Poolworks

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
poolworks (Germany) Ltd.

logo
legal form Limited
founding October 31, 2005
Seat Berlin , Germany
management Kurt E. Neubauer ( CEO ),
John Pepe ( COO )
Number of employees approx. 15 (July 2015)
sales approx. 30 million euros (Dec. 2010)
Branch Social networks
Website poolworks.de

The pool works (Germany) Ltd. (until August 2009 studiVZ Ltd. , until May 2011 VZnet networks Ltd. , until June 2012 VZ networks Ltd. ) is a company for web-based social networks that belonged to the Georg von Holtzbrinck publishing group from 2007 to 2012 . On November 11th, 2005 she founded the online project studiVZ for the target group of students. In February 2007, the offshoot for schoolchildren started as schülerVZ and a year later the third without a specific target group as meinVZ . In August 2009 the company changed its name to VZnet Netzwerk Ltd. and had around 17 million members in July 2010. In September 2011 the VZ networks still had 8 million members; In August 2012 the VZ networks still had around 2.8 million members. Since the beginning of 2013, the number of users is no longer recorded by the IVW . In April 2013 schülerVZ was closed. In 2015 the VZ pages had a total of 1 million active users.

Until it was taken over by the Momentous Entertainment Group (MMEG) in 2017, the company was ultimately controlled by the US equity investment company VERT Capital Inc. In 2013, Poolworks generated a loss of 3 million euros and is dependent on the continued financial support of the parent company (due to an excess of debts over assets) in order to maintain the going concern principle in accounting . In 2014 Poolworks generated a loss of 2 million euros.

Poolworks (Germany) Ltd. filed for bankruptcy at the Berlin-Charlottenburg District Court on September 7, 2017.

history

Diverse articles
logo

The former studiVZ Ltd. was founded as a Private Limited Company by Shares (Ltd.) under British law with a formal headquarters in Birmingham and a so-called branch (actual seat) in Berlin . Ehssan Dariani ( CEO ) and Dennis Bemmann ( CTO ) founded studiVZ at the end of October 2005. Dariani resigned as managing director in March 2007 and, after the conversion of studiVZ into a limited liability company (GmbH), was to move to the supervisory board. However, the GmbH conversion never took place.

The founders of the Spreadshirt merchandising service Lukasz Gadowski and Matthias Spiess each provided the first 5000 euros of start-up capital. According to studiVZ, various shareholders later contributed a total of 2.5 million euros to the development of studiVZ.

The largest investor in August 2006 was Holtzbrinck Ventures GmbH with two million euros. Other shareholders were the following people or companies who brought in around 500,000 euros: Aaron Voloj Dessauer, Christian Vollmann, Christophe Maire, Dario Suter, European Founders Fund GmbH ( Marc, Oliver and Alexander Samwer ), Kolja Hebenstreit, Oliver Jung, Peter Schupbach.

On January 2, 2007, the company was completely taken over by Holtzbrinck Digital Strategy (formerly: Holtzbrinck Networks), which is part of the Holtzbrinck Group. The parties have agreed not to disclose the exact purchase price. According to Focus , Axel Springer Verlag itself offered 120 million euros at the last minute.

From March 2009 to February 2010, Markus Berger-de León was head of the company. Previously, among other things, he managed the online auction house my-hammer.de and worked for the ringtone provider Jamba for five years . The change in leadership was preceded by a radical change in which the two founders Dennis Bemmann and Michael Brehm also resigned from their duties on the board at the end of 2008. Bemmann is co-founder of the company, Brehm joined a few months after the start in June 2006. While around 140 employees worked for the VZ networks in August 2007, around 300 employees took care of the platforms in the spring of 2010.

In October 2009 the studiVZ Ltd. named itself in VZnet networks Ltd. around. From February 2010 to 2011 Clemens Riedl was CEO of VZnet networks.

