Social Networking

Twitter has updated its site and dramatically streamlined its user interface with an eye to attracting new users -- not to mention brands. The new look is based on tabbed sections where users can spruce up their profiles and better organize their content. Businesses get the same privilege, with the ...

Facebook Zips Up Its Fly

A glitch in Facebook's code briefly let people access private photographs of other members. The bug was discovered by a member of an online bodybuilding forum. This led to people accessing personal images belonging to other other members. Even the site's founder and CEO wasn't immune -- Mark Zuckerb...

The European Union may begin an overhaul of its 1995 Data Protection Directive next year to provide one single unified body of legislation on this issue. EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding will propose the reform in January, according to spokesperson Matthew Newman. The legislation will be table...

Facebook's entry into the smartphone handset business is being reported like it's a done deal. It's a deal, however, in which critics say Facebook has more to lose than gain. The Facebook phone project already has a code name, "Buffy," a reference to the famed vampire slayer of film and television, ...

Six degrees of separation may be good enough for most people, but for Facebook members, it's only 4.74 degrees, according to a study conducted jointly by the social networking giant and the University of Milan. Conducted earlier this year, the study examined all 721 million active Facebook users, wh...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Bad Security Moon Rising

All things considered, this past week has been hell on security professionals. On Monday, AT&T Wireless announced that hackers used automatic scripts to target some subscribers in a bid to steal information stored in their online accounts. They apparently didn't succeed. Hackers have breached se...

Something as simple and common as using an online pseudonym could technically be a violation of the law if the United States Department of Justice gets what it wants. The DoJ on Tuesday asked Congress to impose harsher penalties on various types of cyberactivities, including cybercrime. The goal, Do...

Many Facebook users have complained recently about a spam flood of a most unsavory nature. Some say pornographic images and images depicting extreme violence -- sometimes both -- are showing up in their News Feeds without their consent. Others say their accounts are being used to send friends links ...

Nearly two years after consumer advocacy groups filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over Facebook's privacy policies, the social network and the FTC are close to an agreement, according to a recent report. The deal between the company and the commission will reportedly require F...

With a slew of new features and integration with Google Apps, Google+ is now available to businesses, universities, and schools that use Google Apps. The point behind the upgrades is to continue to drive traffic to the fledgling network and fight the feature wars with other social networks, said Gab...

Facebook is planning to build a massive new data center in the industrial town of Lulea in Swedish Lapland, about 70 miles from the Arctic Circle. The data center will consist of three buildings, the first of which will cover about 33,000 square yards, Facebook spokesperson Alex Kirschner told TechN...

The creators of a new social network are challenging users to ditch Facebook and other networks to "unthink" and de-clutter with their new, completely user-controlled and private network. Unthink.com, launched Tuesday in beta, hopes to capitalize on growing discontent among social network users for ...

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland will launch a "comprehensive audit" of Facebook Ireland before the end of the month, DPC spokesperson Ciara O'Sullivan told TechNewsWorld on Friday. The audit will assess Facebook's compliance with the requirements of the Irish Data Protectio...

A new partnership plans to create a Facebook app that will leverage social networking to improve consumer awareness about energy consumption. The partnership consists of the social networking giant, the Natural Resources Defense Council and energy information software creator Opower. The app will le...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Facebook Enlists Websense for Neighborhood Watch

Facebook, long a darling of cybercriminals looking to lure in unsuspecting cybersocializers, has partnered with content security vendor Websense to help protect members from links that lead to malware and malicious sites. That may prove good news to corporations, where many IT managers consider empl...

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