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The Daily OrangeFacebook faces litigation over design concept
By David Hale
Posted: 10/6/04, 1:49 AM EST Section: News
Students who spend hours putting off schoolwork while searching through profiles on TheFacebook.com may soon be forced to crack open their textbooks.
The popular student-based networking site may be forced to shut down after creator Mark Zuckerberg was sued by the founders of a rival Web site. Tyler Winklevoss, Cameron Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, founders of ConnectU.com, filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Sept. 2, claiming that Zuckerberg breached his oral contract with the group and used ConnectU's source code to launch his own site.
"The whole point of the lawsuit is to right a wrong," Tyler Winklevoss said. "Basically, we want to get back what is ours, and what we deserve."
Winklevoss and his partners first envisioned in the winter of 2002 a Web site where students could post personal profiles and pictures as a way to improve the social life at Harvard University, Winklevoss said. Since none of them were experienced programmers, they enlisted several other Harvard students to help with the logistics and in November 2003, they approached Zuckerberg for assistance.
Winklevoss said that his group discussed details for the site and exchanged vital information with Zuckerberg under the assumption of an oral agreement "that he would become part of the team in exchange for a share of the benefits, glory, fame and money that would have occurred with the site's success."
In addition to the charges that he stole their source code, the lawsuit claims Zuckerberg failed to complete work he claimed to have done, resulting in a delayed launch of the site and significant monetary losses to ConnectU.
"Mark's deception and misrepresentation of work cost us 66 days," Winklevoss said, "while he claims to have completed his Web site in just a week."
TheFacebook.com was launched in February 2004 and now boasts nearly 300,000 users from about 100 colleges across the country. ConnectU, which launched in May, has only about 16,000 users.
The popular student-based networking site may be forced to shut down after creator Mark Zuckerberg was sued by the founders of a rival Web site. Tyler Winklevoss, Cameron Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, founders of ConnectU.com, filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Sept. 2, claiming that Zuckerberg breached his oral contract with the group and used ConnectU's source code to launch his own site.
"The whole point of the lawsuit is to right a wrong," Tyler Winklevoss said. "Basically, we want to get back what is ours, and what we deserve."
Winklevoss and his partners first envisioned in the winter of 2002 a Web site where students could post personal profiles and pictures as a way to improve the social life at Harvard University, Winklevoss said. Since none of them were experienced programmers, they enlisted several other Harvard students to help with the logistics and in November 2003, they approached Zuckerberg for assistance.
Winklevoss said that his group discussed details for the site and exchanged vital information with Zuckerberg under the assumption of an oral agreement "that he would become part of the team in exchange for a share of the benefits, glory, fame and money that would have occurred with the site's success."
In addition to the charges that he stole their source code, the lawsuit claims Zuckerberg failed to complete work he claimed to have done, resulting in a delayed launch of the site and significant monetary losses to ConnectU.
"Mark's deception and misrepresentation of work cost us 66 days," Winklevoss said, "while he claims to have completed his Web site in just a week."
TheFacebook.com was launched in February 2004 and now boasts nearly 300,000 users from about 100 colleges across the country. ConnectU, which launched in May, has only about 16,000 users.
