Secure.me, a watchdog for Facebook application security, has been acquired by AVAST Software, a popular antivirus software company. Secure.me has connected with 90 million Facebook profiles around the world, alerting users to how much information their apps are taking.
You can’t get to 1.11 billion friends without spending a few dollars: Consumer Watchdog reported that the social network spent $2.45 million on lobbying efforts during the first quarter of 2013, up a whopping 277 percent from $650,000 in the year-earlier period.
As Graph Search starts to roll out to more users (it’s still in limited beta, with no date set for global rollout), people may be worried about how it affects their privacy. Marketo recently published an infographic, showing how users can update their profile information to ensure that nothing is compromised within Graph Search.
Having your password compromised on Facebook is a terrible ordeal. But now there’s a way to safely restore your information, with the help of close friends. In 2011, Facebook first introduced Trusted Friends, which allowed friends to verify that you’re really you and help you gain access into your account. Facebook announced Thursday that it has improved the service, rolling it out globally as Trusted Contacts.
Privacy changes usually draw the ire of Facebook users, and it’s something that the site is hoping to change through better education and clearer directions. According to a recent infographic from Webpage FX, 61 percent of people surveyed said they didn’t trust Facebook, and 13 million people have said that they have never set or known about their privacy settings.
Facebook has been battling users who either don’t exist in real life or are using a pseudonym, but the company has met resistance in Germany. However, a judge ruled Wednesday in an appeal case that German privacy laws (which would allow users to have whatever name they want on the social network) do not apply to Facebook, as the company’s European base is in Ireland, where regulations are more lax.
One of the chief complaints among Facebook users is that the changes to privacy controls have been far too confusing, with little effort in educating the users. Facebook’s No. 2 official — Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg — agrees. She admitted during a launch party in London for her book, Lean In, that one of the key mistakes the company has made was not explaining privacy controls better.
Facebook, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Mozilla, and the Family Online Safety Institute will team up on Project:Connect, an all-day hackathon in New York Thursday, May 9, aimed at developing social tools, applications, badges, and curriculum to aid younger Internet users in making more responsible choices.
Facebook used its Facebook Mobile DevCon 2013 event in New York Thursday to announce that 81 of the 100 top-grossing iOS applications, 70 of the 100 top-grossing Android apps, 82 of the 100 top-grossing iOS games, and 75 of the 100 top-grossing Android games are integrated with the social network, and to introduce three new mobile products: easier integration of Open Graph on mobile, an improved login with Facebook, and a new software-development kit for iOS.
A “red alert” has gone viral on Facebook, warning of “the worst virus announced by CNN,” which burns users’ hard drives, but no such virus exists, and the red alert is a hoax, according to Sophos’ Naked Security blog.
