• BBC News, Friday, August 15, 2008 11 AM

Facebook won final approval to acquire ConnectU, a social networking rival whose founders had accused Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea, despite an appeal against their agreed out-of-court settlement earlier this year. ConnectU claimed that Facebook misrepresented its value during the settlement talks.

The controversy was all about Microsoft's stake in the social networking giant, as ConnectU's owners were to be given an undisclosed amount of money and Facebook stock as part of the settlement. Following Microsoft's purchase of a one percent stake in October 2007, Facebook was given a valuation of $15 billion, but the company claims that that value shouldn't be used to rate its worth because the deal was specific to Microsoft. Instead, Facebook said its real value was $3-4bn. In exchange for the money and Facebook stock, ConnectU's owners, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (who happen to be Olympic rowers), agreed to hand over to Facebook all the stock they held in ConnectU.

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