Your Deleted Facebook Photos Will Now Be Gone Forever

Anything shared on Facebook, as with the Internet as a whole, is nearly impossible to remove. This is especially true of any unwanted pictures that may have been uploaded to the site.

Until recently, pictures deleted from Facebook were still accessible by entering the image’s direct URL. So, while the pictures may have disappeared from your profile, or that of whomever had uploaded them, they were still available within Facebook’s server.

The latest change deletes images permanently from Facebook’s servers within a couple of days. Check out the video above to learn more about the change. (Mashable.com)

$20 Million Facebook Privacy Settlement Rejected by Judge

A federal judge has rejected Facebook’s settlement offer in a class-action privacy lawsuit over the use of users’ names and faces in “Sponsored Stories” advertisements.

With Sponsored Stories, which rolled out in January of 2011, your “likes” on a brand’s page can result in your name and profile picture being shown as endorsements in that brand’s advertisements on the site. Users were not given an option to opt-out of the feature.

The lawsuit, filed last year, alleged that the practice is a violation of Facebook users’ privacy.

Under Facebook’s proposed deal to settle the lawsuit, it would have given users more control over their “likes,” including the opportunity for users under the age of 18 to opt-out of Sponsored Stories completely. The company would have also paid $10 million to the plaintiff’s legal team and another $10 million to pro-privacy organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg, who made his uneasiness about the deal known earlier this month, has now firmly rejected it on the basis that the monetary amounts seemed to have been “merely plucked from thin air,” according to Wired.

Seeborg argued that the deal didn’t do enough to address the damages of the 100 million Facebook users who have already appeared in Sponsored Stories. He wrote in his decision that under California law, each party to the lawsuit could be awarded up to $750.

A Facebook attorney has previously argued that the proposed settlement has value for the company’s users.

Facebook earns $1 million in revenue every day from Sponsored Stories.

How do you feel about Facebook’s Sponsored Stories? (Mashable.com)

Facebook Trumps Yahoo as Second Most-Popular Video Site

Facebook has overtaken Yahoo as the Internet’s most popular site for viewing video last month, according to report from comScore.

According to comScore, Facebook saw a bit more than 53 million unique viewers throughout July, compared to Yahoo’s less than 49 million. Google, thanks largely to YouTube, still enjoys a comfortable lead in the race with nearly 157 million total unique viewers.

Yahoo users, however, watched more videos — 625 million to Facebook’s 327 million. Facebook users watched an average of 21.7 minutes of video throughout July, while Yahoo users consumed 70.4 hours of video content.

ComScore’s statistics only included what it calls “content videos,” not advertisements.

Other interesting stats from comScore’s July report: A vast majority — 85.5% — of Internet users watched videos in July, while video ads made up 20.7% of all videos viewed online but only 1.6% of time spent watching online videos.

Does Facebook stand a chance of ever unseating YouTube as the king of online video? Share your thoughts in the comments. (Mashable.com)

Should Zuckerberg Resign From CEO Position?

Should Mark Zuckerberg step aside and let another, more seasoned executive assume the role of CEO for the company?

That’s the question some investors are raising as the company’s stock price continues to hit new lows. A Los Angeles Times story quoted four such investors — Sam Hamadeh, head of research firm PrivCo, Barry Ritholtz, head of research firm Fusion IQ, Chris Whalen, senior managing director at Tangent Capital Partners in New York and Scott Sweet, senior managing partner of Tampa-based IPO Boutique — who say Zuckerberg should remain as a creative force, but the company should hire an experienced CEO to run things. However, others quoted in the article were supportive of Zuckerberg.

Though Zuckerberg may be a convenient target for frustrated investors, there’s ample precedent in the tech world for bringing in an outsider to run a company. For instance, Google’s first CEO was Larry Page, but in 2001, the company brought in Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Novell and CTO at Sun Microsystems, to be chairman and, a few months later, CEO.

What do you think? Is Zuck, as the LAT suggests “in over his hoodie”? (Mashable.com)

Not on Facebook? Employers, Psychiatrists May Think You’re a Psychopath

There are more than 955 million Facebook users, and it could hurt you to not be one of them.

Some psychiatrists and employers now find it suspicious for an individual to keep off Facebook, reports The Daily Mail. That’s because for today’s young generation, having Facebook is considered “normal,” while opting out is considered “abnormal.”

