[vox] orkut is evil

[Rob Rogers]

On Sun, Feb 08, 2004 at 15:47:31PM -0800, Mark K. Kim wrote:
> Interesting article.  Well... I can certainly understand the concern but
> if I may point out a few things:
> 
>  - Orkut is only affiliated with Google.  It's designed and run by
>    a Google engineer, but it's not technically "Google's Orkut."
>    <You can insert all the reasons Google controls Orkut here, but..>
>    I'd expect Register to be more accurate...

I'm hearing things both ways on this...

http://news.com.com/2102-1026_3-5146006.html?tag=st_util_print
[paste]
"A Google representative said that the site is the independent project
of one of its engineers, Orkut Buyukkokten, who works on user interface
design for Google. Buyukkokten, a computer science doctoral candidate at
Stanford University before joining Google, created Orkut.com in the past
several months by working on it about one day a week--an amount that
Google asks all of its engineers to devote to personal projects.
Buyukkokten, with the help of a few other engineers, developed Orkut out
of his passion for social networking services.

Google spokeswoman Eileen Rodriguez said that despite Orkut's
affiliation, the service is not part of Google's product portfolio at
this time. "We're always looking at opportunities to expand our search
products, but we currently have no plans in the social networking
market."

Still, Google owns the technology developed by its employees, Rodriguez
said."
[end paste]

So, according to Google, Orkut is not part of their product portfolio,
but they do own the technology. Honestly, that's got me confused. The
way I read it is the creator owns the site, but google own the
technology. So what happens when they decide the do want it as part of
their product portfolio? The own the technology, does that mean they can
take control from the creator in some way? IANAL, and have no idea how
this stuff works. Someone care to clear it up?