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Affinity Engines Says Google Stole Orkut Code

Posted by timothy on 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.'"

3 of 450 comments (clear)

  1. Was there a piece of paper? by daringone · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I guess what this comes down to is if the engineer actually signed something saying he wouldn't develop for a competitor. Oral agreements are obviously very tough to prove. I say you did something we agreed you wouldn't, you say there was no such agreement. It's just your word against mine. Now if you sign something saying you won't do something, and then go do it, there's a much easier case to be made.

  2. Lesson by HarveyBirdman · · Score: 1, Redundant

    If you're going to jump ship to another company, and develop a new product using IP from your old company, avoid naming it after yourself.

    --
    --- Ban humanity.
  3. Re:Really? by Mr.+Bad+Example · · Score: 1, Redundant

    > Are people really running around trailing all of the code from all of the gigs they've had and just randomly incorporating it into other things?
    >
    > That just seems rather disconcerting to me.

    You say that as if "XTreme Telephone Company Account Balance Inquiry" for the X-Box was a bad idea.