In September 2011, the company announced a realignment that should lead to a stabilization of the number of users. The VZ networks want to respond better to the needs of the members. There are also plans to rename meinVZ to freundeVZ.

studiVZ Ltd. has had the terms gruscheln and studiVerverzeichnis protected as a word mark with the German Patent and Trademark Office . In July 2010, the three social networks studiVZ, meinVZ and schülerVZ recorded a total of around 17 million members. However, all three networks have been losing massive amounts of visitors since 2010, while the spread of the competitor Facebook in Germany has increased sharply since then. Between June 2010 and June 2011 the number of page views fell from 11.4 billion to 3.2 billion. Since then, the VZ networks have continued to lose visitors and in June 2012 were only able to register 656 million page views out of 40 million visits.

In mid-2012, Holtzbrinck-Verlag sold its shares in the company to the investment company Vert Capital, and VZ-Netzwerk has since changed its name to poolworks (Germany) Ltd. around.

In June 2012 it was announced that schülerVZ would be restarted at the end of the year at Idpool.de. However, this was not implemented and schülerVZ closed on April 30, 2013. Poolworks made a loss of 3 million euros in 2013 and had liabilities of 40 million euros, but only assets of 20 million euros.

In March 2014, Poolworks contradicted rumors about the closure of further platforms in a blog post and announced a complete overhaul from April.

In May 2016 it became known that Holtzbrinck had sued the former subsidiary Poolworks for a claim of EUR 3 million before the Berlin district court. Poolworks lost the process.

In late November 2016 it was announced that the company would be sold to the American media company Momentous Entertainment Group (MMEG) for US $ 10 million. However, the sale was not yet completed as planned at the turn of the year 2016/2017. According to information from MMEG, an agreement had been reached with Poolworks' main creditor on the sale.

Poolworks filed for bankruptcy on September 7, 2017.

Projects

The studiVZ logo
The logo of schülerVZ
The logo of meinVZ

use

In July 2010 the three VZnet networks had more than 17 million registered members. In the first quarter of 2008 studiVZ had around 5.5 million unique users , making it one of the most successful online media in Germany. Since May 2007 studiVZ has had its page views and reach measured by the IVW . In the reporting month of January 2009 studiVZ, schülerVZ and meinVZ together achieved over 11.2 billion single page views and 385.3 million individual visits , in April 2011 the VZ networks recorded 4.6 billion page impressions and 226.9 million visits.

schülerVZ was limited in its use to students from ten (previously twelve) years, creating an account only possible by invitation of a member. Adults were expressly excluded from use. The website had 5.6 million users in mid-January 2010, that is almost 84 percent of the total of around 7 million German-speaking students of this age group. According to statistics from January 2008, the site reached 111 million views with 2.7 million users, from which it could be concluded that on average each member visited his site daily.

Business model

The use of the VZ networks is free and, according to the operator, it should remain so. Meanwhile, advertisements are being displayed on the website, which was not the case initially. The marketing of advertising space on the networks is carried out by iq digital media marketing GmbH, a subsidiary of the Handelsblatt publishing group. Furthermore, sales should be generated through community advertising in the form of telegrams and advertising in separate groups. Potential employers should be introduced to the students via the entry area . According to the profit-and-loss account for fiscal year 2008, the loss was the same as sales, so the income only covered half of the costs.

technology

The VZ networks run on Linux - servers using PHP, MySQL databases, memcache server and Apache Web servers . At peak times, the entire information system processes 150,000 requests per second, with a data transfer rate of 5400 Mbit / s. The hosting is done in a data center of Telefónica Germany .

social commitment

The VZnet networks support various well-known charitable projects. Non-profit and charitable organizations, for example, were given precious profiles free of charge. They were also given the opportunity to ask for support and donations on the website. Above all, the high number of members, reach and activity made the VZnet networks an effective partner for social projects.

Together with the German bone marrow donor database, the VZnet networks, for example, motivated several thousand of their members by October 21, 2009 to be classified as potential bone marrow donors for leukemia patients.

The Germany's Relief Coalition , an alliance of German aid organizations that VZnet networks allowed to communicate with their members through a dedicated noble profile. VZ members were able to donate via SMS for the victims of the devastating earthquakes in Indonesia and the typhoons in Vietnam and the Philippines.

