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Man Claims 84% of Facebook, Gets Order Blocking Assets
Cyrus writes "According to a Bloomberg scoop, a New York man claiming to own a majority of Facebook has gotten a signed court order to block Facebook from transferring assets."
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Oh No!
Under Paragraph 3 of the contract, the Seller and Purchaser agreed that for each day after January 1, 2004, the Purchaser would acquire an additional 1% interest in the business, per day, until the website was completed ... Upon information and belief, the website, thefacebook.com, was
completed and operational on February 4th, 2004.
Zuckerberg appears to be the Seller and Ceglia appears to be the Purchaser. I know this all happened before "thefacebook.com" had a massive user base but from what I can tell Ceglia dropped a grand to Zuckerberg under some agreement that if the website wasn't finished on a certain date then Ceglia would accrue a point of that business per late day? Is that a standard clause or was this some sort of loan shark that the Z-man found on campus after he stole the ConnectU code?
And then, Ceglia waited past the six year mark for the statute of limitations to run out on a breach of contract in New York? He watched Facebook's rise to popularity past MySpace?
Seriously, what kind of contracts do fledgling websites write? And where do they find people to borrow money from that apparently live under a rock in the Appalachians of New York state? Sure is entertaining one way or the other.
My work here is dung.
His facebook account is so canceled! But I bet he could do commercials for MySpace. "I designed the look and feel of facebook, but now I use MySpace."
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
He owns Faceboo
given the "issues" Z-man has, one may wonder how many of these skeletons are in his closet? A bent sapling never grows straight.
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
Facebook was taken over by monkeys
This contract does seem kind of shady and plus sounds like a college made deal its probably written in pencil on scrap paper from an old algebra test. That's not a joke when I went to college two CS majors did that for a contract. I seriously dough this will stand up in court Facebook is not going to change hands.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
Regardless of whether or not the guy wins some money in the lawsuit, nothing will change. Zuckerberg might be slightly less rich. But he will still be rich, and an asshole. Facebook will still suck.
My other sig is clever.
The story gets even jucier:
In 2009, New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo obtained a restraining order against Allegany Pellets, a western New York wood pellet company owned by Ceglia and his wife Iasia. Cuomo accused the company of defrauding consumers by taking $200,000 in orders but not delivering any products or issuing any refunds. That case is reportedly ongoing.
An odd detail is that 84% number is said to be as of 2004. Why 2004?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
see this article in cnet news. At the bottom a flash window has all the pages of the suit and the contract in the appendix. According to the contract the 50% ownership is unambiguous. it's the primary compensation and it is listed right up front. Also they show other documents indicating that the name changes were registered as ficticious (placeholder) names in NY. It's going to be interesting....
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This could be a good thing for Facebook.
I hate to put it this superficially, but about 60% of the trouble is in can be traced back to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's immaturity with handling people. If someone does indeed own 84% of Facebook they could simply order him to stop making public statements.
In fact, he could take it a step further and put out spin how FB is under new derangement, with new policies and better tech coming down the road.
Before we get excited at the prospect of this guy winning against Facebook, it's worth reminding ourselves that Zuckerberg - founder/owner of Facebook - is heavily ingratiated with a number of high profile political figures.
An example would be a video chat he held with UK Prime Minister David Cameron just a few days ago, the courteousness all too apparant. I can't remember a firm being seriously damaged through the legal system so soon after establishing itself as a ubiquitous and accepted tool by the establishment. The hoohah over the panic button they're now putting in to 'protect the children' is proof that Zuckerberg's cavalier attitude towards privacy will stand, and that we can expect more of the same from Facebook in coming years.
The most feasible way for Facebook to become less influential would not be financial woes through lawsuits...it would have to be another exodus of the same flavour that led to Myspace's relatively irrelevant/musically inclined position. But pride does come before a fall though, and arrogance is certainly something young Zuck isn't short of.
No matter how big an jerk you may think Zuckerberg is, and no matter how bad you may think Facebook is, it is practically always possible to get worse.
Not knowing anything that I didn't learn in the last 5 minutes, upon seeing this article, this Ceglia guy certainly has a running start on both. The enemy of your enemy may not be your friend - just a different enemy.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Bojangler likes this
A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs a state, city, or county...
$ unzip, strip, touch, finger, grep, mount, fsck, more, yes,fsck,fsck,fsck,umount, sleep
I first need to move my crop of tomatos to an other games network.
And did i mention i just got a orange cow?
...but it's a legally binding bar napkin!
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
If he wins does he have to pay 84% of the debts?
statue of limitations?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The order baring transfer of assets was only good until July 9th, it is now July 13th. So what happened?
It says the hearing was scheduled for july 9, what was the outcome?
stuff |
This is a far out suggestion. But the autumn a movie about Facebook's rise called The Social Network is coming out. Its supposed to talk about Zuckerbergs's naughty habits, if anyone cares.
is surely behind this.
M.U.L.E. 0WNZ all your crappy newfangled web games and always will.
since the beginning of time.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I think this is the first time a judge's incompetence in relation to computers actually improved the internet as a whole.
Sent from my CR-48
is not at stake here. Whatever smacks facebook down, it will be like killing napster. 10 more p2p clients sprung up then, some of them still in wide use. The worst possible thing this could do is give myspace another shot. (it wont though)
Social networking, wether we want it or not, is here to stay. Facebook may be dirty, but it's still an awesome way to keep up w/ acquaintences & distant family. Clsoe Friends you will call or they will call you.
A recent study showed that most people have between 4-7 "groups" of friends that they belong to. Socialnetworking may be obnoxious some times, but it helps me know when parties w/ my outlying groups happen. THIS is where I do my catching up, not online.
As for the content of the article, I didn't read it! I'm just responding to the responses which 1/2 of which are critical of facebook, the other 1/2 can't stand social networking in general. and a small population who sees it for what it is... not much, just a way of saying hey to mult. people @ once, and sharing photos, vids, endorsing products like Cheetos, the cheeze that goes crunch, and sexual preferances.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
That's nothing, back in the early nineties I gave Zuckerberg 2 dollars and a corn cob to paint my fence. Which he never did! Paint my goddamn fence you thieving bastard!
They collect genealogy information for Interpol to trace outstanding debts of immigrants to compel them to refund their enfranchise cost back to the Royal Families that payed for their travels.
Just don't do it (register, I mean). It starts-off like The Social Security Act, then everyone assumes it as involuntary to the point that it becomes the leading form of Indentity Theft right next to State ID and Drive Licenses (as well, Licenses are always commercia, because Case law and Statutes prove that "roads are Open as a matter of Right to Public Vehicular Travel").
Social networks won't go away. Because, well, they are social!
The actual app we use to navigate that network will most certainly change, but the ones out today won't be the ones we use in the future. Not if I have anything to say about it.
I like the idea of a constant profile. How would this be stored? The problem w/ decentralized networks is that "someone" has to host that data, or everyone has to host that data. Some sort of P2P model for distributing Social netoworking "profiles" would be an interesting concept indeed!
I'll tell you what my wife thinks of myspace & facebook. Myspace was too customizable. Facebook is "easy."
I think myspace failed because it's too egocentric. it's all about me, and not about my friends. Facebook is too app centric.
Steam, though having some cool features, is just myspace for gamers as far as social networking goes, but w/o the customizabillity.
I'd indulge the idea of a personal XML based DB/ dataset that can be easily moved / tx'd. Something that you could customize based on the site you are in, but were not required to. A way to display at / search all social networking sites may comeout of that, or maybe it exists now? a facebook / myspace / myfaceass/ metacrawler?
There are a few metaposting apps out there already.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.