Web Designer Says He Owns Large Chunk of Facebook

In what one Facebook spokesperson is calling a "frivolous" suit, a New York web designer is suing the online social networking giant Facebook, Inc., claiming that he has 84 percent ownership of the wildly successful company, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The suit stems from a 2003 contract between designer Paul D. Ceglia and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg which allegedly says that Ceglia would pay $1,000 to develop and design a website and eventually receive a 50 percent stake in the product, plus an additional 1 percent interest in the business for every day after Jan. 1, 2004, until the project was completed, the Journal reported.

While it might seem on the surface to be frivolous after all this time has passed, the fact that New York Judge Thomas Brown issued a temporary restraining order that prohibits the transfer of assets from Facebook, Inc. is making folks take this lawsuit a bit more seriously. Ceglia is seeking to reclaim that aforementioned ownership, as well as monetary damages, the article reports.

A Facebook spokesperson released a statement and is quoted in the article as saying the lawsuit was "completely frivolous and we will fight it vigorously."

The Journal quotes part of the contract as saying the website Ceglia was to create was for a project Zuckerberg had already initiated that was "designed to offer the students of Harvard University access to a website similar to a live functioning yearbook with the working title of ‘The Face Book.’" The fact that the social network site was only intended for Harvard at the time may yet play a role in how the lawsuit shapes up. It is also unclear if and how the suit may be affected by the fact that Zuckerberg didn’t register the domain thefacebook.com until January 2004, the article pointed out. More likely is that New York’s six-year statute of limitations would eventually block the suit.

An expert quoted in the article said he expected Facebook would deal with the suit quickly. With more than 500 million users from all over the world helping to make it the largest social network on the planet, Facebook certainly has enough revenue to take care of this matter out of court. However, this is not the first time the company has grappled with challenges over its early ownership and origins, the article points out. So who actually is the legal and rightful owner of the lion’s share of Facebook? The world may never know.