Anthony Barba

Facebook, who recently settled its own intellectual property dispute with ConnectU who claimed Mr Zuckerberg stole its idea, sues ‘knock-off’ German site StudiVZ. It is no doubt a larger threat now that the site is owned by Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck.

In a complaint filed in a California court, Facebook accused StudiVZ - a German company that claims 10m users and calls itself “the most successful social network in Germany, Austria and Switzerland” - of “copying the look, feel, features and services” of the Facebook site. - Financial Times

I was told at a party in Berlin that they were internally calling the project FakeBook and later it was exposed when error messages used the phrase “fakebook”.

Here’s a Translated (sorta) article from Germany’s Der Spiegel about StudiVZ.

Regardless, Facebook is going to be very busy.