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Facebook Hits 500 Million Users: 3rd Largest Country

Facebook has the Population of the Third Largest Country

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 marked a big day for Facebook. CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg announced in a blog post that the social networking website hit over 500 million users in only 6 years.

If you take a look at the worlds largest countries in terms of population (as of today according to Wikipedia) you find that China is #1 with 1,339,130,000, India is #2 with 1,184,513,000 and #3 is the United States with only 309,944,000. This would mean that if Facebook were a real country with their population of 500,000,000, then it would clearly surpass the USA for the #3 ranking.

Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Facebook Installs a Panic Button for Children

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According to a recent Yahoo! article, Facebook has created a new “Panic Button” for London users to help protect children on the social networking site. This new function gives the youngsters the ability to easily report a problem or suspicious activity to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and Facebook.

The Panic Button will automatically appear on the homepage of users between the ages of 13 and 18 years old. Recently Facebook has been scrutinized because of their relaxed privacy controls and lack of protection for all users, including children. This marks another effort by Facebook  to attempt to calm users concerns and team up with other organizations to offer protection to younger participants. In the US, Facebook is teaming up with the Parent Teacher Association to help keep children informed and safe while using the website.

Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Why Facebook Privacy Settings Don’t Matter

A new article in PC world discusses why the privacy settings on Facebook don’t matter – it instead blames the user for their own data breach. It recommends that those on Facebook should use their common sense and think in the long term. By controlling what you share and only sharing what is responsible Facebook is no longer in charge of your privacy.

Why Facebook Privacy Settings Don’t Matter

John C. Dvorak – I find it endlessly amusing how so many articles are written about Facebook and its cavalier lack of concern over privacy issues (case in point: Read Dan Costa’s column). A large community is up in arms over the fact that Facebook consistently changes the way it operates and constantly resets the privacy settings of the users to nil, as in NO PRIVACY.

Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Is Google building a Facebook Rival?

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According to CNN and Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo they are.

(CNN) — Google is working on a social service to rival Facebook, if web rumors are to be believed.

And while Google’s social-networking efforts have so far fallen flat, even satisfied Facebook users should hope that the search engine’s efforts bear fruit.

First, to the rumor: A now-deleted Tweet last weekend from entrepreneur Kevin Rose claimed  that Google is working on a Facebook competitor called “Google Me.”

That claim gained credence as former Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo weighed in. Posting a response on the question-and-answer service Quora, D’Angelo wrote: “This is not a rumor. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this.”

Google, he added, is threatened by Facebook’s rise to prominence and feels the need to build a social network of its own.

Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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The Facebook Movie Will Prove You’re an Addict

The new movie on Facebook entitled “The Social Network” released its first teaser trailer. The film, better recognized as “The Facebook Movie,” follows the early days of the world’s most powerful social networking site. It follows Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, from the creation of the website through the destruction of a friendship with his co-founders. In the process, it exposes the history behind the information sharing site that Facebook users will wish they knew sooner.

Facebook has had overwhelming success and gained huge momentum since they began in a Harvard dorm room in 2005. Their ability to get you and I to share personal information that we normally wouldn’t has made privacy a huge concern with the site.  Zukerberg has faced scrutiny recently with the privacy changes that make more of your information available to businesses on Facebook that purchase your data in order to sell to you in a more targeted way.

Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Facebook Safety Survival Guide

Introducing the Newest Guide to Protect you & your family’s identity:

Facebook Safety
Survival Guide

Includes the

Parents’ Guide to Online Safety

Order your copy Today to get our special introductory pricing of $12.95 or order the Ebook below for only $9.95 !

There is no final word on how to use Facebook safely. Here’s why: social networking and the web change too quickly. The social network you use today is not the same one you will use tomorrow or next month. The privacy settings, functionality, connectability and features are constantly evolving, which means that almost no one has a handle on every aspect of this topic. Those who tell you that they have the final answer are probably selling you something you shouldn’t buy.

Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Facebook Announces New Privacy Settings

Last week we announced that Facebook was changing their privacy settings – again! Well the new changes have arrived and should be active on your Facebook the next time you log in. The Instructions that will lead you through the new settings will be posted at the top of your mini-feed:

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By clicking on the Learn More button you will be directed to the Controlling How You Share Page:

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This page will contain a long list of descriptions of your privacy settings, what you can control and what is made public and out of your control.  Click Edit your privacy settings to make the appropriate changes to protect your information and what you want to share on Facebook.

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Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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You are Facebook’s Inventory

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This quote by Daniel Lyons in Newsweek establishes exactly why Facebook drags it’s feet on privacy. Why write more when he has summarized it so eloquently (emphasis mine)?

The most important thing to understand about Facebook is that you are not Facebook’s customer, you are its inventory. You are the product Facebook is selling. Facebook’s real customers are advertisers. You, as a Facebook member, are useful only because you can be packaged up and sold to advertisers. The more information Facebook can get from you, the more you are worth.

Read the full Newsweek article: Who Needs Friends Like Facebook?.

Order the Facebook Safety Survival Guide to make sure you and your children are protected online.

Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Facebook Changing Privacy Settings – Again!

Facebook faced major backlash last month after they implemented a new tool that linked your interests to sites across the Internet and allowed third parties access to your information unless you specifically deny such access. As we mentioned in yesterday’s blog about an easy way to configure your privacy settings in Facebook, there are 50 different settings with more than 170 options!

Many Facebook users have been extremely vocal about their frustrations, even organizing efforts to quit the quickly growing site. According to CNN Facebook will be reversing these changes today to make them simpler for the user with the intent of increasing user privacy.

“I can confirm that our new, simpler user controls will begin rolling out tomorrow. I can’t say more yet,” Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes told CNN in an e-mail Tuesday.

Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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