We’ll all heard about Facebook, and we’ve all thought about moving there, but I guess it’s still not as big in India as it is in the US. It’s still orkut here, though facebook is coming on strong.
And if you’ve heard about Facebook, you’ve heard about it’s code-stealing (alleged) founder and the lawsuit.
So, here is the complete Facebook Trial story via ValleyWag.
December 2002: Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra conceive of a college social network and hire Sanjay Mavinkurve to work on what later becomes ConnectU
May 2003: Mavinkurve graduates from Harvard, with the site still unfinished; Victor Gao, another Harvard student, later picks up work on the site
November 2003: After Gao leaves the project, ConnectU’s founders hire Mark Zuckerberg to work on Harvard Connection, a website that later became ConnectU
January 11, 2004: While still promising to finish Harvard Connection, Zuckerberg registers the domain for thefacebook.com, a fact that the ConnectU founders allege that didn’t disclose in a meeting three days later
February 4, 2004: Zuckerberg launches thefacebook.com
April 2004: Facebook expands to other colleges
April 13, 2004: Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskowitz, and Eduardo Saverin form Thefacebook.com LLC, a partnership (despite this, Saverin is not credited today as a founder by the company)
Spring 2004: ConnectU hires a Web-development firm, iMarc
May 2004: Cameron Winklevoss allegedly emails his father detailing a plan to steal email addresses from Facebook’s website
May 2004: Having appealed to Harvard administrators, without success, to rule that Zuckerberg violated the school’s honor code, ConnectU’s founders appeal to Harvard president Larry Summers, who also rebuffs them
May 21, 2004: ConnectU launches its first website, Harvard Connection
June 11, 2004: ConnectU’s founders allegedly ask iMarc to write a script that automatically logs into the Facebook website and harvests users’ email addresses; iMarc refuses
July 22, 2004: ConnectU’s founders allegedly send thousands of emails to Facebook users inviting them to join ConnectU
September 2, 2004: ConnectU files a lawsuit against Zuckerberg and other Facebook founders
February 2005: Facebook blocks ConnectU’s alleged continued attempts to harvest emails from its website
May 26, 2005: Accel Partners invests $13 million in Facebook
August 23, 2005: Facebook, at bad-boy entrepreneur Sean Parker’s instigation, buys the facebook.com domain name for $200,000
October 14, 2005: Facebook’s founders file a motion to dismiss ConnectU’s lawsuit
September 11, 2006: Facebook allows any user with an email address to join the site, and its user base begins to grow explosively
March 9, 2007: Facebook files a countersuit against ConnectU, charging it, among other things, with violating antispam laws
March 28, 2007: A court dismisses ConnectU’s original lawsuit, without prejudice, allowing ConnectU to immediately file a new lawsuit against Facebook’s founders as well as the company itself
June 23, 2007: Court grants a hearing on a motion to dismiss ConnectU’s lawsuit against Facebook, scheduled for July 25
