Facebook back in court

Facebook is back in court over allegations Mark Zuckerberg stole the concept of the site from ConnectU, a service run by Zuckerberg's Harvard classmates..

The two parties had originally gone to court last summer over the case. The suit alleged that Zuckerberg had taken the idea for the social networking giant from fellow students Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss after Zuckerberg was hired to work on HarvardConnect, a university networking site which would later become ConnectU.

Meanwhile, ConnectU alleges that Zuckerberg took the stolen idea and code and proceeded to build what would later become a multi-billion dollar social networking giant.

Facebook later countersued, claiming that ConnectU had attempted to illegally access its databases to retrieve company data.

A settlement was first reached in February, but ConnectU has since asked to reopen the case, saying that it has new evidence and that the original agreement should be voided.

The case took an unexpected turn yesterday, when the judge presiding over the case decided to close the hearing to the public, drawing the ire of reporters and fuelling speculation that ConnectU's new body of evidence includes logs of instant messages involving Zuckerberg which Facebook seeks to keep confidential.