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Instant Messes: More Zuckerberg IMs Surface, Landing The Facebook Chief In A Legal Mess

As if Facebook and its founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't have enough going on, Zuck is now facing accusations of securities fraud from former Harvard schoolmates. According to Venture Beat, they're claiming Zuck "and other Facebook execs tricked them into a supposed $65 million settlement that was actually worth far less."

Judge James Ware of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will reportedly hear those arguments -- filed in an appellate brief late last month -- in an upcoming court case.

"Seems like Mark Zuckerberg is experiencing a serious dose of 'when it rains, it pours' these days," notes Marketing Pilgrim. "What is alleged in the appeal brief ... is that the original deal was for $65 million to make the ConnectU 'connection go away."

The Inquisitr goes so far as to ask: "Could Zuckerberg's days as CEO be numbered thanks to ConnectU?" Its rationale? "Tie this in with a growing discontent from within the Facebook ranks including the upper management over Facebook's current mess surrounding privacy issues things could get a little rough for Emperor Zuckerberg."

Divya Narendra and brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss claim they hired Zuckerberg to work on their social network, ConnectU, when they were all students at Harvard, reports Venture Beat. Rather than aid their cause, however, Zuck apparently delayed the project, and then used ConnectU's code to launch his own project -- then called TheFacebook.

"Their side of the story gained credence after instant messages sent by Zuckerberg bragging about his success in duping them emerged in the press," Venture Beat adds.

"In the midst of the Facebook privacy fiasco, though, the smoking gun -- or, in this case, the smoking instant messages -- are an ironic twist," notes freelance journalism site True/Slant.

Both sides have been locked in litigation since their college years, and while ConnectU and Facebook reached a tentative settlement for $65 million in 2008, the Winklevoss brothers and Narendra -- in the brief filed in their appeal -- now say that the settlement was never finalized, and that a judge acted improperly in allowing the settlement to proceed, according to Venture Beat.

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