Winklevoss Twins Drop Appeal and Accept $65 million Settlement from Facebook

A one page court filing released on Wednesday has revealed that twins, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the former Harvard University classmates of Mark Zuckerberg, have decided to drop their appeal and accept their $65 million dollar settlement. While offering no specific reason for their decision, the Olympic rowing twins stated that quote “after careful consideration they had decided not to seek Supreme Court review.” The lengthy, legal dispute, dramatized in the film, “The Social Network,” released in 2010, came to fruition in 2004 when the Winklevoss twins along with a third party member, Divya Narendra, claimed that Zuckerberg had stolen the idea for Facebook after the trio had asked Zuckerberg to help them write the coding for a social networking site they were developing for Harvard and other campuses. Facebook immediately countersued the trio along with their competing site, Connect U, alleging that the Winklevosses and Connect U hackers had infiltrated Facebook user data with the intent of stealing users by spamming them. Following a California court’s mandate that the opposing parties mediate the dispute, an agreement was signed in which the Winklevosses would give up Connect U in exchange for $20 million dollars in cash and $45 million in Facebook stock. The twins then tried to back out of this agreement claiming they had been deceived about the value of the shares they received, arguing that Facebook had led them to believe its shares were worth four times as much. In April of this year, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied their request to be released from their settlement, claiming that the pair knew what they were agreeing to at the time. Yesterday’s court filing indicates a likely end to the long-running dispute. Facebook has more than 600 million active users and over 200 mobile operators In 60 countries working to promote Facebook mobile products. With people spending over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook, the company has swiftly risen to become the world’s premier social networking site and is valued at over $100 billion dollars.