Facebook experiment: Now privacy group makes complaint to US regulator July 4, 2014 A US privacy group has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission regarding a controversial psychological experiment performed on Facebook users without consent. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has asked the business regulator to investigate Facebook, claiming “the company purposefully messed with people’s minds” and the experiment “violates a privacy consent order and [...]
Facebook buys up LiveRail for around $500m July 3, 2014 Facebook has announced it has bought online video advert targeting firm LiveRail, as the social network site seeks to gain from fast growing revenues in online video advertising. LiveRail, founded in 2007, works to help target more relevant adverts for online videos, and does business with a range of companies, including DailyMotion and Major League [...]
Facebook to face UK probe over user study July 2, 2014 BRITAIN’S data protection commissioner yesterday announced it would investigate Facebook over whether it had broken the law by conducting a controversial psychological experiment in 2012 on nearly 700,000 users without their consent. Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg yesterday apologised for “communicating really badly” about the experiment, which adjusted users’ news feeds to determine the [...]
“Facebook rape” is now a crime in Ireland July 2, 2014 Ireland's first case establishing so-called Facebook rape, or “frape”, as a crime has taken place in Dublin's central criminal court. The act involves posting updates from someone else's account without their permission. The case involved a man using a woman's mobile phone to access her Facebook account, publishing sexually offensive status updates from it. A [...]
Facebook faces regulator probe into user experiment July 2, 2014 Regulators in the UK are investigating Facebook to assess if any data protection laws were broken when it conducted a controversial psychological experiment on users without their knowledge. The Information Commissioners Office (ICO), the government body which oversees data and privacy regulation in the UK, said it would question Facebook about the experiment although it [...]
Orkut: How Facebook killed Google’s original social network June 30, 2014 Google’s original social network Orkut was bigger than Facebook in emerging markets such as Brazil and India just a couple of years ago. Now Google’s closing it down. Brazilians love social media- it’s the second biggest market for Facebook outside the US when it comes to user numbers and one of YouTube’s top five markets [...]
Why Facebook and Google’s lack of diversity is bad for business June 27, 2014 Facebook has followed hot on the heels of Google by releasing data on the diversity of its employees. To the surprise of no one, it turns out Facebook is mostly white and male, much the same as Google, and a reflection of the tech industry at large. Research shines a light on why the lack [...]
Facebook’s Oculus eyes consumer virtual reality device with acquisition June 25, 2014 Oculus, the virtual reality technology company owned by Facebook, has bought the product design firm best known for creating the Xbox 360 controller as it aims to take its VR device into the mainstream. Seattle-based Carbon Design was snapped up by Oculus for an undisclosed sum, it said in a blog post published on the Oculus website. [...]
Teenagers’ use of Facebook not on the decline – report June 24, 2014 Maybe Facebook isn't too cool for school after all. While much research in the past year has pointed to Facebook experiencing a drop in the numbers of teenagers using it, a new report by Forrester Research seems to point to a revival. The company asked a sample of 4,517 teenagers how they used social media, and [...]
Twitter turned down $500m offer from Facebook June 23, 2014 One of Twitter’s founders has revealed how the fledgling company turned down an offer from Facebook to buy the company for $500m. Speaking to Sky News, Biz Stone said that a meeting between himself, co-founder Ev Williams, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, resulted in an offer being made for the then startup. Stone said the [...]