Posted by Angela | 3 Comments
Facebook Pictures Used in Advertising
Facebook security has faced some rough times in the past, like any social network is bound to face, but a recent issue has caught much attention because of its humor.
Peter Smith of Lynchburg, VA, was browsing around Facebook when he saw an ad for a single’s site. He normally would not have thought anything about it, except that this particular time, the ad depicted his wife!
“Fortunately, he has a sense of humor. Otherwise it could have played out very differently,” Cheryl Smith, wife of Peter Smith, said to MSNBC.
Peter’s good humor about the matter definitely helped. The couple uncovered a sneaky third party application snatching up profile pictures from here and there and putting them in ads. Last Friday, July 24th, Facebook said in regards to the stolen photos, “The advertisements … were not from Facebook but placed within applications by third parties. Those ads violated our policies by misusing profile photos, and we already required the removal of those deceptive ads from third-party applications before this rumor began spreading.”
Cheryl Smith has been sharing her experience and giving advice on social networking matters on her blog. She gives one option for avoiding the misuse of your pictures:
Under your privacy settings, go to the “News Feed and Wall” link, then under “Facebook Ads,” then change the bottom drop down box to say “No one.” This way none of your photos will be able to be used in advertisements.
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Hendersonville Ranked in Top Ten Family-Friendly C...
Starting with a broad list of 1700 cities and towns across the country with populations between 15,000 and 150,000, Family Circle Magazine selected the top ten family-friendly cities on June 30, 2009. Focusing on quality of public schools, low crime rate, affordable homes, access to health care, and other criteria, Family Circle rated Hendersonville, TN, in the top ten!
This year, 2009, marks the 40th anniversary of Hendersonville as a city. It is appropriate to recognize the city’s great efforts to become one of the top cities in the country. Public schools are a great asset of Sumner County in Tennessee. Hendersonville maintains a 94% graduation rate, which is well above the statewide rate of 92%.
The Family Circle article will be published in the magazine’s August 2009 issue. The original Press Release also named Rockwall, TX; Evans, GA; Sherwood, OR; Indian Trail, NC; Edina, MN; Noblesville, IN; Perrysburg, OH; Kenmore, WA; and Sun Prairie, WI as the other nine family-friendly cities and towns.
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The Bing-Yahoo! Deal to Take on Google
Microsoft and Yahoo have finally reached an agreement on their long rumored search partnership. The 10 year deal gives Microsoft exclusive access to Yahoo’s search technologies and to the second largest pool of searchers and advertisers.
The deal will allow Microsoft’s Bing to power the joint search engines while Yahoo is the salesmen behind the two, responsible for relationships and sales. Yahoo predicts a $500 million increase in annual operating profit resulting from increase in searchers. Also, they expect a $275 million savings on expenditures every year from no longer investing in their own search technologies.
The money side gives the impression that this will be a great decision for Yahoo, who is trying to earn back losses from recently plumiting stocks. However, stocks have not responded. In fact, some may say that Yahoo’s stock disagrees with the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft. Yahoo’s stock, which you would expect to be up, is down over a dollar and a half this morning after the deal was announced. Another down side that Carol Bartz, Yahoo’s CEO, revealed this morning in a conference call with Microsoft is they will be scaling down their size and so an unspecified number of jobs will be lost.
Microsoft and Yahoo have created a joint website where they have outlined specifics of the deal and given investors a reference page and access to each company’s SEC filings.
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Sued for Tweeting
Back in May, Amanda Bonnen did what lots of other Twitter users do, she tweeted to a friend with a complaint included. The only thing is, she used the name of a realty company when complaining about mold in her apartment. Over three months later, the real estate company is suing the poor girl for “publishing maliciously false statements.”
Monday, Horizon Realty Group filed a lawsuit against Amanda Bonnen for defamation. This means that if the realty group can prove that Bonnen was intentionally publishing an untrue statement, she will be required to pay a penalty of $50,000 for the 127 character statement.
As Chicago Now reported, Bonnen only had about 20 followers. Meaning maybe a little over 20 people saw the original tweet. However, now that the realty company has decided to file charges, millions of people are likely to see the same tweet and think poorly of the real estate the company represents. Definitely not a good move on Horizon’s part.
If the charges are carried out, this could open up a Pandora’s Box for twitter lawsuits. Where do we draw the line between publication and harmless conversation?
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Network Solutions: Jerks Attack Yet Again
Network Solutions, or, as Jeremy likes to call them, the schoolyard bullies of the Internet, have been caught in the news again but not for a lawsuit this time. Oh no, not a lawsuit, but don’t worry it’s something just as big.
One of Network Solution’s servers was breached.
On Friday, Network Solutions reported that one of their servers, holding at least 10,000 e-commerce sites, had transaction data stolen from over 4,000 of those 10,000. That means that nearly 600,000 online shoppers had credit card information stolen among those some 4,000 sites. Any transactions on these sites between March 12 and June 8, 2009, were at high risk of being affected. There have been no public reports of any credit card information having been misused yet, but it has only been four days.
Network Solutions is putting a band-aid on the problem by creating a blog for updates and feedback specifically for Network Solutions’ merchants. You can imagine the amount of panic and frustration all the merchants at Network Solutions must be feeling- and you can read it in their comments. One woman wrote in a comment in response to the initial announcement of the breach,
“Does NetSol realize how catastrophic this can be to its merchants who have their website(s) hosted with them? While I only had 9 transactions affected (out of 120+) during the aforementioned timeframe, that’s 9 transactions TOO many. It only takes 1 transaction of this nature to totally destroy a person’s business.
I have been sick/nauseous over this happening ever since I first heard about it late last night … Because I use the NetSol CC payment system, I don’t see any way to NOT have my personal business reputation TOTALLY destroyed in regards to this happening.”
She is right. One transaction is enough to ruin any reputable business, and Network Solutions is now responsible for almost 600,000 stolen transactions! They must be really ruined.
I don’t want to say I told you so, but if a host has faced lawsuits for its dishonest practices in the past, I would not be looking to them for hosting services.
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