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Facebook Lookalike Sued

A German social network goes a bit too far with the resemblances

By Denisa Ilascu, Internet / SEO News Editor

19th of July 2008, 09:58 GMT

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German social network for students, sued by Facebook

Facebook's popularity makes some take on the recipe without worrying about copyrights, hoping that the benefits will outrun the risks. This did not prove very efficient for StudiVZ, a German social network for students whose "look, feel, features and services" are incredibly similar to Facebook's, as the company's officials stated for the Financial Times.

The same publication talks about a lawsuit filed Friday by the American company in order to redeem its copyrights. Indeed, the similarities with Facebook allow anyone to consider the German based network, which is actually very popular in Switzerland and Austria, a step brother of the American one. The only feature that misses in Facebook's gallery is the possibility of seeing who last visited your profile. The other big difference is the linguistic one, as the social network was originally intended for German language speakers only.

"We may have oriented ourselves along the lines of the Facebook layout," said Ehssan Dariani, the founder of the project for SpiegelOnline, a German magazine. "But it was also clear from the get-go that we would strongly distinguish ourselves by other things, that we wanted to be original", he added at the time, trying to shut the mouths of those who did not see any bright future for the social network. And not necessarily because the idea of creating an online gathering place for all students was bad, but because the skeptics forecast some inconvenient legal implications.

As Wikipedia reports, copyright was not the only reason of concern for StudiVZ. "Some bloggers also published critical accounts and speculations about the company's business practiced, claiming they included spamming, cybersquatting, and over-reliance on the enthusiasm of volunteers." The founder of the project encouraged, indeed, the activity of Campus Captains, a group of hundreds of students who had the role of speaking highly of the social network, in order to make it more popular.

TAGS:

Facebook | StudyVZ | social network

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