Facebook sues Studi VZ - Needs more than a crowbar to wrench Germany open

By John Daly @ Sunday, July 20, 2008 12:03 PM

Section - Telecoms/Digital Content

Yank notworking Web 2.0 social community Facebook is taking Germany's beloved social notworking site Studi VZ to court for sporting the same looks in a different colour scheme. According to the German edition of the Financial Times, Facebook is having a horribly hard time gaining a foothold in the German market, as everyone uses StudiVZ instead. Thus, Facebook has filed a lawsuit in a Californian court and wants the evil competitor to stop copying Facebook's 'look, feel, features and services'.

Facebook believes Studi VZ is infringing its intellectual property. Studi VZ is more or less very similar in design to Facebook, but has a lot less annoying functions and is not open to developers, which makes it more user-friendly. The site apparently also illegally sought access to Facebook's PCs and network and hosted data, which is why StudiVZ is also being sued.

A spokesbook said that the company had been having a chat or two with Studi VZ, which however remained unrepentant about its behavior. It was created by students in Berlin who seem to have copied Facebook's design and functions to a certain extent. The site has since become Germany's most popular place to hang out on the internet and has over 10 million registered users, or around one eighth of the entire German population. Facebook entered the German market quite late and launched a German language version in March this year, which isn't gaining ground against Studi VZ, which has been around for a couple of years. Studi VZ is also available in Spain, France, Poland and Italy in localized versions. The German story is here. X