Employers may suspect that an applicant’s absence from the social network means the account is so full of offensive material that it had to be deleted. After all, 90% of recruiters check out candidates’ online profiles.

Similarly, psychologists see Facebook activity as a reflection of a healthy social life.

“The Internet has become a natural part of life,” psychologist Christopher Moeller told Germany’s Der Taggspiegel. “It’s possible that you get feelings of positive feedback through online friends.” [Translated from German]

In excess, Moeller says, Facebook interactions can reinforce feelings of social anxiety experienced offline.

As the German magazine points out, both suspected Aurora theater gunman James Holmes and the Norwegian massacre shooter Anders Behring Breivik share an absence from Facebook. The publication went as far as to say that Facebook abstainers have reason to be suspected mass murderers.

The two shooters had online footprints on more obscure social networks — Breivik on MySpace and Holmes on Adult Friend Finder.

Do you find it suspicious when you meet someone who’s not on Facebook? Do you think being active on Facebook reflects a healthy social life? Let us know in the comments. (Mashable.com)

Facebook growth clouded by dubious accounts

WASHINGTON—Facebook’s latest figures showing growth in global users also highlights concerns that some may come from dubious sources – duplicate accounts, pages for pets and those designed for spam.

Facebook members grew to 955 million at the end of the second quarter, but as many as 83 million may be dodgy, the company said in its quarterly filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

There are “inherent challenges” in measuring usage “despite our efforts to detect and suppress such behavior,” the social network said.

It said duplicate accounts – when a same user maintains more than one account – may represent some 4.8 percent of active users.

Another 2.4 percent may be for a business, group or “non-human entity such as a pet” and 

Related Stories:

Revamped Google maps goes offline for mobile On Facebook, beauty is more than screen deep Apple courts developers vital to its popularity 1.5 percent are likely “undesirable” accounts that use the accounts for spam or other malicious activity.

“We believe the percentage of accounts that are duplicate or false is meaningfully lower in developed markets such as the United States or Australia and higher in developing markets such as Indonesia and Turkey,” Facebook said in its filing.

“We are continually seeking to improve our ability to identify duplicate or false accounts and estimate the total number of such accounts, and such estimates may be affected by improvements or changes in our methodology.”

The number of real users is critical for Facebook as it seeks to get advertising revenues from the world’s biggest social network. Some analysts have expressed doubts that the company can boost revenues.

In morning trade, Facebook shares were down 2.9 percent at $20.27, a sharp 46 percent decrease from May’s offering price of $38. (Inquirer.net)

Zuckerberg Drops Out of Top 10 Tech Billionaires

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had a tough week: His sister went to work for his top competitor, Google, his company’s stock price hit a new low and now he has dropped out of the top 10 tech billionaires list.

Zuckerberg’s fortune fell by $423 million on Thursday to $10.2 billion. That puts him $400 million behind James Goodnight, the co-founder of SAS Institute, the new number 10 on the $21 billion when the company went public in May. Zuckerberg owns 503.6 million shares of his company including 60 million options with an exercise price of $.06 a share. He also has $150 million in cash and other liquid assets, Bloomberg reports.

Facebook’s stock price on Thursday was down 47% from its $38 debut. On Friday morning, however, the stock was up about 2%. (Mashable.com)

Mark Zuckerberg’s Sister Is Now a Google Employee

In what may make for awkward family get-togethers, Mark Zuckerberg‘s sister, Arielle, is now a Google employee.

The younger Zuckerberg is presumably making the move as part of Google’s acquisition of Wildfire Interactive, which was announced on Tuesday. Arielle’s blog lists her occupation as junior product manager for the social media marketing firm. Arielle previously offered constructive criticism of her brother’s company’s site overhaul last fall.

Arielle’s not the only Zuckerberg sibling in the business. Randi Zuckerberg, former director of marketing for Facebook, left the company last August to pursue other projects. Randi is an executive producer for Silicon Valley, a Bravo reality TV show that is raising hackles in the Valley for bringing Hollywood voyeurism to tech. Randi tweeted about the move on Tuesday, alluding to the fact Arielle’s not the only Zuckerberg at Google:

Randi Zuckerberg
@randizuckerberg
Congrats Wildfire! There are officially now more Zuckerberg family members working for Google than Facebook! #awkward ;)

Zuckerberg also has another sister, Donna, who was born in 1987. (Mashable.com)

Twitter clocks half-billion users

PARIS—Over 500 million people are on micro-blogging site Twitter and Americans and Brazilians are the most connected, according to a study by social media monitor Semiocast released Monday.

