ConnectU Wants Out Of Its Settlement With Facebook; Wants To Sue Again

from the oh-come-on dept

Earlier this year, we were disappointed to see Facebook agree to settle with ConnectU. ConnectU was another wannabe social network that Mark Zuckerberg worked for briefly before going off to found Facebook. The brothers behind ConnectU were unsuccessful in doing much with ConnectU, but it wasn't because Zuckerberg "stole their idea." It was because he executed much better. The "idea" itself was hardly novel at the time, as there were already a number of social networks out there. While it may have made economic sense in the short term for Facebook to settle with ConnectU (just to get the lawsuit hassle out of the way), that sort of settlement leads to more people claiming credit for something they have no real rights over.

Yet, if you thought the case was now over, you'd be wrong. Apparently the brothers behind ConnectU suddenly claim that they've come up with a "smoking gun" and they want to cancel the settlement and get back to the lawsuit. This is clearly a pure moneygrab at this point. Even if the brothers could prove that every bit of Facebook is based on code that Zuckerberg directly copied from ConnectU, it wouldn't change the reality of the situation -- which was that Zuckerberg created a service people wanted to use, and the ConnectU guys did not. They're basically demanding money to pay for their own failure to execute well. In this society, we want to reward the winners in the marketplace, not the losers.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: harvard, ideas, lawsuits, social networks
Companies: connectu, facebook


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    ncspack, 6 Jun 2008 @ 5:59am

    url was broken for me, so

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Jason TripWire, 6 Jun 2008 @ 6:30am

    Always about Money

    LOL. of course its a Moneygrab. thats what ALL lawsuits are about arent they? MONEY! What a bunch of LOSERS at ConnectU.

    JT
    http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Don, 6 Jun 2008 @ 7:31am

    There are other issues...

    While I agree that failure shouldn't be rewarded, there are other issues. Should we not be able to trust our employees and contractors to work for us without taking the code that we paid for and starting their own companies with it? If they do that it is theft. I agree that Zuckerberg didn't steal their idea, but, if their claim is true, he did steal their code. The settlement should probably be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, not in the millions or billions. But, there should be a settlement.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Jun 2008 @ 7:38am

    Question of Ethic or Execution?

    Stealing is stealing. Whether it was a minor steal, or a major steal is important. I definitely agree, the market should reward those who execute. But, we shouldn't look up to people who cheat, steal, and are overall unethical.

    I'm curious as to whether or not this theft actually took place. Sure, the owners of ConnectU want money, but that doesn't concern me. An unethical CEO, is also one who is likely to sell my data to the lowest bidder, and do otherwise unethical things to its users as well when it makes sense. As a person who has a lot of good ideas, and a person who has had others claim credit for them, I can also understand the frustration of someone who gets bested by sitting down with a person who they thought would be their partner.

    This world is loosing touch with what's right and wrong, ethics aren't really the same anymore. People only care if what they are doing is legal, and if it's illegal, whether they would get caught. (I'm not trying to say I'm perfect either but I think the story should be told in full)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Kyle, 6 Jun 2008 @ 7:45am

    Umm...

    Hello...I dont know if anyone has heard of MICROSOFT or not,but dont you remember how it got started????

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Jun 2008 @ 8:00am

    Re: Umm...

    Yes, we do. They purchased the original DOS operating system from another company for $50K and modified it for themselves to, in turn, license to IBM. They didn't steal anything. As well, they copied the windowing concept from Apple, who copied it from Xerox. Believe me, I am no Microsoft apologist, but their roots were legal. I am not stating, FTR, that Mark Z. stole anything either. We just don't know that. If he copied a concept, well, good for him!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Jacob, 6 Jun 2008 @ 8:45am

    Correct me if I'm wrong...

    Wasn't Mark their main programmer or something? So if he can do it for them.. maybe he can do it for himself? Facebook is so ahead of the ages code and design wise. They've done wonders for open source and are always expanding and pushing technology.. Mark couldn't have stolen that from them. Who's ever heard of ConnectU before this?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Jun 2008 @ 9:37am

    wtf is a ConnectU?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Damien, 6 Jun 2008 @ 10:07am

    Re:

    That question is exactly why they're suing. They failed, he didn't.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Nasch, 6 Jun 2008 @ 12:01pm

    Stealing?

    Everyone's talking about stealing and theft. Are these the same people who think downloading a song without paying is theft, or do you guys think it's different for some reason when it's software instead of music? I'm not saying it's right or legal, I'm saying it's not theft. When it happens (whether it happened in this case or not), it could be copyright infringement, and it could be breach of contract.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Tony, 6 Jun 2008 @ 1:22pm

    Rewarding winners?

    "In this society, we want to reward the winners in the marketplace, not the losers."

    I live in the USA, in 2008 - we don't do that here. I'd like to know where that society is, so I can move there.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Jun 2008 @ 6:14pm

    Well, it makes sense. ConnectU couldn't execute on their strategy to gain marketshare and an audience to drive ad revenue. So they decide to sue the only company who could- FaceBook.

    But a more serious question is this-- How many companies have been able to leverage Web 2.0 concepts to create multiple revenue streams outside of "just" ad revenue? Outside of iTunes (Which arguably isn't Web 2.0) Very few, I imagine.

    Just a thought.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2008 @ 7:06am

    Double Jeopardy

    Is there such a thing in the civil court system ?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Anonymous, 15 Oct 2009 @ 4:20pm

    Re: Question of Ethic or Execution?

    I agree with you here. The idea is not whether Facebook was able to execute and make the company successful and ConnectU wasn't. It's whether the means by which the company had become successful was ethical or not. Some say that if someone can take advantage of something and make it better, good on them. I personally think that is a lowly way of getting through life. Some work their butts off to survive, while some who know cheap little tricks do near nothing and gain a lot. It is unethical. This is a situation that none of us commenting here really know the true answer to. Only Mark Z knows. Even if he COULD come up with the code for his own Facebook site, but still used code made by the original founders of ConnectU, part of the work had already been done for him. He could have easily copyrighted their ideas, only made them better for success. It is nontheless, unethical and wrong.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. identicon
    arjun, 1 Mar 2014 @ 10:14pm

    If he can make it such a big success, why he didn't do that while he was a programmer at connectU? Why zuckerberg left connectU codes incomplete while he developed fb as his own just parallel to connectU development?

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.