engine - 8:57 am on Jul 25, 2007 (gmt 0)

Mark Zuckerberg, the 23-year-old founder of Facebook, will today be accused of stealing the idea for his enormously popular social networking site from a rival website. Mr Zuckerberg is being for sued for stealing the source code – and design – of Facebook from ConnectU.com, a similar, university-based social network which he worked for briefly as a programmer four years ago. At a district court in Boston, Massachusetts, ConnectU's founders, who were in the same year at Harvard as Mr Zuckerberg, will demand that Facebook be shut down and that control of the site – and its profits – be handed over to them.

Facebook Founder Accused of Stealing The Idea [technology.timesonline.co.uk]