Twitter surpassed the half-billion mark at the end of June, with the United States accounting for both the most users and largest number of “tweets” or short messages of no more than 140 characters posted on the site.

The Paris-based monitor carried out the study by analysing data like time zone, geolocation and language available for the social networking site’s total 517 million accounts.

The US accounted for more than 141 million of Twitter users, with Brazil ranking second with 41 million after seeing its number rise by 23 percent since the start of the year. Japan came in third with 35 million users.

Americans also posted the highest number of Twitter messages, with 25.8 percent of all tweets hailing from the US.

Japan came second accounting for 10.6 percent of all tweets, making Japanese the second most common language on Twitter after English.

The study found Jakarta to be the most active Twitter zone, with 2.4 percent of all tweets originating in the Indonesian capital.

The popularity of Twitter continued to soar in the Arab world following the site’s key role in the “Arab Spring” revolutions last year, with Arabic now the site’s sixth most common language. (Inquirer.net)

Facebook Upgrades Photo Viewing, Sharing

Continuing the super-sizing of photos that began with the introduction of Timeline last year, Facebook on Monday enhanced image-viewing on the platform.

Now, when you click Photos at the top of your Timeline, you’ll be presented with larger pics that fill up the page. Presenting a page full of images will in theory make it easier to share photos. As Facebook’s blog stated on Monday, “With your Facebook photos all in one section, it’s simple to show friends your favorites. Click the star button to make important photos stand out.”

It’s no mystery why Facebook is putting so much emphasis on photos: Pinterest’s popularity has demonstrated a user preference for a more visual experience. Other sites like Quora and Chill.com have mimicked Pinterest’s design. Another major reason is the migration of users to mobile. Since photo-sharing is among the most popular activities on mobile, Facebook spent $1 billion to purchase Instagram and has rolled out its own Instagram competitor, Facebook Camera.

A Facebook rep, however, says the change only affects the Facebook desktop experience; mobile apps won’t be upgraded. (Mashable.com)

Facebook: Sponsored Stories Make $1 Million a Day

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg and CFO David Ebersman hosted their first earnings call early Thursday evening.

The three executives spoke primarily about the company’s advertising products, which accounted for 86% of its revenue in the second quarter. Zuckerberg emphasized the need to make ads more social — most ads on Facebook right now are not. He noted that Sponsored Stories, Facebook’s primary “social” ad product, is now generating $1 million in revenue per day, about half of which comes from mobile.

Sandberg added that Sponsored Stories on desktop and mobile were performing much better in terms of engagement than ads displayed on the right rail of the News Feed.

Promising, but remember that Facebook delivers far fewer ads on mobile than through the desktop. Ad impressions still grew more slowly than users over the quarter, as more users shifted access to mobile, Ebersman said. Five hundred and forty-three million of Facebook’s nearly 1 billion users access Facebook via mobile, up 67% from a year ago. Those users are 20% more likely to log on to Facebook on a given day, Zuckerberg said.

During a Q&A with analysts, Zuckerberg rejected the notion of a Facebook phone. “Building out a whole phone wouldn’t really make much sense for us,” he said.

When asked about the company’s plans for Instagram, Zuckerberg noted that “the acquisition isn’t yet complete, “so there’s been no integration… There will be an update when that happens.” He said that most of Facebook’s acquisitions have been for talent, but Instagram was an exception — i.e., Facebook intends to make use of the product itself.

Beyond mobile, Sandberg noted the importance of the small business market: “More than 40% of local business have no web presence at all,” she noted, adding that most local business owners were not “tech savvy.” “Facebook has a huge advantage because those local business owners are using Facebook as users. The product that we want them to use, Pages, is a lot like their own user profile. The leap is smaller.”

Ebersman acknowledge that the company is “disappointed in how the stock has traded thus far.” The stock was trading down 10% to about $24 during the call. (Mashable.com)

Zuckerberg Denies the Facebook Phone. What’s the Evidence?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday in the company’s first-ever earnings call that “it wouldn’t really make much sense” for the social networking monolith to build its own smartphone.

