Congressional Bi-Partisan Caucus Throws the Book at Facebook

Is Facebook tracking you without lawful permission? The co-Chairs of the Congressional Bi-Partisan Caucus seem to think so. The concerned and chairing congressmen are Ed Markey, from Massachusetts and Joe Barton, from Texas — their political persuasions correspond to well-established national topoi of northern and southern states.

Jointly, they’ve signed and sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission requesting that an investigation be made into Facebook’s practice of “gathering information about the websites its users visited even after users logged out of Facebook.”

The Democrat and Republican made reference to Nik Cubrilovic with their “Australian technology blogger” shout-out and went on to say:

We believe that an investigation of Facebook tracking its users even after they log out falls within the FTC’s mandate as stipulated in Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act with respect to protecting Americans from “unfair and deceptive acts or practices.”

Subsequent to his calling foul, Nik Cubrilovic has accepted that Facebook has taken measures to mend the problem of tracking user activities after they’ve logged out. In his own words he’s said: “Over the course of the past 48 hours since that post was published we have researched the issue further and have been in constant contact with Facebook on working out solutions and clarifying behavior on the site.”

Read More:

http://markey.house.gov/docs/ftc_facebook_letter_09.28.11.pdf

http://nikcub.appspot.com/facebook-fixes-logout-issue-explains-cookies

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/09/ftc-facebook-cookies-log-out.html

Twitter’s Coattails Extend With Arrival of Paid Political Ads

Everybody knows that despite this year’s Weiner scandal, Twitter is still really big with politicians as it is with all the usual talking heads — apparently 80 percent of Congress tweets. Twitter honchos have undoubtedly known as much for a while, and that’s why it makes so much sense for them to open up their platform to purchased political advertising. Politicians’ ads are relevant to the Twitter readership and the company needs the cash. The first paid-for political ad on Twitter appeared this week: a “promoted tweet” for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign that ran on Wednesday, September 21st.

Contrary to what would be expected, there seems to be no need to summon any bracing fortitude in preparation for an overwhelming campaign onslaught on your Twitter stream, at least not yet. Leadership at Twitter seems to be intent on introducing advertising in as an intrusive a way as possible. Adam Bain, the company’s president of global revenue was quoted in Politico, where the takeaway of his comments was found to be that Twitter did not wanting to look like it was “cash[ing] in on its massive popularity and cultural cachet,” on account to the advertising. Bonus points for that. Political ads on Twitter will be marked with a purple checkmark and hovering over them will produce a political disclosure.

Read More:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63985.html#ixzz1Yj2sWZyt

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/09/twitter-begins-selling-political-advertising.html