Connectu, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc. et al

Filing 68

DECLARATION of Meredith H. Schoenfeld in support of First Amended Complaint by Connectu, Inc.. (Attachments: #1 Exhibit 1 part 1#2 Exhibit 1 part 2#3 Exhibit 1A#4 Exhibit 2#5 Exhibit 3 part 1#6 Exhibit 3 part 2#7 Exhibit 4#8 Exhibit 5#9 Exhibit 6#10 Exhibit 7#11 Exhibit 8#12 Exhibit 9#13 Exhibit 10#14 Exhibit 11#15 Exhibit 12#16 Exhibit 13#17 Exhibit 14#18 Exhibit 15#19 Exhibit 16#20 Exhibit 17#21 Exhibit 18#22 Exhibit 19#23 Exhibit 20#24 Exhibit 21#25 Exhibit 22#26 Exhibit 23#27 Exhibit 24#28 Exhibit 25#29 Exhibit 26#30 Exhibit 27#31 Exhibit 28#32 Exhibit 29#33 Exhibit 29A#34 Exhibit 30#35 Exhibit 31#36 Exhibit 32#37 Exhibit 33#38 Exhibit 34#39 Exhibit 35#40 Exhibit 36#41 Exhibit 37#42 Exhibit 38#43 Exhibit 39# 44 Exhibit 40#45 Exhibit 41#46 Exhibit 42#47 Exhibit 43#48 Exhibit 44#49 Exhibit 45#50 Exhibit 46#51 Exhibit 47#52 Exhibit 50#53 Exhibit 51#54 Exhibit 52#55 Exhibit 53#56 Exhibit 54#57 Exhibit 55#58 Exhibit 56#59 Exhibit 56A#60 Exhibit 56B#61 Exhibit 56C#62 Exhibit 56D#63 Exhibit 56E#64 Exhibit 56F#65 Exhibit 56G#66 Exhibit 56H#67 Exhibit 56I#68 Exhibit 56J#69 Exhibit 58#70 Exhibit 59#71 Exhibit 60#72 Exhibit 61#73 Exhibit 62#74 Exhibit 63#75 Exhibit 64#76 Exhibit 65#77 Exhibit 66#78 Exhibit 67#79 Exhibit 68#80 Exhibit 69#81 Exhibit 70#82 Exhibit 71#83 Exhibit 72#84 Exhibit 73#85 Exhibit 74#86 Exhibit 75#87 Exhibit 76#88 Exhibit 78#89 Exhibit 80#90 Exhibit 81#91 Exhibit 82#92 Exhibit 83)(Hornick, John) Additional attachment(s) added on 8/9/2007 (Nici, Richard).

Connectu, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc. et al

Doc. 68 Att. 3

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EXHIBIT 1A

Dockets.Justia.com

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Harvard Connection Ideas Used By facebook.com
All of the following ideas were the Founders' confidential information, until such time as the Harvard Connection website were to be launched by the Founders, except as otherwise noted: 1) The idea, innovation, project, and enterprise of creating the first niche social network for college/university students, to fill the then-existing vacuum for such a utility in the college/university market, including the following features: a) an online community in the form of a multi-purpose social networking website for the college/university community, enabling students, alumni, faculty, and employers to connect in a unique way, using various predefined and user-defined functionality, for various predefined and user-defined purposes, on such network, and implementing such ideas. b) Users would be required to provide a ".edu" email address issued by a college/university, containing a "university domain" (i.e., the official web domain address of an institution) in order to register. c) Users would be identified by the "university domain" in their email address and placed into the network dedicated specifically to that respective "university domain." d) The network on which each user would be placed would be one network of many networks that together formed a large social network. e) Users would be able to determine their privacy and the degree of interaction between other users within the same network, by adjusting privacy settings.

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f) Users would be able to interact with users in different networks depending on the privacy settings of each user and the degrees of cross- network interaction allowed at that point in time. g) Which "university domains" would be open for registration would be determined according to the expansion strategy. 2) Enforcing the niche nature of this social network for college/university students by the following steps: a) Determining if the registrant's email address contained a "university domain." email address

b) Determining if the "university domain" contained in registrant's was open to registration.

c) If steps a and b were met, the registrant would be entered into the database and be placed in the network for the "university domain" that matched the "university domain" in the registrant's email address; the registrants' ability to use the site would be pending until email verification. d) After steps a, b, and c were completed, the registrant's email address would be verified. e) Upon email verification, the user would be free to login with the email address and password he/she provided in registration. 3) The idea that security and quality control of this niche social network would be ensured by the premise that colleges/universities only issue email addresses to officially recognized college/university members, and that such email addresses identify the owners' real name. This premise would strongly encourage accurate user information and thus more legitimate

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and safer connections. In addition, the premise would reduce false profiles, and false connections based on false information. 4) The execution strategy of the website, which would include the following steps: a) Being the first social network to fill the college/university student niche. Users more likely to join communities where their friends and colleagues are members. Thus, the first-mover advantage is absolutely critical in the a niche social network.

are much already success of b)

