facebook

The torrent of bad press over Facebook's privacy policies has led to the demise of its much-disliked advertising program called "Beacon." The program, which was considered a marketing coup when first unveiled two years ago, has been phased out in ... accordance with the settlement of a year-old class action lawsuit. At the heart of the lawsuit was the contention that Facebook had failed to properly inform its many users of the privacy compromises introduced by Beacon, which used the data collected from member pages to help third-party sites tailor more effective advertising schemes. ... (view more)

Facebook, the world's largest social networking site, recently announced that it has 300 million active monthly users around the globe. Facebook was not expected to turn a profit until 2010 but has also announce their cash flow is started to trickle ... in. Reports suggest that revenue is supported by applications sold through the site and also by online advertising. (Source: theatlantic.com ) Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently blogged on the importance of their achievement, and he remains ambitious about the site's future. "This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a ... (view more)

The latest case of malware infestation is once again targeting Facebook , this time masquerading as a virus removal kit designed to rid the computer world of a bogus "Fan Check" bug. Fan Check: Valid App, but 'Bug' is Bogus While the Fan Check "bug" ... does not really exist, Fan Check is in fact a valid Facebook application used on Facebook.com. The purpose of the Fan Check application is to rank friends based on how often they interact with your Facebook pages. (Source: facebook.com ). The new malware, however, is rather devious because it pretends to defend against a made-up virus, ... (view more)

You can "blame Canada" in a good way for Facebook's recent decision to stiffen its privacy controls. In response to demands from Canada's Privacy Commissioner, the social networking site revealed new guidelines that target third party applications ... and the information they're allowed to access. Back in July, the Canadian Privacy Commissioner's office hastened a campaign to identify and publicize the concerns many people have with Facebook's policy towards third-party applications. In the past, some of these applications have been able to access a significant amount of member private data, ... (view more)

Facebook's purchase of a "social aggregation site" has prompted speculation that it may be planning to challenge Google's domination of the search market. The buyout of FriendFeed has been seen as the first step in an attempt to improve search ... through social networking. FriendFeed is a site which allows users to bring together information from their accounts with around 60 websites. These include social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, plus other services which have user accounts, including YouTube, Flickr and Amazon. As well as bringing together the user's own information from ... (view more)

After a thirteen month investigation, Canada's Privacy Commissioner has announced its finding that Facebook's policies and practices violate Canadian privacy laws. According to Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, there are "serious privacy gaps" in ... Facebook's operations. A complaint from the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, or CIPPIC, instigated the investigation, which started in May of last year. The initial complaint was comprised of 24 allegations pertaining to 12 different subjects, including Facebook's default privacy settings, what the site does with member personal ... (view more)

Facebook is exceptionally popular, and with all of that fame comes plenty of trouble. Scams are hardly new to the social networking site, and now it Facebook faces one of its most serious yet: a phishing routine that threatens to infect user ... computers with malware. The scam, which started nailing Facebook users yesterday, goes something like this: a member receives a message from a friend packing a link, usually with the subject line "Hello" or "areps.at" or other addresses ending with ".at". Those who click on that link will be sent to a website asking for their login information, which is ... (view more)

An American lawyer is demanding that Facebook executives explain why the site decided to allow users to set-up groups promoting the denial of the Holocaust. Brian Cuban wants CEO Mark Zuckerberg to detail his personal involvement in the decision. ... Cuban, whose brother Mark is the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has previously complained that such groups violate national laws in countries which ban the act of denying the Holocaust, and are thus inherently against Facebook's terms and conditions. However, perhaps recognizing that this logic could be stretched too far (for example, ... (view more)

Critics complain social networking kills privacy , allowing friends and enemies alike to slowly and methodically 'creep' your personal details without you ever having to know. It would seem appropriate, then, that Microsoft's first major foray into ... social networking should be called "Vine," which both uses and attempts to improve upon Facebook and Twitter. Vine works by asking users to download its special dashboard-style application. Once that's installed, a user is prompted to sign into his or her Windows Live account, where they're presented with a map-like interface that provides news and ... (view more)

Facebook is about to make more user data available to outside websites. It's an attempt to promote third-party applications, but will inevitably bring attention back to the firm's privacy policies . The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) says speculates that ... the Facebook plans will be announced later today. The changes would mean companies could access and use data uploaded by users such as photographs, comments, blog-style note posts and videos. (Source: wsj.com ) Developers to Spawn External Sites from User Content Developers could then use the data to create an external website. For example, a ... (view more)