Facebook creates dual-class stocks

<p>Facebook has created a dual-class stock structure designed to give founder Mark Zuckerberg and other existing shareholders control over the company.</p><p>The move could be seen as laying the groundwork for an initial public offering, though the social network said Tuesday it had no plans to go public "at this time."</p><p>The dual-class structure is what Google Inc.'s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, created to keep voting control over that company before it went public in 2004.</p><p>The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, said Facebook was converting the shares of all its current stockholders into Class B shares that, like Google's, hold 10 times the voting power of Class A stock. That would be a departure from Google's decision to keep such shares in the hands of a few top executives -- something for which the search company has been criticized.</p>