Microsoft’s Juku temporarily shuts
Microsoft's Juku temporarily shuts
Microsoft temporarily shut down its MSN Juku micro-blogging site after claims the design and code for the site had been stolen from a smaller rival.
On Monday a start-up called Plurk published a post on its company blog detailing the uncanny similarities between its site and MSN Juku. The post included screen-shots of both services that looked almost the same, and lines of code that looked alike.
“Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but blatant theft of code [and] design . . . is just not cool, especially when the infringing party is the biggest software company in the world,” wrote Plurk.
Yesterday Microsoft distanced itself from the situation, suggesting MSN Juku was developed by a third-party contractor. “Our MSN China joint venture contracted with an independent vendor to create a feature called MSN Juku that allowed users to find friends via microblogging and online games,” it said, adding Juku would be suspended while they investigated.
Plurk said on Monday the company did not want to enter a legal tangle with the world’s largest software company, asking only that MSN Juku be taken down.
[Ft post]
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