A “Facebook phone” has been rumored for sometime, however — and many analysts regard its appearance as a matter of when, not if.

So what’s the evidence that a mobile device based entirely around the social network is on its way?

Back in November of last year, the scuttlebutt originally reported by All Things D was that Facebook and HTC were working together to develop a phone codenamed “Buffy” that would hit store shelves in 12 to 18 months — as soon as this coming fall.

Buffy was said to run on a modified version of Android, tweaked heavily to revolve more prominently around Facebook and HTML5 support.

Then The New York Times reported this May that Facebook had hired “more than a half dozen” former Apple engineers who had previously worked on the iPhone or iPad to help build hardware for a Facebook phone. Finally, a Bloomberg report earlier this month reiterated much of what ATD reported in November, but pegged the mysterious “Facebook phone” launch to mid-2013.

The anticipation has grown so great that some designers have already began mocking up Facebook phone concepts (see gallery below).

While Zuckerberg denied the logic of Facebook building a phone, there are plenty of reasons why doing so would, in fact, make a lot of sense.

Facebook has been widely criticized for struggling to adapt to an increasingly mobile web, which most analysts see as dominating the emerging wave of digital life. One hedge fund manager recently predicted that Facebook’s mobile sluggishness would lead to the company virtually disappearing by the year 2020.

A Facebook-centric operating system — on a Facebook-branded smartphone — could go a long way toward capturing more mobile users and ad dollars.

So have all the rumors simply been hot air and will Facebook instead focus its efforts on improving a widely maligned mobile app? Or is Zuckerberg simply hedging his bets with some tricky wordplay, and a Facebook phone is in fact on the way? Let us know your take in the comments. (Mashable.com)

Facebook Has 955 Million Active Users — Still Shy of a Billion

Those champagne bottles are staying on ice at Facebook HQ.

The social network has been inching ever closer to the major milestone of a billion monthly active users (that is, folks who log into Facebook at least once a month). In April, as part of an amendment to its IPO filing with the SEC, the company announced it had 901 million monthly active users.

Some observers — and more than a few Facebook employees — had hoped this number would hit the magic billion by the time its second quarter results came out (ie. today). Others, such as Gregory Lyons, a senior analyst at iCrossing, predicted the billion mark would be reached in August. Now it’s looking more like those champagne corks will pop in September, or even October.

Nine hundred and fifty-five million users, of course, is still a superlative achievement. Facebook can also boast that 552 million of them log in every day — up from 526 million in April. The 955 million number also represents 29% growth in users year on year.

When Facebook first filed its IPO paperwork with the SEC in February, the network had 845 million users. It hit the 500 million mark back in mid 2010, hence the tag line for that year’s award-winning movie The Social Network: “you don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.” The number was out of date by the time those posters hit billboards.

But of course, even 955 million users isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion users. (Expect to see that joke roll out with increasing frequency over the next few months.)

How big can Facebook get? Let us know in the comments if you think the social network will ever hit two billion monthly active users. (Mashable.com)

Game Over, Zynga? Stock Down 40% After Poor Earnings

Zynga reported its second quarter earnings Wednesday and the results aren’t good, falling short of analyst estimates for both revenue and earnings per share.

This is only Zynga’s second quarter as a public company and after tepid first quarter earnings, the company needed a win. That didn’t happen. The stock is down nearly 40% after-hours trades at the the time of this writing.

Looking at the results, its hard to find any bright spots for the social gaming giant.

Revenue was $332 million, up 19% year over year, but falling short of analyst expectations. Moreover, bookings were down 8% compared with the first quarter of 2012.

Zynga also reported a net income loss of $22.8 million, thanks in part to a $95.5 million stock-based expense.

The company reported a diluted earnings per share (EPS) loss of ($0.03) for the second quarter and a non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) EPS of $0.01.

Zynga also adjusted its outlook for the rest of 2012 in order to “reflect delays in launching new games, a faster decline in existing web games due in part to a more challenging environment on the Facebook web platform, and reduced expectations for Draw Something.”

The Facebook revelation is interesting, as it could indicate either increased competition on the platform or larger monetization problems on Facebook itself.

Facebook stock is also down about 6% in after-hours trades. Facebook announces its first earnings as a public company on Thursday.

