First of all, what are Facebook and StudiVZ?
Facebook as well as StudiVZ are web 2.0 social networking sites.
The US-based Facebook was initially established in 2004 only for Harvard University students. Since it is global the majority of the users seem to be late teenagers and adults. Currently, the social networking site has more than 200 million active users worldwide. Facebook provides the following features:
- profile
- wall
- instant messaging
- pokes
- photos
- tag people at pictures
- status
- news feed
- groups
- search
- customisable privacy settings
- markup language
- gifts
- marketplace
- applications
- publication of events
- video sharing
- fan pages
- advertisement ability for companies.
The Germany-based StudiVZ was initially established in 2005 for students from Germany, Austria and Switzerland and was provided in German, English, Spanish, French, Italian and Polish. Since January 2009 only the German version operates and has 12 million users. As a result of the high popularity of StudiVZ two other versions called MeinVZ and SchülerVZ were established. StudiVZ and MeinVZ are interlinked. StudiVZ offers the following features:
- profile
- wall
- instant messaging
- pokes (”gruscheln” in German)
- photos
- tag people at pictures
- status
- news feed (exclusively for status)
- groups
- search
- customisable privacy settings
- fan pages.
The following video is a visual comparison of StudiVZ and Facebook:
The features, services and the layout unambiguously demonstrate the similarities of both social networking sites. Since Facebook was established first and also introduced all features before StudiVZ the question arises – did StudiVZ steal Facebook’s ideas?
Facebook also identified the previously mentioned similarities and sued StudiVZ in a California federal court in July 2008. A declaratory judgement at the District Court in Stuttgart was requested from StudiVZ as a result that they denied the claims.
A further legal procedure is currently disputed between Facebook and StudiVZ at the county court in Cologne. The court recommends both to come to an arrangement out of court. A joint expert opinion is suggested to identify if StudiVZ’s source code was copied from Facebook’s. If both parties do not come to an arrangement the court hearing will continue at the 16th of June 2009.
If Facebook would win the legal procedure StudiVZ could be forced to immediately take the social network off the web. Therefore, the result of the legal procedure has drastically impact on StudiVZ and remains interesting.
By: 
