Wired reports on a suit filed recently against Google, claiming that the source code underlying orket.com is stolen:

Daniel Terdiman

[from Wired News: Lawsuit: Google Stole Orkut Code]

Affinity Engines, based in Palo Alto, California, said engineer Orkut Buyukkokten illegally took the code that he had written for the company -- which he co-founded -- with him when he joined Google. Affinity Engines also claimed that Buyukkokten promised Affinity Engines that he wouldn't develop a competing social-network service for Google. Affinity Engines, which filed the claim on May 25 in Santa Clara Superior Court, is seeking unspecified damages and royalties.

In addition to nearly identical text found in similar features in orkut.com and Affinity Engine's social-networking products, the suit cited several identical software problems in each company's service.

[...]

For Google, the suit comes at an awkward time. The company is currently in the process of an initial public offering, which is expected to be one of the biggest ever. But Affinity Engines isn't the only company suing Google. Among others, the company faces a patent-infringement suit from Overture regarding auctioning placement in search-engine results.

Hmmmm. I wonder if anyone has done a social network analysis of the litigation in Silicon Valley?

I am not a fan of Orkut, but no one has really seriously argued that it should be evaluated relative to what it does in this first incarnation. The real impact has always been considered as futurescape -- how things might be in the future with an integration of social tools into search.

This is likely to be a real fly in the ointment for Google's realization of that future. Although, they certainly could simply turn around and buy Affinity -- or any thrre or four other SNA startups -- to get to that market first.

Which is why I predict a speedy out-of-court settlement, or outright acquisition.

[pointer from Marc Canter]