A Northern German state’s data protection commissioner has threatened to fine Mark Zuckerberg $26,000 for Facebook allegedly violating the country’s law stating citizens may use media services anonymously. Facebook plans to “fight [the threat] vigorously”. That’s wise, as altering its real-name policy could jeopardize Facebook’s future. Prohibiting pseudonyms lets Facebook remove spammers and… → Read More
Editor’s note: Antone Johnson is a startup lawyer specializing in early-stage consumer Internet and location-based businesses.
Facebook has been accused of creating a slavish copy of Snapchat. Yet Poke may turn out to be a poster child for why most multi-billion-dollar public companies try not to break things, and as a consequence, are often precluded from moving fast like startups. → Read More
If you don’t trust Facebook, you might keep an account, but you won’t share as much. So Facebook is aiming to educate users about privacy in the hopes that they’ll keep doubling the amount they share each year and uphold Zuckerberg’s Law. Facebook privacy can’t just be “good enough.” It needs us confident in our control because as it runs low on people to sign up, attracting more data is the main… → Read More
If new Facebook users understand their privacy on the site, they’ll trust Facebook more and share more too. So Facebook has just made privacy education a central part of the sign-up flow. New users are taught about their default controls, how to limit the audience of their posts, and how ads and apps work. Facebook also added in-line privacy controls so users can customize their settings right… → Read More
No need to wonder if your family saw that reminder about dinner or if co-workers noticed you uploaded a Powerpoint, as Facebook Groups will soon display a count and a list of names of who saw each post. For example: “Seen by 2″, and when hovered “Josh Constine | Eric Eldon”. The feature is rolling out to English-language groups starting now.
These “read receipts” is a feature Facebook recently… → Read More
A German court ruling against Facebook this morning is likely moot because the social network had already made changes to address the court’s mandates.
See, back in 2010 a German consumer organization complained Facebook’s Friend Finder inviter feature didn’t adequately inform users their imported contacts would be used to send invites, according to Friending Facebook Blog. But Facebook has… → Read More
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