One woman in Canada is suing Facebook for using her photo and information in ads. Photo via OPWall.

Ever see your friend's picture in a Facebook ad? Most people don't think much about it. Some people complain it's a violation of privacy. A woman in Canada took it a step further and is suing Facebook for profiting from an advertisement last year that used her photo and profile information with out her knowledge.

Vancouver resident, Debbie Douez says that Facebook allowed her name and photo to be used without her permission in an advertisement on Facebook for a group called “Cool Entrepreneurs.”

In her lawsuit, Douez claims that are she clicked the “Like” button for the Facebook group, her photo with the caption “Debbie Douez likes Cool Entrepreneurs” started to appear on sidebar advertisements shown to her online friends.

In January 2011, Facebook started “Sponsored Stories,” which is an advertisement service that the social media giant offers to companies and brands. As of January of 2012, you can find the sponsored stories links were moved down to the right hand side of your news feed and even in the actual feed.

Douez's lawyer said Facebook never asked whether she wanted to endorse the group or not. The lawyer, Luciana Brasil said that if a company is using somsone's name or picture to advertise something, that company needs to get consent from that person. Brasil argues that her client's permission was never obtained or even sought by Facebook.

Of course in the fine print of the Facebook privacy policy, there is statements that Facebook believes gives them the right to use a user's name, photo and profile information.

Brasil argues that the fine print isn't enough notice to it's users and a violation of Canada's Privacy Act.

[Story via CBC.]

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Facebook says the switch to the new timeline feature is going well. Some businesses say otherwise. Photo via Buffer.

Whether you like it or not, Facebook is making businesses and brands switch over their pages to their new timeline. For most organizations the change has been going smoothly, but that doesn't mean that the latest Facebook isn't causing some problems and raising some concerns.

Since Facebook launched the News Feed feature in 2006, the controversial feature has seen a repeating cycle of surprise, anger and eventually acceptance from it's users whent hey change or tweak something. However for the companies, non-profit organizations and any other group that might use a Facebook page, having to change to the new timeline by the end of the month is causing some headaches.

Specifically those organizations are forced to explain the changes to their customers and in some situations, they're forced to deal with their customers anger about the changes.

Michael Fauscette, an analyst with the research group IDC said that the changes may cause some pain, but if you look at the overall picture, there's a lot more positive for most companies. It gives the companies a great ability to promote their brand and really brand their pages to make them stand out from other pages.

Facebook says that so far everything is going well and that more than 8 million brands have switched over to the new format. They added that the new timeline and other marketing tools has strengthened brands interactions with their customers. Facebook says the timeline allows for a more visual profile for the brand and the ability to post historic photos or updates that show their changes over the time.

Facebook was careful about how it rolled out the timeline for personal pages, but they acted more quickly for businesses. Businesses and brands had just thirty days from the time of the announcement to switch over to the new look.

[Story via Chicago Tribune]

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Young adults learned about Kony 2012 from social media more than anything else. Image via Herald Sun.

Not too long ago, there was a time when most adults got their news from the morning newspaper and the evening network news. Now, those are just two of the choices. Not only are their hundreds of television news sources and thousands of online news publishers, but new research says that younger adults are getting their news from social media sources.

The latest examples comes from the viral “KONY 2012” video that was all over the net earlier this month. It spread across social media platforms like Facebook, was plastered all over Pinterest and was even the most popular story for a time on Twitter. It's on these social media sites that most young adults, 18-29 years old, are getting their news and information.

According to a survey released by the Pew Research Center, the thirty minute video released by the San Diego-based group Invisible Children calling for action against Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony earlier this month shows that young adults have different news agendas and learn about the news from different sources. Younger adults were more likely to hear about the video via social media than older adults who were far more likely to hear about it via more traditional news sources.

The video was so popular with young adults that it was one the most popular videos ever. As of March 13, the video had been viewed more than 76 million times on YouTube and 16 million times on Vimeo. Young adults are more than twice as likely as older adults to watch the video on those two sites. Older adults were more likely to see the video from other news sources such as television news.

The Pew Research Center did special polling and social media content analysis to track how the “KONY 2012” video and information reached American adults.

[via Pew Internet]

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Today a Philippine court over turned that ban and issued a restraining order against the girls' school St. Theresa's College High School, saying the school's decision was un-Christian and unlawful.