What do you think of Zynga’s dismal stats? Has the bubble burst? Let us know in the comments. (Mashable.com)

Mark Zuckerberg’s First Patent Finally Approved After Six Years

The first patent Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg submitted to the US Patent Trademark and Office six years ago was finally approved on Tuesday. He submitted the patent in July 2006.

The patent, called Dynamically generating a privacy summary is described in the abstract:

A system and method for dynamically generating a privacy summary is provided. The present invention provides a system and method for dynamically generating a privacy summary. A profile for a user is generated. One or more privacy setting selections are received from the user associated with the profile. The profile associated with the user is updated to incorporate the one or more privacy setting selections. A privacy summary is then generated for the profile based on the one or more privacy setting selections.

Basically, the patent protects the way a user’s information appears onscreen, including how they view their privacy settings. Initially, the patent was rejected for being “obvious,” but was later revisited and now approved.

Since Zuckerberg filed this first patent, a handful of other patents that the billionaire submitted have been approved. At this point, the patent doesn’t really mean much, according ReadWriteWeb. However, an IPO expert mentioned in the site’s story says Facebook needs as many patents as it can get, especially given its recent legal battle with Yahoo.

Source: Mashable

Zuckerberg’s Facebook Picture Hints at Walmart Partnership

Mark Zuckerberg posted a picture on Facebook on Friday while visiting Walmart’s corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., furthering speculation that the social network is looking to grow its partnership with the retailer.

The photo shows Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg meeting with Walmart executives in what looks like a board room.

The news comes as Walmart and Facebook is rumored to make an announcement as early as Saturday regarding its partnership.

“Wal-Mart is an important partner for Facebook and we look forward to working together to deepen that relationship,” Facebook said in a statement to The Orlando Sentinel. “In addition, we admire the company Wal-Mart has built over the past 50 years and believe we can learn from their experience and management team about building a strong, durable and valuable company for the long term.”

It’s unclear at this time what that could mean for both companies. Walmart is already a major advertiser on the site, and the retailer has carried Facebook Credits — gift cards for virtual money that can be sent via Facebook games such as Farmville — since 2010.

What do you think Facebook and Walmart have in the works? Let us know in the comments.

Source: Mashable

Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

Facebook and other social platforms are watching users’ chats for criminal activity and notifying police if any suspicious behavior is detected, according to a report.

The screening process begins with scanning software that monitors chats for words or phrases that signal something might be amiss, such as an exchange of personal information or vulgar language.

The software pays more attention to chats between users who don’t already have a well-established connection on the site and whose profile data indicate something may be wrong, such as a wide age gap. The scanning program is also “smart” — it’s taught to keep an eye out for certain phrases found in the previously obtained chat records from criminals including sexual predators.

If the scanning software flags a suspicious chat exchange, it notifies Facebook security employees, who can then determine if police should be notified.

Keeping most of the scanned chats out of the eyes of Facebook employees may help Facebook deflect criticism from privacy advocates, but whether the scanned chats are deleted or stored permanently is yet unknown.

The new details about Facebook’s monitoring system came from an interview which the company’s Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan gave to Reuters. At least one alleged child predator has been brought to trial directly as a result of Facebook’s chat scanning, according to Reuters’ report.

When asked for a comment, Facebook only repeated the remarks given by Sullivan to Reuters: “We’ve never wanted to set up an environment where we have employees looking at private communications, so it’s really important that we use technology that has a very low false-positive rate.”

Facebook works with law enforcement “where appropriate and to the extent required by law to ensure the safety of the people who use Facebook,” according to a page on its site.

“We may disclose information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests (including criminal and civil matters) if we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law. This may include respecting requests from jurisdictions outside of the United States where we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law under the local laws in that jurisdiction, apply to users from that jurisdiction, and are consistent with generally accepted international standards.

“We may also share information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activity, to prevent imminent bodily harm, or to protect ourselves and you from people violating our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities.”

Indeed, Facebook has cooperated with police investigations in the past. In April, it complied with a police subpoena from the Boston Police Department by sending printouts of wall posts, photos and login/IP data of a murder suspect.

Is Facebook doing a public service by monitoring chats for criminal behavior? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Source: Mashable

Facebook buys mobile gadget focused Spool

SAN FRANCISCO—Facebook added more mobile technology to its arsenal with the acquisition of Spool, a startup specializing in bookmarking and sharing content on smartphones or tablets.

