Silicon Valley Insider has a long story on how Facebook was founded with some purportedly new accusations.

New information uncovered by Silicon Alley Insider suggests that some of the complaints against Mark Zuckerberg are valid. It also suggests that, on at least one occasion in 2004, Mark used private login data taken from Facebook's servers to break into Facebook members' private email accounts and read their emails--at best, a gross misuse of private information. Lastly, it suggests that Mark hacked into the competing company's systems and changed some user information with the aim of making the site less useful.

Ruh roh. It's hard to tell how much of this was new information, though the fact that the accusations from ConnectU came a week after Facebook launched gives the accusers credibility in my book. Also, the $65 Million settlement... Well, yeah. That says Facebook is giving them some credibility, as well. And the accusations of using user data to login to the email addresses of users? That jibes pretty closely with how (un)seriously Facebook takes user privacy. I wonder if any of this will get picked up by the traditional media, and I wonder if the SVI investigation will hold up to journalistic standards...


Via Eric Andersen