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The AP Reveals Details of Facebook/ConnectU Settlement With Greatest Hack Ever
TechCrunch — ... This is almost too good to be true. The Associated Press has uncovered the details of the Facebook/ConnectU settlement using, of all things, copy and paste. After taking drastic preventative measures to keep the settlement confidential, including barring reporters from the courtroom and redacting portions of the documents, Facebook has been foiled by the most laughable lull in security I’ve heard of: ...

Facebook vs. ConnectU Settlement is Revealed
All Facebook — ... I’m guessing that you’ll be reading this in 20 places tomorrow but I figured that I’d link to the article and let you read it for yourself. AP was able to find all of the details of the ConnectU settlement through “copying [the blacked-out portions of the ConnectU hearing] from an electronic version of the document and pasting the results into another document.” Adobe seriously needs to get their team on this (if this was in fact from a PDF). ...

AP: Facebook Settled ConnectU Case for $20 Million in Cash + 1.25 Million Shares of Stock
Inside Facebook — ... in which Quinn Emmanuel, counsel for ConnectU in its case against Facebook, claimed in a marketing brochure that its settlement in the Facebook suit was valued at “$65 million.” Today, the AP has uncovered additional data about the settlement by (of all things) copying and pasting text from a court document and accidentally finding redacted information. ...

Facebook Values Itself At $3.7 Billion (Or Less)
Mashable! — ... It turns out that it was, since Facebook values itself at somewhere around 3.7 billion dollars. We know this, because the Associated Press was able to retrieve some details from the transcript of a June court hearing held over a legal settlement between Facebook and ConnectU. ...

Microsoft news roundup: Facebook's value; Another Yahoo! search exec joins Microsoft; IBM as cloud era kingmaker?; Q4 processor shipments 'fell off a cliff'
The Seattle Times: Microsoft Pri0 — ... The Associated Press reports that Facebook's own appraisal put the company's value at $3.7 billion, about a quarter of the $15 billion imputed by ...

Facebook: We were worth $3.7 billion
Between the Lines — ... Facebook reckoned that it had a market value of about $3.7 billion in an appraisal conducted after it sold a 1.6 percent stake to Microsoft that implied a value of $15 billion for the social networking outfit, according to the Associated Press.  The Associated Press discovered Facebook’s own assessment in court documents. What’s really comical is the way the AP found Facebook’s appraisal, which was mentioned in a June hearing as a long court battle with ConnectU was winding down. ConnectU sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for stealing the social networking concept from ...

MySpace Founder Bets on Facebook, But Only for the Next 2 Years
Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim — ... seem to back-up the idea that Facebook is enjoying worldwide domination–although MySpace still dominates the US market–it’s not all good news for the site that started off life as a way for students to connect. A transcript of a court hearing suggests that Facebook is not worth the $15 billion previously estimated. Instead, the social network is (barely) worth $3.7 billion. ...

Facebook Values Itself at $3.7 Billion
AppScout — ... $15 billion seemed a little steep, right? That was the price that Facebook was being appraised at after Microsoft made a big investment in the social network in 2007. Facebook's own self-appraisal, revealed via a court hearing last year, puts the company at a slightly more modest $3.7 billion--about $8.88 a share. ...

Facebook worth $3.7 billion; Nokia in talks to integrate the site with its phones
Obsessable News Feed — ... You might have heard something about the lawsuit and settlement with ConnectU. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg worked at the company before starting his own site, and was accused of using that opportunity to steal some of ConnectU's ideas for social networking pages. Under the terms of the settlement, ConnectU gets $20 million and a good deal of Facebook stock. That leads us to the next bit of news, that because of this settlement, we finally have a good idea of what Facebook is worth. ...

The Next Two Years Belong To Facebook, According To MySpace Founder
WebProNews Feed — ... seem to back-up the idea that Facebook is enjoying worldwide domination although MySpace still dominates the US market it s not all good news for the site that started off life as a way for students to connect. A transcript of a court hearing suggests that Facebook is not worth the $15 billion previously estimated. Instead, the social network is (barely) worth $3.7 billion. Back to Brewer. He believes that both MySpace and Facebook will be obsolete within 2 years, with a challenge likely to come from a social network that does a better job of integrating mobile phone ...

PDF redaction still not working
Hack a Day — ... showed that Facebook values itself at $3.7 billion, much less than the $15 billion that was speculated during the Microsoft investment. The AP uncovered this by cutting and pasting from the redacted court document. It’s the same thing we showed in ...

25 Things Facebook Couldn't Keep Secret In Court
InformationWeek - All Stories And Blogs — ... and pasting the results into another document," Liedtke wrote in his article . The improperly redacted document revealed that ConnectU received somewhere between from $31 million and $65 million to settle its lawsuit, and that Facebook's internal valuation was about $3.7 billion. "At some point in the document's work flow, it appears that someone added a white rectangle over white text in order to cover it," said David Stromfeld, a senior product manager for Adobe Acrobat. "And that's what they thought was sufficient to make that content undiscoverable." That's not the ...

25 Things Facebook Couldn't Keep Secret In Court
TechWeb — ... and pasting the results into another document," Liedtke wrote in his article . The improperly redacted document revealed that ConnectU received somewhere between from $31 million and $65 million to settle its lawsuit, and that Facebook's internal valuation was about $3.7 billion. "At some point in the document's work flow, it appears that someone added a white rectangle over white text in order to cover it," said David Stromfeld, a senior product manager for Adobe Acrobat. "And that's what they thought was sufficient to make that content undiscoverable." That's not the ...

Facebook settlement revealed via poor PDF redaction
Between the Lines — ... — was revealed Wednesday when Associated Press writer Michael Liedtke reported that redacted portions of a PDF transcript of a court hearing, at which details of the settlement were discussed, could be easily revealed.“Large portions of that hearing are redacted in a transcript of the June hearing, but The Associated Press was able to read the blacked-out portions by copying from an electronic version of the document and pasting the results into another document,” Liedtke wrote in his article . The improperly redacted document — an Adobe senior product manager says someone ...

Social Networks Should Beware of Big Business Investment
Internet Evolution: — ... : Redmond clearly overpaid for a 2 percent stake in FaceBook. It’s $240 million investment assumed a $15 billion valuation, but by FaceBook’s own estimate , the company’s worth closer to $3.7 billion. These examples make the pattern clear: A social phenomenon catches the eye of the evil empire, and its greedy out-of-touch bureaucratic executive mentality puts the kibosh on anything they invest in. So, how do privately held companies avoid toxic assistance from corporate America, when their growth outstrips their ability to provide adequate service to accommodate millions of ...