“The Spool team has deep expertise in mobile software development and a passion for making content easy to consume,” Facebook said Monday in response to an Agence France-Presse inquiry.

“We’re excited for the team to join and accelerate their vision at Facebook.”

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Spools let people organize online content using bookmarks so they could access digital stories, videos or other material at their leisure or on different Internet-linked gadgets.

“We started Spool to make content easy to consume on a mobile device,” the startup said in a blog post telling users the service was closed and the team joining the world’s leading social network.

“We firmly believe that solving these problems will be increasingly important as the world accesses the Internet primarily through mobile devices.”

Facebook, which has its headquarters in the California city of Menlo Park, has made a priority of improving its mobile offerings to keep in synch with users who are increasingly accessing the service from smartphones or tablets.

Lack of a clear strategy for making money from users who connect to the social network with mobile devices was considered to be among the reasons Facebook stock sank below its debut price of $38 per share in May of this year.

Facebook Game Subtlety Teaches 20-Somethings Financial Literacy

A Facebook game currently in development will teach young adults financial literacy, while getting them hooked on an addictive online experience.

Kicked Out, the product of developers and social entrepreneurs in Vienna, Austria and San Francisco, strives to train players to intuitively become responsible with money. The group is hoping to raise a major funding round through Kickstarter, with just three days left to reach its $300,000 goal.

Creator Katharina Norton began working on Kicked Out when she realized financial literacy is a universal struggle for nearly all young people. There’s an imbalance between the ease of spending money and the challenge of saving money.

“I wanted to answer the question of ‘how do we, coming from civil society, teach young adults about finance,’” Norton told Mashable. “Learning about finance, especially at a young age, makes you feel bored and creates feelings of inferiority. We thought we could overcome these emotions with a game.”

Norton spoke with debt counselors in her native Austria. In the process, she learned that one in five clients is 30,000 euros in debt by the age of 25. The fastest growing group declaring bankruptcy is between 18 and 24 — and the number has increased 96% in the last 10 years.

“By going through these levels of tests as teenagers and young adults, they’ll learn to train alarm bells for real life,” Norton says.

Kicked Out’s storyline begins as you are forced to leave your parents house. In order to survive, you must manage your personal finances and make long-term decisions while avoiding debt traps. Players learn how to take a loan, avoid debt, check balances on a regular basis and not overspend on what you earn. Throughout the game, you’ll never hear the word money, rather you’ll learn to manage “resources.”

“Teenagers have a very skewed expectation of their future salaries and costs of living,” Norton says. “They don’t realize that if they buy a cat, it’s not just the cost of the cat, but also the vet visits and its food.”

Though Norton says Kicked Out is not being marketed primarily as an educational game, teens in test groups have expressed excitement about learning to deal with money.

“We’ve found that it’s equally exciting to those who want to learn and those who want to play,” Norton says.

Though Kicked Out’s Kickstarter campaign is yet to pick up significant fundraising steam, it won a Central European innovation prize Ideen gegen Armut (ideas against poverty), sponsored by Coca-Cola. Kicked Out’s supporters include entrepreneurs from Fast Company, National Field and Ashoka.

Gamifying real-world problems has become an increasingly popular way of teaching skills to teens such as social dynamics, and cause and effect. Do you think financial literacy will be the next skill added to the list through Kicked Out? Can teens learn to be responsible with money through a game?

Source: Mashable

Fake Facebook Photo Notifications Contain Malware

Be careful about opening emails that claim you have been tagged in a Facebook photo, because they may actually be malware, according to a security expert.

Sophos’s NakedSecurity blog outlined the threat on Wednesday. The company’s SophosLabs intercepted a “spammed-out email campaign” which was designed to spread malware. Sophos provided the following example:

The blog notes that the email address above misspells “Facebook” as “Faceboook.” The link takes the user to a malicious iFrame script, which exposes the user’s computer to malware. However, within four seconds, the user’s browser is directed to a presumably innocent Facebook page like the one below to act as a smokescreen.

The lab recommends checking the “Facebook” email addresses closely in emails and hover your mouse over the link, at which point you should see it doesn’t go to a Facebook page.

Have you been duped by a fake Facebook photo tag message? Let us know in the comments.

Source: Mashable, iStockphoto, Pashalgnatov