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Facebook in court over ownership

This article is more than 16 years old

Social networking website Facebook faces legal action today from the founders of a rival site over claims that their ideas were stolen, in a case that could lead to a change of ownership at the fast growing $10bn (£4.9bn) internet business.

The founders of the ConnectU site allege that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, stole their site's software code while he was working for them as a Harvard student.

They have accused Mr Zuckerberg of fraud, copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets, and have demanded to be given ownership of Facebook.

ConnectU now has 70,000 users, while Facebook has become a worldwide success with 52 million users, 6 million of whom are based in the UK.

Already the subject of a $1bn approach from Yahoo!, the company said this week it would only consider selling out for more than $10bn.

In their suit, brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, claim Mr Zuckerberg worked for them on a project called Harvard Connection, which aimed to create a network for the university's students and alumni.

They also claim that they asked Mr Zuckerberg in November 2003 to complete software and database work on the site, and asked him to finish his task before they graduated from Harvard in June 2004.

In the suit they allege that Mr Zuckerberg "never intended to provide the code and instead intended to breach his promise ... and intended to steal the idea for the Harvard Connection website, and in fact he did so".

Mr Zuckerberg went on to launch Facebook in February 2004 - three months before ConnectU started its own service.

Both Facebook and ConnectU allow users to post personalised profiles and create networks with other users.

Facebook has asked a judge at a Boston district court to throw the case out today.

In court documents, Facebook's lawyers say that ConnectU's "broad brush allegations" are unsupported by evidence.

"Each of them had different interests and activities," they wrote. "Only one of them had an idea significant enough to build a great company. That one person was Mark Zuckerberg."

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