Facebook Is Plagiarism, Settlement Worth $65 Mln

Facebook owner settled with his former colleagues for 65 million dollars, after which he was sued for stealing the idea.

In 2004, the ConnectU company, founded by Facebook author Mark Zuckerberg`s former colleagues, sued the popular social networking site for stealing their idea. Zuckerberg paid 65 million dollars to settle the claim, as an administrative error showed, which revealed classified information about the settlement, world media report.

How much is Facebook actually worth

The lawsuit was filed because of claims that Zuckerberg had violated the oral agreement he had with his colleagues about the creation of Facebook and he stole their source code. The settlement was reached in February 2008, while ConnectU subsequently appealed to the provision, unsuccessfully, saying that Zuckerberg kept the actual company value secret upon negotiating.

A large part of the PDF document which includes a transcript from the hearing when the settlement was confirmed was covered with a white square, which was easily removed, revealing the settlement amount and the company value  3.7 million dollars.

The actual value, it turned out, because Microsoft`s investment into 1.6 percent of the company, was some 15 billion dollars. Namely, if a Facebook share cost 8.8 dollars, the company would be worth 3.7 billion dollars. However, Microsoft paid 35.90 dollars per Facebook share, media claim.