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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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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.
Please win. Please win. Please win.
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.
So I am guessing you were also a CS major?
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
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.
Don't be bitter just because you don't have enough friends to play Farmville.
yes, there is no bigger pile of crap then a social media site that has made it easy for me to get in touch with family and friends, stay up to date in their lives.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
I like that pile of crap. It allowed me to relocate and connect with old high school and college classmates. I also learned about the reunion through facebook
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
nah, he recently got a nre Kinesis keybiartf as well.
Miller Lite tastes like water that's somehow managed to rot.
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.
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.
Yeah, I learned about my last reunion on Facebook too. Ever since then, they've made it a policy never to announce reunions on Facebook.
stay up to date in their lives.
Your brother has found a pig in Generic Farmville Clone. Do you want to help him feed it? Click here.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
...but it's a legally binding bar napkin!
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I was kidding. But one can only hope something shuts down that huge pile of crap.
A proposed settlement.
I don't know how one can use e-mail and slashdot, but think facebook is a scourge to the internet.
I sometimes see email addresses, but I don't see a commercial 'email logo' stuck all over crap everywhere in life. There's a 'See us in Facebook' sticker on the glass door of 'Fashion Bug' which is essentially a strip-mall women's clothing store. The marketing of Facebook has gotten out of hand and is repulsing.
If I started seeing the Slashdot Log stuck all over Radio Shack, I'd probably feel the same way about Slashdot. If all the casual iPod games I download and play for a little while pushed 'Post about your success on Slashdot' I'd feel the same.
Fuck you, Zuck.
The order baring transfer of assets was only good until July 9th, it is now July 13th. So what happened?
No offense, but 10 years ago, everything you wrote was being said about instant messaging, and before that, about email. [Citation needed], but I wouldn't be surprised if the same applied to telephones. So while I actually agree that Facebook is pretty grating and annoying, the arguments above are just the new "Get off my lawn".
t allowed me to relocate and connect with old high school and college classmates. I also learned about the reunion through facebook
Come on, this is Slashdot - you only found out about the reunion because you were stalking your old high school and college "classmates" (tellingly, you didn't call them friends).
(Only joking - although my wife was stalked by an ex-boyfriend via a social networking website. He even found her address through another site that sells access to things like the electoral register, and then turned up one night on her doorstep).
I can only speak for myself, of course, but I guess a lot of people who want this to happen (I am one of them) does so because of Zuckerberg rather than Facebook. Humans are naturally drawn towards justice and fairness, and see Zuckerberg as a person who denigrates his customers, abuses their privacy and takes advantage of their personal data - and always, ALWAYS pushes the boundaries of what Facebook is allowe3d to do and only retreats after a big community backlash. And so, people feel Zuckerberg does not deserve the fortune he has.
Facebook could, otherwise, be a useful and safe tool, in the hands of an ethical leadership.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Maybe you shouldn't use Facebook then, and let the millions of other people who actually do enjoy using it, use it.
I disagree. But then I have to add, I deleted my Facebook profile. My problem is my family and friends are ALL in other countries, and most are in timezones where I cannot call them easily. When we want to send personal messages, e-mail sure is what we use. But Facebook is perfect for posting updates and photos of our 1 year old daughter for family (and some friends) back home to see.
Also I do appreciate (even the impersonal) updates... makes me feel like I'm still home.
I've blanked-blocked almost all applications a long long time ago anyway, so I've never seen these "Farmville" updates people speak of.
My wife will keep her profile and do these updates, but I personally don't like Facebook's policies.
More annoying to me (and more relevant to Slashdot) are sites that support Facebook Connect, but not OpenID.
I was kidding. But one can only hope something shuts down that huge pile of crap.
Says the person with a twitter signature?
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.
Read more business history. Ones that come to mind immediately are Lehman Brothers, Barings, Enron, Lloyds of London, and Worldcom. Disputes over ownership and contracts happen all the time.
For more details on the background, see this CNET story.
At least in Farmville you can actually have a virtual lawn where your avatar can stand and shake his fist at the kids.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I deleted my facebook profile and all my friends and family declared me dead and tryed to sell off all my shit. I really didn't get annoying though until they tried to bury my ass.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
I'm glad empty cynicism and apathy are working out so well for you. Keep up the good work.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Why? Most people websites cater to will have a Facebook account, and if your users have Facebook accounts, sites can push their content to the FB users' friends. OpenID is great, but apart from being a mechanism to authenticate yourself, they are completely different.
Statue of limitations. English--learn it!
Holy shit! That's the funniest thing I've read in a while.
For the record, you might try Googling "Statue of limitations" next time and noticing that Google changes it to "statute" automatically for you.
It's a clue, you should follow it.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Unless something really funny is going on, the judge would not have issued such a preliminary injunction if the case was that clearly beyond the statue of limitations. There might be disagreement concerning which limitations apply in this case.
You obviously aren't looking close enough!
Humans are naturally drawn towards justice and fairNess, And see Zuckerberg as a person who denIgrates his customers
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
So block the app. It's not that hard. My friends all play those inane games, and I never see a peep of them. Only when a new one comes along do I see it, and that's very, very rare. 10 minutes of work too much for you to keep in touch with your family?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
So basically you are saying since you don't think Facebook is the most effective way to communicate, nobody else should either.
"But this one goes to 11!"
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
The way I see it, if I really care about a person, I will make sure to stay in touch and no need to re-connect.
That's an excellent point and I would have agreed with when I was a teenager and my long-lost friends were the ones I didn't have classes with that semester. Then I got older and realized that sometimes people move without remembering to notify everyone they've ever corresponded with. I parted ways with some old friends - Navy buddies, college pals, neighbors, etc. - before email was popular among non-geeks and had no way of getting in touch with them short of hiring a private investigator.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Can't you create a (password + optional SSL protected) website for posting those updates? Hosting is cheap these days and it does not look like you would use a lot of hard drive space and/or bandwidth.
(I am not the author of the GPP.) I can, but I don't expect all my friends to do so, especially all my non-geek friends. For myself and virtually everyone that I stay in touch with: (free + convenient + slightly evil) trumps (cheap + hassle + ideologically sound). Probably doesn't bode well for the future of personal privacy, but there you go...
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
Are you a professor at Glenn Beck University? You could be! ;)
In this case the Slashdot conventional wisdom appears to be "Nobody needs Facebook." But, as is so often pointed out here, Slashdotters are not a representative cross-section of personallity types. Reference the frequent comments about women/dating/sex. Facebook addresses social interaction that is mostly incomprehensible to this group. On the other hand, if it weren't for the kinds of people who hang out here there would be no Facebook. Let's not fall into the "what is right for us is right for everyone" hole.
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project