MOBO Media News

Facebook have announced that they will be tightening their security controls to safeguard the personal information of their users. The move comes weeks after Facebook confirmed their plans to simplify their privacy settings.

The social networking site has come under fire from the authorities in recent months over concerns about the safety of minors on the site. There have been calls for enhanced security in order to protect younger Facebook users from potential abusers. Facebook’s chief privacy officer, Chris Kelly, promised that security settings would be beefed up to ensure the safety of minors on Facebook.

However there have been police reports in the US in the past few weeks of sex abusers using Facebook as a tool to groom young girls, so privacy standards still remains an issue.

Canada’s Privacy Commissioner led a report recently to investigate the effectiveness of security controls on Facebook. The report concluded that “over-sharing of user’s personal information with third party developers who create popular Facebook applications such as games and quizzes” were one of the biggest threats to security.

The Commissioner confirmed that Facebook have agreed to bar application developers from accessing personal information, unless they receive direct consent from the user. The site will also inform members of the difference between deactivation of an account, and account deletion and how this affects information. Plus Facebook will also make clear that the profiles of users who have passed away may be kept active in order to serve as a memorial for friends of the deceased member.

Facebook has become the world’s most popular social networking site after it was announced that it currently holds 300 members worldwide.

The news was broken by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in a news blog post. In the announcement he wrote: “Facebook now serves 300 million people across the world. It’s a large number, but the way we think about this is that we’re just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone.” The announcement suggests that Facebook bosses are unlikely to rest on their laurels having reached the milestone, but instead, intend to use it as launching pad to further the company’s development.

The last two months have seen Facebook member numbers multiply dramatically with the site gaining 50 million extra users between July and September. One area where Facebook is gaining ground is in attracting members from countries where online resources are internet usage is not as prevalent as it is in the West.

Since the launch of Facebook Lite, which is designed for users with slow internet connections, the organization has been making headway in attracting members from countries such as South America and India, whilst still retaining a healthy sign-up rate from tech-savvy markets such as the UK and the States.

Zuckerberg plans to invest in developing software systems which will further boost Facebook’s prowess and enable the company to deliver a high speed service with innovative features.

Facebook have been awarded £430 million in damages after winning their case against Sanford Wallace who is nicknamed, the Spam King.

The case centred on an allegation made by Facebook which claimed that Mr Wallace had been sending huge numbers of unsolicited emails from Facebook user’s accounts after gaining access to the accounts without permission. The emails which were sent would invite the recipient to click onto another site, Wallace was paid for every hit that site received.

The court in California heard that Facebook estimated that Wallace had committed at least 14 million violations which come under the offence of spamming.

District judge Jeremy Fogell said in his ruling that Wallace had shown “blatant disregard for the rights of Facebook users.” A spokesperson later added that he could face a possible jail sentence for his crime as well.

Wallace, along with his partner Walter Rines, was successfully sued by MySpace back in 2008 after they were found to have bombarded their members with spam.

Although Facebook say they don’t expect to recover the full amount of damages, they hope that the verdict will go some way to acting as a deterrent to any would-be spammers who are considering targeting Facebook.