Facebook is suing leading German social network StudiVZ for copyright infringement. StudiVZ claims to have 10 million active members, and is the largest social network in the German speaking world, covering Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. The network is actually split across three different sites, each one a seperate social network aimed at different parts of the market. Studivz.net is the classic site for college-aged students, Schuelervz.net is for high school students and Meinvz.net is for older adults (this three-networks was very confusing for me to decipher in German when I attempted to signup).
The case might primarily be filed due to a fact that Facebook has failed at capturing the German user base. Pretty surprising given Facebook’s 80 million active user base around the world as it claims so. It was clearly mentioned by Facebook that they are looking forward to put an end to this illegal; activity and make sure that users don’t get confused or that Facebook’s reputation be harmed.
Meanwhile, at least 9 other Facebook clones have been documented before, and would be interesting to see if Facebook goes after at least some of them, most notably Xiaonei, the big Chinese social network which looks exactly like Facebook, exceot for the language part. Xiaonei is owned by the Chinese Internet holding firm Oak Pacific Interactive.
Source: Techcrunch
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