Initially launching at and being open only to the Harvard community (i.e. users with Harvard "university domain" email addresses). i) The plan of launching at the Harvard Community and not another college/university community was to take advantage of the Founders being part of the Harvard Community. ii) The plan of initially launching at one school only and growing one school at a time was to implement a strategy of "punctuated viral growth" (i.e., that by confining and controlling the boundaries of the viral growth process, the user base would grow more quickly and thoroughly than a traditional unconfined, uncontrolled viral growth strategy). Launching first at only Harvard would allow for rapid growth within the boundaries of the Harvard community only. Over a period of time, demand of nonHarvard students for their own networks would increase. In addition, demand from students at Harvard to be able to connect to non-Harvard students would increase. As demand of non-Harvard students and Harvard students swelled to a critical point, additional schools would be

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added. The pattern of increasing the size of the overall network slowly, one school at a time, was to continue until a critical point was reached when growth boundaries could be increased more quickly without slowing overall user-base growth. c) The plan of adding schools after Harvard, based on the cross-pollination growth qualities of a school, and overall demand of students inside and outside of the overall network. i) The plan of beginning at Harvard and expanding methodically to other Ivy league schools, because of the similar natures of these institutions and their students and the likely demand of other Ivy league students to be included in the network with Harvard, and continuing outward. ii) The plan of logically progressing the network outward from the Ivy league, based on the cross-pollination growth qualities of a school, the overall demand of students inside and outside of the overall network, and geography, with the eventual plan to include every accredited academic institution domestically and internationally. 5) The idea of a flexible, expandable utility, available to college/university-based users through a website, serving as a directory of people and their interests and qualifications, a forum for the expression of opinion and ideas, and a safe network of connections, and adding other features from time to time, and an infrastructure to run such utility. 6) All ideas, information, fields, features, and functions provided, embodied in, or underlying, the website, particularly functionality exclusive to a niche social network for college/university students:

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a) b)

a social network comprised of nodes (people) and ties (connections); enabling a user to register to use the website, to create a password, to edit such information, and to login;

c) d)

sending a confirmation email to website registrants; enabling users to enter information about themselves, a database structure to maintain such information, and functionality to access and use such information, including personal information, such as name, gender, birth date, address, email address, phone numbers, sexual orientation, political views, personal habits, physical characteristics, fitness information, family information, relationship status, dating preferences, dating intention, views and interests, likes and dislikes, and favorite quote; education-related information, such as student status, oncampus place of residence, degrees, graduating class, thesis, fields of study, courses, education, and other fields relating to the college/university environment; employment-related information, such as profession, company name, years worked, job title, city, state, and country; a free-form space for entering other information; and enabling users to edit such information;

e)

a function that confirms the user has a .edu address in an existing network for a college/university domain (e.g., harvard.edu), then permits access to the site and enables the user to build a profile and use the site's other functions;

f)

enabling the user to create a profile to be posted and viewed on the website, and enabling such a profile to be used with functionality relating to connecting for other social or professional reasons;

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g)

enabling the user to share his/her profile with other users, at his/her own school and at other schools, as controlled by the user;

h)

enabling users to search and see other users' profiles, at schools on the network,

with access controlled by the user; i) enabling users to perform user-defined searches or functions, and to connect with other users in user-defined ways through such searches and functionality; j) enabling users to request connections with other users, and to provide information to be sent with such requests; k) enabling users to see, display, and save connection requests and connections, enabling users to accept or reject connection requests, providing information only to accepted connections, and functionality and a database structure for storing and accessing such information, and for sending information only to accepted connections; l) a process that determines whether a connection will be allowed, specifically, the recipient of the connection request must consent to the connection, a process to check for duplicate connection requests, and a process to notify the person requesting the connection and the recipient of the connection request that the connection has been allowed; m) after connections are made between people, enabling the user to communicate with connections and to make interests and activities visible to connected people, with user control; n) enabling the propagation of connections between people of like interests, and to facilitate communications and activities between connected people;

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o)

providing users with information, and enabling users to upload, post, share, and exchange information, interests, opinions, photos, videos, and things (for example, books and other personal items available for sale or exchange), and to change or delete such information;

p) q) r)

enabling users to upload the users' thesis, resume, and photos; enabling users to invite others to register to use the website; and enabling users to send messages to each other within the network.

7) Allowing users to control their privacy, and to determine the degree to which their profile information would be shared within their own network, and within other networks, by adjusting privacy settings, and implementing such ideas. Users would be able to connect with other users in their own network, or in other networks, depending on their privacy settings, and depending on the degree of interaction allowed between networks at any point in time. 8) The layout, design, and user interface of the Harvard Connection website screens, including search results pages. 9) The entire project, enterprise, and idea of creating a niche social network and then expanding the functionality of that social network. 10) The idea of launching a website embodying such ideas before any competitive website launched, specifically, capturing the first mover advantage and relying on the novelty of the utility to grow the user base virally. Failure to capture the first mover advantage was believed to mean certain failure. 11) The plan to monetize the website after it launched, by various means, including but not limited to advertising revenue directed to the college/university student demographic,

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revenue for premium services, fees for items exchanged through the website, fees for merchant affinity relationships, and royalties from any other business generated by the user base. 12) The entire project, enterprise, and idea of designing and launching a website with such combination of ideas, information, fields, features, and functions. 13) The Harvard Connection code itself, as well as the functionality of the code. The Harvard Connection code itself would remain a trade secret after launch. The surface functionality produced by running the code, as perceivable by users of the website, would not be a trade secret after the website was launched by the Founders. The underlying functionality produced by running the code, not perceivable to users of the website, would remain a trade secret after launch.