Together with Aktion Deutschland Hilft and the non-profit service provider spendino , the VZ networks also collected donations in January 2010 for the victims of the severe earthquake in Haiti.

The social commitment of the VZnet networks not least included the support for the start-up 2aid.org. Together with the non-profit organization, the Berlin internet company called on its members in November 2009 to donate to the construction of seven wells in the Nakaseke region in Uganda in order to avert the looming humanitarian catastrophe there. A group with special functions served as a communication platform.

reception

Much older platforms than SchülerVZ are available for young people in particular (such as tivi-Treff ( ZDF children's television), the chat of the public youth radio Ö3 or LizzyNet especially for girls). SchülerVZ was equipped with few features (compared to MySpace, for example ). The reason is seen as the approach that the members were assigned via the school they attended, so that a student could also get to know other students in his school without having to go the problematic way of addressing young people directly. According to media educator Markus Gerstmann from the Bremen ServiceBureau Jugendinformation, the certainty that no adults have "access" to the community was a factor of success and was also to be seen as pedagogically valuable - but also the necessary care in handling information presupposed with people in themselves.

In the past, various major newspapers criticized the operators' behavior , particularly in blogs and online magazines. This went so far that at the end of 2006 even student representatives warned against using studiVZ.

As a result, studiVZ began discussing a code of conduct in early 2007, which was followed by a change in the general terms and conditions and technical improvements. Since May 2007, studiVZ has also been a member of the voluntary self-regulation multimedia service provider e. V. (FSM).

In order to prevent phenomena such as stalking and bullying , the operator had set up a 100-strong support team that immediately punishes violations of the rather restrictive code of conduct.

In December 2009, the VZ networks based on the OpenSocial technology opened up for applications from external providers. In January 2010, the VZ networks published figures that showed the rapid success of their OpenSocial concept, which was specially geared towards the security interests of the 17 million members.

Privacy concerns

Logo of the own data protection campaign

In February 2008 studiVZ was warned by the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (vzbv) because the vzbv considers the handling of personal information of users to be illegal. In November 2009, the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (vzbv) announced that the VZnet networks, together with five other social networks, had signed a declaration of cease and desist for more data protection.

Personalized advertising

After the platform was sold to the Holtzbrinck Group, the general terms and conditions were revised. The new general terms and conditions gave studiVZ the opportunity to personalize advertising content. This made it possible for advertisers to address their target group directly without major wastage. The users could only agree to the new conditions until January 9th, later until July 8th, 2008 in order to be able to continue using their account. The change in the general terms and conditions initially sparked discussions among users and in the media. The company has largely invalidated the criticism.

Release of personal data to investigative authorities

The VZ networks are legally obliged to provide investigative authorities with the data of suspected members in the event of justified inquiries. The operator has been able to meet this obligation since the general terms and conditions were changed in December 2007. In principle, however, the investigating authorities only receive usage data from those members who have not objected to the storage of their data. The former managing director Markus Riecke said: “We are between the two fronts. Data protection on the one hand, and investigators on the other. The Telemedia Act prohibits us from storing usage data without the consent of the user. So the BGH decided last autumn. The police and LKA officials demand exactly this data from us, which we are not allowed to save according to data protection officers. We have therefore given the users their consent to the storage of usage data. […] Thank God we are now allowed to surrender such data in case of inquiries. We save usage data for all users who have given us permission with their consent . "

Risk of abuse by third parties

Websites, on which a lot of personal user data can be given, generally harbor the risk of unauthorized third parties doing data mining . So it was, for example, two students at MIT - College possible using an automated scripts over 70,000 Facebook downloading profiles. For studiVZ, too, it was feared that combining the data with other social networks could result in identity theft. In fact, on December 9, 2006, it was possible to download the publicly available data from over a million studiVZ profiles and to analyze the profile information. In addition, a program was published that made it possible to save all freely accessible data and to graphically depict friendship connections. Such automated attacks have been made much more difficult with the help of captchas since December 2006.

