Facebook Founder Accused of Stealing Idea for Site
Court will hear tales of social networking allegations in Facebook vs. ConnectU
Wednesday, July 25, 2007 by Mithun Pal | Discussion: Internet
A Boston judge is expected to decide this week whether or not to proceed with a lawsuit alleging that the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, stole the idea for the social networking site from three former classmates at Harvard.
Specifically, the founders of ConnectU, which was originally called HarvardConnection, Divya Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevosss, claim that Zuckerberg stole the idea for the social networking site while he was recruited to develop a part of ConnectU.
The pending litigation originates from actions brought about in 2004. The lawsuit was refiled earlier this year on March 27.
Cameron Winklevoss has a record of 52 email exchanges and three meetings between his team and Zuckerberg, where the group discussed the ConnectU site.
Zuckerberg says that he voluntarily agreed to contribute six hours of coding for the ConnectU site, but denies that he had knowledge of it being a social networking system. Instead, he claims that he believed it to be a personal site to connect students, alumni and employers.
"I never really understood their product, but it was not a social networking site," Zuckerberg said in a previous Stanford Daily story.
The lawsuit alleges that Zuckerberg intentionally delayed progress on his work for ConnectU by more than two months in order to give Facebook a jump for an earlier release. Facebook then launched in February, 2004 while ConnectU didn’t launch until May.
Reply #2 Thursday, July 26, 2007 3:43 PM
Reply #3 Thursday, July 26, 2007 3:57 PM
It's not your fault. The problem was created by my browser or by the WC site. I tried to upload the above post but, surprisingly found nothing is there except the name of 'Justia News'. I tried to upload again by developing the HTML code for the above. But, the same thing happened again. Third time it accepted and so now you can view what I wanted to say.
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Reply #1 Thursday, July 26, 2007 3:40 PM
Judge Douglas P. Woodlock referred the case to Magistrate Judge Robert B. Collings for 'full pretrial case management, not including dispositive motions'.
Court reserves ruling on outstanding Motions to Dismiss with leave to file Amended Complaint by August 8, 2007.
For details: Justia News