huffington Post, the launch of international sections for the website -- with a "HuffPost Brazil" section coming first -- and more original video content.

She also noted that a goal was to add more coverage of automobiles, music, games and minority communities. It was around the same time that the Huffington Post was setting these goals that AOL Chairman and Chief Executive Tim Armstrong got in touch with the online publication.

AOL, with its network of blogs on autos, music, sports and news, as well as its local news start-up effort Patch.com and video-production resources, had all the tools needed to help the Huffington Post meet its goals, Huffington said.

Things moved quickly over the last few weeks, and a deal was signed Sunday at the Super Bowl, she said.

"By combining HuffPost with AOL's network of sites, thriving video initiative, local focus, and international reach, we know we'll be creating a company that can have an enormous impact, reaching a global audience on every imaginable platform," she said.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Photo: Arianna Huffington. Credit: Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times