In February 2007, there was another attack on the website, in which it was reportedly possible to gain direct access to the system's database and thus also to obtain non-public data such as passwords and e-mail addresses of the users. studiVZ then reset the passwords of all members and took the site offline for several hours.

In 2009 a program was published with which the captchas of the VZ networks could be solved automatically. The captchas have meanwhile disappeared from the VZ pages. Three cases became known from October 2009 in which several million profiles of the various VZ networks, especially the SchülerVZ, are said to have been downloaded with the help of a script. By exploiting various security gaps in the VZ networks, it was also possible until July 2009 to access data marked as "private and only visible to friends". A corresponding data collection with over 100,000 data records emerged in October 2009. The exact circumstances and contents of the contacts between the VZnet networks and the data collector, as well as the circumstances and reasons for his arrest and his suicide in custody are unclear.

privacy

The user is offered options that allow access to sensitive information to be restricted. Depending on the setting options for privacy, only certain information (e.g. the name) remains visible to viewers of the profile; further details can be made available to friends. When creating their own photo album, the user can choose, for example, whether this album should be made visible only for him, for all people he is friends with, or for all users.

Anyone with a valid email address can register. In principle, all security settings are activated for newly registered users. Your profile data can only be viewed by friends at first.

Saved images

The management of the images uploaded by users in photo albums turns out to be critical in individual cases: studiVZ saves these images in directories on a web server , with part of the image URL being determined using a hash algorithm . Since the images are otherwise unprotected, all images, including those marked as private, can be viewed by any Internet user who knows the URL. VZ members should therefore refrain from disclosing the URLs to images to unauthorized persons or publishing them on the Internet. Linking the images on other websites was made more difficult in February 2009 by a referrer check, but was again made possible without a referrer check due to inconsistent results and massive user complaints.

Criticism of business conduct

Allegations of plagiarism

studiVZ was suspected of being a replica of Facebook that went into the details of its function, structure and appearance. Both the functionality and the graphic design were very similar to the American platform. Up until the beginning of October 2006 there was a reference to a stylesheet with the name in all source texts of the studiVZ pages myfb.css, which led to the assumption that it had been copied directly from Facebook. The contact and greeting function with the fantasy word “Gruscheln” is reminiscent of “Poking” ( poke in German ) on Facebook or the “blinking” or “smiling” on dating sites; the associated PHP - script was on studiVZ initially under the name of poke.phprunning. An error message also revealed the naming of a program folder with the name "fakebook". On July 19, 2008, Facebook filed a lawsuit in a US District Court in San José, California , for "abuse of Facebook's intellectual property ." Another lawsuit was filed with the Cologne Regional Court in November 2008 . However, on June 16, 2009, the court dismissed the action as devoid of purpose.

Domain grabbing

In November 2006 it became known that the management of studiVZ had registered foreign domains of the German competitors Unister and Studylounge (including unister.at and studylounge.co.uk ) in the summer . After publication of this procedure, which was disapproved of as domain grabbing in the internet industry , studiVZ publicly apologized and released the domains.

Warning behavior

The fact that studiVZ asserted its trademark rights to the VZ abbreviation was met with incomprehension . The company went to projects like BewerberVZ , FussballerVZ , PokerVZ , baccalaureate VZ and FickenVZ ago. There was a stir that the initiators of the ErstiVZ project , a website from students for new students at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster , received a cost note of around 2,000 euros. Other warnings were also directed at projects that violated studiVZ's trademark law .

Criticism of the control of the content

Reports of questionable groups and profiles by users of the platform were not always responded to in the form expected by the critics. On November 23, 2006, it was announced that there was a group for men only with the aim of choosing the most beautiful female student each month. In the group forum, data such as name, university or pictures of individual students were also posted publicly in the profiles. StudiVZ did not respond to complaints in this regard with a deletion. In addition, there were and are comparable groups in which female students discussed the most attractive male profiles.

