Plurk vs MSN China: Microsoft apologizes for the plagiarism

The startup Plurk explained on its official blog that the service of micro-blogging had obviously been plagiarized by Microsoft and more specifically for its MSN service Club China. Plurk was discovered and nearly 80% of the source code for a product with an interface very similar. Alerted, the Redmond company responds few hours later via a press release. Microsoft decided to close the site until an investigation can be completed as soon as possible.

A few hours later Microsoft said that the application in question is called Juku and was developed by a third-party publisher on behalf of MSN China under an agreement between two parties. "The publisher acknowledged that a portion of the code supplied to MSN had been copied. This is clearly a breach of contract with MSN China, "Microsoft said. The firm has also apologized to the developer of Plurk. "Obviously we're very disappointed but fully assume our responsibility in this situation," added Microsoft. The service Juku remains closed for an indefinite time.