Logic by numbers would have it that Facebook’s Chinese impersonators would irk the Zuckerberg gang more than any other similar copycat attempt made elsewhere on Earth. In fact, let’s assume they do. China’s Internet market will likely do little else but grow fast for the foreseeable future, so Facebook would have an incentive to combat the spoofs anyway it could. At the moment, however, the plan seems to be to deliver “the real thing” amid the fakes, and work to supplant the rest through sheer authenticity. (Does the adage that says “imitation is the most sincere form of flattery” still hold any credence today?)
Meanwhile, Facebook is evidently taking a harder tack in more Western reaches of the world. According to Kevin Allison of the Financial Times, Germany-based studiVZ, which claims a membership ten million strong, spread throughout the region encompassing Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, has been served a lawsuit by Facebook. The charge: copyright infringement.
StudiVZ currently comprises a trio of “platforms.” In addition to studiVZ there are schülerVZ and meinVZ, which collectively purport to be growing at a rate of 100,000 memberships per week. The company says that its schülerVZ brand is its most popular, with 6.4 billion page views per month, circa March 2008.