Even with the schülerVZ offshoot, it may not have been possible to control all of the content. The father of a schoolgirl, for example, filed a “criminal complaint for the dissemination of pornographic material and for sedition”.

literature

  • Jo Bager: Being there is everything. The StudentVZ phenomenon . In: c't . No. 5/2008 . Heise, 2008, Report, p. 92 ff ( c't archive , heise kiosk).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ studiVZ | imprint
  2. ^ Spiegel Online, Hamburg Germany: Social networks: What became of StudiVZ? In: Spiegel Online. Retrieved May 15, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Successful financial year for VZ: sales increase of 60 percent compared to 2009 / around 30 million euros total sales / in the 2nd half of 2010 for the first time pro. (No longer available online.) VZ Netzwerk Ltd, formerly the original ; accessed on November 14, 2013 (press release).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.pressebox.de  
  4. ↑ Companies House , Company No. 05607971
  5. ↑ Social Networks: Holtzbrinck rejects StudiVZ. heise.de, September 11, 2012, accessed on November 21, 2013 .
  6. ↑ Imprint. In: www.meinvz.net. Retrieved on June 18, 2010 : “VZnet Netzwerk Ltd. […] Berlin, Germany"
  7. ↑ a b c About us - data and facts - members. In: www.meinvz.net. Retrieved on September 17, 2010 : “Our websites […] currently have over 17 million * members registered. […] * As of July 2010 "
  8. ↑ Meedia: The German top 20 social networks ( Memento of the original from January 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / meedia.de
  9. ↑ VZ networks leave the IVW , Statista, February 11, 2012
  10. ^ Meedia: Social Network Charts: Google+ before Twitter
  11. ↑ Social networks: What became of StudiVZ? , Spiegel Online , July 13, 2015
  12. ↑ Exempting annual financial statements according to §325 a HGB for the business year from 01/01/2013 to 12/31/2013. In: Unternehmensregister.de. January 5, 2016, accessed June 13, 2016 (search for Poolworks (Germany) Ltd ).
  13. ↑ Exempting annual financial statements according to §325 a HGB for the business year from 01/01/2014 to 12/31/2014. In: Unternehmensregister.de. December 22, 2016, Retrieved January 6, 2017 (search for Poolworks (Germany) Ltd ).
  14. ↑ a b Exclusive: StudiVZ has filed for bankruptcy . Gründerszene, September 8, 2017
  15. ↑ StudiVZ: Controversial founder leaves management. In: heise online . March 12, 2007, accessed January 13, 2014 .
  16. ↑ Information about Martin Weber, studiVZ member of the supervisory board of Holtzbrinck Ventures. Retrieved January 13, 2014 .
  17. ↑ Björn Sievers / Josef Seitz: 85 million euros for contact exchange. focus.de, January 3, 2007, accessed on November 21, 2013 .
  18. ↑ Markus Berger-de León becomes CEO at studiVZ. Press release from StudiVZ on the new CEO Markus Berger-de León. (No longer available online.) January 28, 2009, archived from the original on January 13, 2014 ; accessed on January 13, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.presseportal.de
  19. ↑ Holger Schmidt: Berger-de León is the boss of StudiVZ. FAZ, January 27, 2009, accessed on November 21, 2013 .
  20. ↑ Holger Schmidt: StudiVZ founder goes overboard. FAZ, December 17, 2008, accessed on November 21, 2013 .
  21. ↑ StudiVZ wants to earn money at the end of the year FAZ online, August 17, 2007, accessed in 2009 (meanwhile in the FAZ archive with Paywall ).
  22. ↑ About us - data and facts - Die Backfabrik in Berlin. In: www.meinvz.net. Retrieved June 18, 2010 .
  23. ↑ Imprint. In: www.meinvz.net. Accessed on June 18, 2010 : "www.studivz.net [...] belong to a project of VZnet Netzwerk Ltd."
  24. ↑ Clemens Riedl new CEO of VZ networks. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 13, 2014 ; accessed on January 13, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.handelszeitung.at
