Facebook has launched a legal action against studiVZ, a German social networking site which has 10 million users. Facebook lawyers have filed a complaint in a California court, accusing studiVz of copying the look and the features of Facebook.

According to Financial Times, in the complaint Facebook noted that any differences between the two sites were "nominal" and accused StudiVZ of merely "replacing Facebook's blue colour scheme with a red one".

According to the complaint, Facebook seeks "to end StudiVZ's illegal activity" and compensatory damages in an amount to be determined at trial, Reuters reported.

Facebook is a social-networking site that has managed to gain over 80 million users worldwide since it was launched in 2004, and Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of the Facebook, is among the world’s youngest billionaires.

Earlier this year, Facebook started to launch localized versions of its website. In February Facebook launched the full version of the Web site in Spanish, followed by a German version in March. Facebook is also available in French and several other languages.

In response to Facebook’s lawsuit, the German website studiVZ has issued a press statement saying that because it didn’t has received the complaint, it cannot comment in detail about the content of the claims.
However, based on what Facebook has apparently told the media, the claims are without merit, studiVZ noted.

studiVZ filed for a declaratory judgment at the District Court in Stuttgart, Germany, on Friday, July 18. The purpose of the filing is to have the responsible German court declare that the claims made by Facebook are without merit.

 “Now that Facebook, despite trying hard, has not been successful in the German market, the company seeks to obstruct studiVZ through court action”, said Marcus Riecke, CEO of studiVZ Ltd.

Launched in 2005, studiVZ was bought by Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, a German publishing group, for an undisclosed sum in January 2007. 

The stats recently presented by the research company comScore show that Facebook’s popularity has risen as much as overcoming MySpace’s. For the first time since its launch, in May Facebook managed to attract a significantly larger number of visitors than what was thought to be the world’s largest social networking Web site.

The figures released by ComScore show that in May, MySpace had 114.6 million unique visitors and 45.4 billion page views, while Facebook registered 123.9 million unique visitors and 50.6 billion page views worldwide, showing a great popularity raise over the last few months.

During the same month, Facebook said is working to redesign its website in order to give its users better control over the information they share. Among other things, the new design will include a feed tab, as well as photos and applications tabs, and much more. 

Not all features will become available instantly, but some users has already started to test the new design starting. Another reason for making the change is to get rid of an overcrowded interface.