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Facebook Execs Win $77,000 From Bikini App Maker That Sued Them

Facebook Execs Win $77,000 From Bikini App Maker That Sued Them

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. couldn’t stop the defunct maker of an app that searched for photos of its users wearing bikinis from leaking documents that put the social networking giant in a bad light.

But Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and five other Facebook executives did manage Wednesday to win $77,000 in legal fees from the Pikini app maker, which has been a stitch in Facebook’s side for four years. Six4Three LLC sued Facebook in 2015 for cutting off access to user data and driving the short-lived Pikini app out of business.

Zuckerberg and the other executives -- though not Facebook -- won a court ruling in July that Six4Three’s lawsuit was a SLAPP, a strategic lawsuit against public participation, which allowed them to be awarded attorney fees. While the judge rejected Facebook’s SLAPP argument, he also denied Six4Three’s request for $217,593 to cover its cost for defending against the claim.

To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Burnson in San Francisco at rburnson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Wollman at ewollman@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg

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