  25. ↑ Jakob Schulz: Facebook clone has a new concept: Grave maintenance for StudiVZ. In: taz.de. September 28, 2011, accessed March 4, 2014 .
  26. ↑ "All of our users are on Facebook". September 28, 2011, accessed January 13, 2014 .
  27. ↑ Source: German Patent and Trademark Office
  28. ↑ VZ networks increase sales, but lose users. In: heise online. July 21, 2011, accessed March 4, 2014 .
  29. ↑ Online usage data June 2012. Archived from the original on October 4, 2012 ; accessed on January 26, 2018 .
  30. ^ End of a bad investment: Holtzbrinck-Verlag sells StudiVZ . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . 2012 ( faz.net [accessed May 15, 2016]).
  31. ↑ Ole Reissmann: Holtzbrinck buries VZ networks. In: Spiegel Online . June 11, 2012, accessed January 13, 2014 .
  32. ^ A b Volker Briegleb: StudiVZ and MeinVZ: US company wants to take over Poolworks. In: heise.de . November 30, 2016, accessed January 6, 2017 .
  33. ↑ Welcome to the new VZ blog. Poolworks, March 3, 2014, accessed March 3, 2014 .
  34. ↑ Christina Kyriasoglou: Holtzbrinck demands three million from the StudiVZ operator Poolworks. In: gruenderszene.de. May 30, 2016, accessed June 13, 2016 .
  35. ↑ Jörn Brien: Oh, that's still there? StudiVZ is being sold again. In: t3n.de. November 30, 2016, accessed January 6, 2017 .
  36. ↑ Axel Kannenberg: Planned takeover of VZ networks has been delayed. In: heise.de . January 4, 2017, accessed January 6, 2017 .
  37. ↑ Momentous Entertainment Group Negotiates Creditor Settlement for Poolworks Debt and Closes on German Social Networks studiVZ and meinVZ Acquisition. Marketwired.com, February 8, 2017, accessed February 11, 2017 .
  38. ^ Arbeitsgemeinschaft Online Forschung eV: Ranking of the largest online media
  39. ↑ ivwonline.de: Ausweis IVW ( Memento of the original of July 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ivwonline.de
  40. ↑ IVW - Information Association for the Determination of the Distribution of Advertising Media eV ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ausweisung.ivw-online.de
  41. ↑ General Terms and Conditions of the schülerVZ
  42. ↑ Introduction. In: Information for parents and teachers. schülerVZ, accessed in 2009 .
  43. ↑ Lit. Jo Bager: Being there is everything . S. 92 .
  44. ↑ Dario Suter: Clearly: We do advertising! (June 27, 2007)
  45. ↑ a b About us - data and facts - computing power - our small server farm. In: www.meinvz.net. Retrieved on January 28, 2011 : "[...] on 655 high-performance servers with over 5,400 processor cores and 13,000 gigabytes of main memory (RAM). […] At peak times 5,400 Mbit per second (Mbit / s) […] 120,000 requests […] per second. "
  46. ↑ Blog of VZnet Netzwerk Ltd .: "studiVZ / meinVZ and DKMS are looking for bone marrow donors for leukemia patients: Already over 16,000 group members and numerous donors" studiVZ / meinVZ and DKMS are looking for bone marrow donors for leukemia patients: Already over 16,000 group members and numerous donors ( Memento from October 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  47. ↑ tivi meeting
  48. ↑ chat.orf.at ( Memento from June 29, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  49. ↑ Big brother is watching you! - SchülerVZ, StudiVZ & co. In: Publication. Bremer ServiceBureau Jugendinformation, accessed on November 14, 2013 (brochure).
  50. ↑ ASTA FU warns against using StudiVZ. AStA FU, November 29, 2006, archived from the original on August 13, 2011 ; accessed on November 14, 2013 (press release).
  51. ↑ VZ networks present a unique OpenSocial concept with a comprehensive data protection solution. In: News. VZnet networks, December 7, 2009, archived from the original on September 23, 2010 ; accessed in 2010 .
