Facebook paid ConnectU trio $65 million
p2pnet news view | Advertising:- In 2003 Mark Zuckerberg was hired by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, co-founders of one-time social network ConnectU, to do a bit of coding for them on their then Harvard Connection.
Reported Dan Tynan
They say they never received a line of code from Zuckerberg; coincidentally, in early 2004 plucky Zucky launched his own Harvard-centric social network, which he later expanded to other campuses and then the world. Now Facebook allows you to throw sheep and otherwise annoy millions of your closest personal friends, making Zuckerberg a paper billionaire, while ConnectU languishes in obscurity.
ConnectU thought that smelled fishier than a three-day-old mackerel, so they sued Zuckerberg for allegedly stealing their source code.
It all went away, but Law.com says the trio didn’t go empty-handed.
‘Facebook paid the founders of ConnectU $65 million to settle lawsuits accusing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of stealing the idea for the wildly successful social-networking Web site, according to a law firm’s marketing brochure,” it says, going on:
“Lawyers in the heavyweight fight had expended great effort to keep the settlement secret – even going as far as persuading a judge to clear the courtroom of reporters on one occasion. But ConnectU’s former lawyers from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges published the settlement amount in a firm advertisement trumpeting the firm’s prowess.”
However, There will be a number of red faces at Quinn, et al, and angry ones at Facebook.
“The disclosure was apparently inadvertent,” adds the story.
Dan Tynan – Facebook: What`s originality got to do with it?, June 22, 2008
Law.com – Quinn Spills Value of Facebook Deal, February 10, 2009
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