Date: Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Is Facebook a fraud?

The creator of Facebook has been taken to court over claims that he stole the idea for the site from others whilst at Harvard. Facebook is one of the most successful and fastest growing social networking sites around, with over 30 million members, a number that is increasing by almost 150 000 every day. Now the brain behind this enterprise, Mark Zuckerberg, is facing a court case accusing him of stealing the idea from the creators of the rival social networking site ConnectU. The founders of this site, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, claim that they came up with the idea for the site whilst students at Harvard and that Zuckerberg had agreed to help them with the coding for the site, but then reneged on his promise and stole the idea instead. Now ConnectU, which only has 70,000 members compared to Facebook’s millions, want ownership of the website which if they are to be believed, justly belongs to them. Zuckerberg’s lawyers maintain that even if the idea originated from others, he was the only one with the business acumen to make the site into a success. The original case has now been delayed, with the judge calling on the Winklevosses’ lawyers to lay out exactly what the nature of the agreement between Zuckerberg and themselves was. He said that simple dorm-room conversations did not count as a binding agreement, and that there had to be a concrete agreement in place to constitute stealing trade secrets. Although the result will not be known for some time, what is not in doubt is that Facebook will continue to grow in popularity; and whether the site’s creator stole the idea or not, it is unquestionable that he has nurtured a phenomenal concept. But has the sun set on the Facebook wonder child? The result of this court case may be the answer to that.



Sources: BBC News, BBC News, Guardian