Facebook now has judicial approval to enforce a settlement reached with ConnectU earlier this year. The co-founders of college social network ConnectU claim Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea. The founders of both networks were all classmates at Harvard together. ConnectU’s co-founders are twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra.
ConnectU wanted out of the settlement when Facebook apparently de-valued itself. Last year, when Microsoft announced it would be buying a stake in Facebook, the social network was valued at $15 billion. But during the settlement, Facebook said they were worth less.
Now a judge has sided with Facebook, though no figure$ were made public.
The whole thing sounds shady on both sides, if you ask me. ConnectU’s founders sound like a bunch of money grabbers while Zuckerberg comes across as dishonest. And Zuckerberg either has crappy lawyers or he really did steal the idea.
Still, none of them really had an original idea. Social networking was around long before either Facebook or ConnectU.