  52. ↑ VZ networks draw positive interim results: OpenSocial concept already a complete success after one month. In: News. VZnet networks, December 13, 2010, archived from the original on August 17, 2010 ; accessed in 2010 .
  53. ↑ StudiVZ, Xing and Co. sign cease and desist letters. In: News. Spiegel Online, November 12, 2009, accessed 2009 .
  54. ↑ Mirjam Hauck: If you don't want advertising, you fly. StudiVZ users have to agree to new terms and conditions from 2008: The Internet portal wants to use their personal data specifically for advertising. In: sueddeutsche.de. May 17, 2010, accessed November 14, 2013 .
  55. ↑ § 14 Abs. 2 TMG, § 15 Abs. 5 S. 4 TMG
  56. ↑ Quoted from: Thank God we are now allowed to give out data in the case of inquiries  - Interview with Spiegel Online, February 27, 2008
  57. ↑ Harvey Jones, José Hiram Soltren: Facebook: Threats to Privacy (2005, PDF file, 1.3 MB)
  58. ↑ Dominik Birk, Felix Gröbert: Analysis of social networks  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (2006, PDF file, 4.9 MB)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / roulette.das-labor.org  
  59. ^ Hagen Fritsch: StudiVZ - unofficial statistics from December 2006. Accessed on January 13, 2014 .
  60. ↑ IcePic: Log in to studiVZ with java . (No longer available online.) December 6, 2006, archived from the original on March 4, 2007 ; accessed on January 13, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.buha.info
  61. ↑ Torsten Kleinz: Data GAU at StudiVZ. focus.de, February 28, 2007, accessed on November 21, 2013 .
  62. ↑ Another data protection breach at SchuelerVZ. heise.de, May 4, 2010, accessed on November 21, 2013 .
  63. ↑ onlinekosten.de Article from October 20, 2009
  64. ↑ SchülerVZ-Daten: The flourishing market for data collection programs. heise.de, October 19, 2009, accessed on November 21, 2013 .
  65. ↑ spiegel.de news from October 19, 2009
  66. ↑ a b netzpolitik.de message from October 20, 2009
  67. ↑ SchülerVZ data leaks: even protected information was spied out. heise.de, October 28, 2009, accessed on November 21, 2013 .
  68. ↑ SchülerVZ data theft: Suspect commits suicide. heise.de, October 31, 2009, accessed on November 21, 2013 .
  69. ↑ Lawyer rejects accusation of blackmail attempt against SchülerVZ. In: topnews.de. November 4, 2009. Retrieved November 22, 2013 .
  70. ↑ CCC Annual Review 2009. CCC, accessed on November 22, 2013 (mp4 video (1.0 GB), 1:02:50 - 1:10:00).
  71. ↑ martin: In search of the missing photos. In: developer.studivz.net where the studiVZ developers blog. Retrieved February 19, 2009. Retrieved 2009 .
  72. ↑ admin: Looking for the missing photos. In: developer.studivz.net where the studiVZ developers blog. Retrieved November 16, 2010, 2011 .
  73. ↑ Spiegel Online photo series; studiVZ: Breakdowns and PR blunders (November 15, 2006) “Fakebook”  - screenshot on Flickr.com
  74. ↑ Spiegel Online: German Web 2.0 imitators: cash in with the copy shop
  75. ↑ Helene Laube: Facebook sued StudiVZ. In: Financial Times Germany. July 19, 2008, archived from the original on July 22, 2008 ; Retrieved November 14, 2013 .
  76. ↑ heise.de: Facebook fails with an injunction against StudiVZ . newsticker, June 16, 2009 14:15
  77. ↑ Christian Stöcker, www.spiegel.de: Largest student community: Embarrassing mishaps bring studiVZ into disrepute (November 15, 2006)
  78. ↑ basicthinking.de: VZ warning costs over 2,600 euros . February 27, 2008
  79. ↑ StudiVZ takes action against FickenVZ ( memento of the original from November 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fickenvz.org archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , February 2008.
  80. ↑ denquer.de: Objection from Abitur-VZ , February 21, 2008.
  81. ↑ blogbar.de: StudiVZ sends a warning to Studi with ErstiVZ . February 15, 2008
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