Press Event Reawakening Facebook Smartphone Rumors

FaceBook SmartPhone

Facebook has scheduled to hold a media event on Tuesday, reawakening rumors that the social netowork will launch its own phone.

The event, set to be held at Facebook's headquarters on January 15, is prompting - for one more time - speculations that a Facebook smartphone is on the works.

Last November reports surfaced that HTC had been working with Facebook to develop a phone, code-named the Opera UL. However, the phone never materialized Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg had denied the rumors.

TechCrunch is now claiming that the launch of a phone is imminent, indicating that "multiple sources have told us that they expect some sort of Facebook Phone to be on display on Tuesday."

Facebook Begins Ad Bidding System

Facebook

In its quest to boost the growth of its digital advertising, Facebook is slowly breaking down its walled garden for advertisers.

On Wednesday, the company announced it would begin testing a new advertising mechanism using a technology called “real time bidding,” which allows advertisers to place bids on ad space at specific times.
For the new system, called Facebook Exchange, Facebook is working with a number of ad networks that will be able to use cookies in Web browsers to track users after they visit Facebook and show them ads based on their Web browsing habits – a process known as “retargeting.”

So a Facebook user who visits a travel Web site to buy airline tickets but does not complete the purchase, may see an ad on Facebook that will allow them to do just that. Facebook is only displaying the traditional thumbnail ads that users see in the right hand column of the page and not other ads like sponsored stories or mobile ads.

The company stressed that it would not share its vast trove of user data with advertisers and that it would not build user profiles to sell to advertisers. Users can opt out of being tracked by any of the third parties by using the privacy settings on their browsers that manage tracking and cookie data collection. They can also opt-out by going to the “About Ads” page on the Facebook Web site.

Online censorship: UAE police shut down Facebook and Twitter accounts

May 22nd, 2012

FaceBook

twitter

The Twitter and facebook accounts were shut down for containing abusive or threatening material

Fifteen facebook and Twitter accounts have been shut down by cops in Dubai this year for containing abusive and threatening posts.

Major Saeed Al Hajeri, Head of the Electronic Crimes Department at Dubai Police, said: “We are not monitoring people on social networks but our electronic police patrols surf various websites to protect UAE citizens and residents against electronic crimes, which have increased worldwide recently.”

He said facebook and Twitter had agreed to Dubai Police’s request to shut three accounts last week. The Twitter and facebook accounts were shut down for containing abusive or threatening material, police said

The force had sent letters to the management of the social networking sites that included evidence account holders had committed acts violating UAE laws, including personal insults. “Many people think they cannot get into trouble for doing such things on the internet but they can be punished under UAE law,” he said.

He continued: “We respect people’s privacy and do not track their life on social networks. “We only take action when someone makes a complaint. “One major case involved hackers who broke into girls’ accounts and emails and downloaded their pictures.

“They then used them to blackmail them for money or sexual favours.”