Facebook owner faces law suit

A US judge will decide next week whether Mark Zuckerberg should go to court after three former classmates accused him of stealing the idea, software and business plan for the social networking website.

The three former Harvard students say 23-year-old Zuckerberg stole the idea for the site while working as a programmer on their own social-networking site - called ConnectU.

Zuckerberg reportedly turned down a $1bn dollar bid for Facebook from Yahoo last year - but any legal battle is sure to affect any potential sale.

Analysts have said Zuckerberg may be tempted to settle the case in order to make the company more attractive to buyers.

Eric Goldman, academic director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University, told ABC news: "A good reason to settle is because you want to present a clean company to a potential buyer."

ConnectU's founders, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, are asking for unspecified damages, including any profits Zuckerberg made from using their ideas and they are asking to have control of Facebook handed over to them.

Facebook has become a phenomenal success, it had nearly 28 million unique visitors as of June, up from 14 million in September.

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