Affinity Engines Says Google Stole Orkut Code

Posted by timothy on Wednesday June 30, 2004 @06:33AM from the your-head-please dept.

GillBates0 writes "Wired's reporting that a social networking software company called Affinity Engines has filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming that much of the source code behind Orkut, the search engine's popular social service, was stolen by former engineer Orkut Buyukkokten. They claim that he illegally took the code the he had written for the company -- which he co-founded -- with him when he joined Google and that Buyukkokten promised Affinity Engines that he wouldn't develop a competing social network service for Google. '"In its initial investigation, AEI uncovered a total of nine unique software bugs ... in AEI's inCircle product that were also present in Orkut.com," according to the lawsuit.'"

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"Do no evil"? by Ignorant+Aardvark · 2004-06-30 06:37 · Score: 1, Flamebait

At what point has Google violated its maxim of "do no evil?" Assuming this claim by Orkut is true, has Google exceeded its maxim? It seems inevitable to me that any big company will inevitably get involved in less-than-ethical dealings. Saying "Do not evil" will only get you so far.

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Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Intellectual Property... by GAMMAH_DJ · 2004-06-30 08:53 · Score: 0, Flamebait

... does NOT EXIST.
Re:Just doesn't sound like Google to me... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-30 08:58 · Score: 0, Flamebait

the real blame lies with the doctors who couldn't tell the difference between "heart attack" and just plain drunk