School officials banned the girls for what they described as immoral, indecent, obscene and lewd acts. They would've allowed the group to graduate, but not walk across the stage or any other related official school ceremonies.

According to one of the student's lawyer, the photos are from a beach party earlier this year. The photos show all five in bikinis and one one girl holding a cigarette and a liquor bottle.

Earlier this month, the school didn't just call the group down to the office, the principal and other school officials allegedly called the young women inappropriate names, including sluts, drunkards and cheap.

The same lawyer said that school officials illegally obtained the photos because they were not Facebook friends with the students and were not allowed access to their profile images.

The judge attacked the school officials for the inappropriate names and he said that the female students were forced to go through a psychologically and emotionally devastating experience.

The families of the students aren't just stopping at getting their daughters back into the graduation ceremonies, they're also looking into charges of child abuse and oral defamation against the school and it's officials.

[Story via Newsday]

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One Twitter user in Kuwait is in trouble for his tweets that the authorities there say were blasphemous. Photo via Njuice.

You need to watch what you say on Twitter and other social media outlets. All this week, people have been getting into hot water for what they've tweeted and shared. You don't have to a celebrity either like Justin Bieber or Spike Lee either. Tuesday, Kuwaiti authorities arrested a man for insulting the Prophet Mohammad via Twitter.

Press in the United States hasn't been able to verify his exact tweets, but blasphemy has been illegal in Kuwait since in 1961, but this is one of the rare times when the alleged act came via a social media network.

Luckily for the man, whose name wasn't disclosed to the press, the punishment for blasphemy in Kuwait isn't death like it is in neighboring Saudi Arabia where a journalist is facing a death sentence for comments he made via social media.

Back in September of 2011, a court in Kuwait convicted another man for insulting “Gulf rulers” and posting “inflammatory sectarian comments” on an unnamed social media network, but that man was released after his trial because of time served while he was awaiting his trial.

The man at the center of the current case denies the charges. He said, "I will never attack the Holy Prophet." He suggested that someone else must have gained access to his account and posted the comments.

Many politicians, journalists and other popular public figures in Kuwait are tweeters and the social media network is massively popular in the country. Many of those public figures have upwards of hundreds of thousands of followers. Like Americans, many Kuwaitis use Twitter to debate current events and share the latest gossip.

[Story via UK Reuters]

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Police allege that Jonathan Holton posted two sex tapes on Facebook. Photo via Providence Journal.

File this under probably not a good idea. A basketball player from the University Of Rhode Island was arrested yesterday morning for allegedly posting two sex videos on Facebook.

The official charges against the freshman student, Jonathan Holton was two counts of video voyeurism. Campus police arrested him after two students said he made videos of two separate sexual encounters with them and those videos were posted on Facebook. Police say the encounters took place on the campus last fall and were consensual, but that they didn't know about the video taping.

Holton's lawyer said the player didn't post the images to Facebook and that he didn't email them or forward them to anyone else. The lawyer says an unauthorized third party accessed Holton's Facebook account and maliciously sent the videos from his name.

The two female students reported the incidents March 17 to student affairs personal, then three days later to campus police. The victims went to the police after being told by friends that videos of them had been posted to Facebook and forwarded to approximately thirty other people.

The two counts of video voyeurism are considered felonies and yesterday morning Holton was arraigned on the charges before being released. Holton was suspended from the basketball team and he could be suspended from school. He's facing three years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The head coach of the basketball team refused to comment, but the vice president of student affairs put out a statement. Thomas R. Dougan said, "these are disturbing allegations that strike at the core of our commitment to make this a safe and civil campus community. Respect for the rights and privacy of all of our community members is paramount. Campus police and Student Affairs are involved in separate intensive investigations surrounding these allegations."

[Story via Providence Journal]

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Spike Lee sent a tweet with the wrong address for the killer of Trayvon Martin. Photo via Syracuse.com.

Yesterday it was Justin Bieber, today it's Spike Lee who's in trouble over a Tweet. It's a sign of how wrong things can go via social media and it allegedly put an elderly Florida in danger.

The original tweet was sent to the movie producer and other celebs from a Los Angeles man who goes by the name “maccapone” on Twitter. The tweet was supposed to be the address of George Zimmerman, the man that fatally shot Trayvon Martin. However, property records and interviews tell a different story.

It looks like the home belongs to and has for a long time, a married Florida couple in their seventies, who have no connection with Zimmerman and who are now “living in fear” according to The Smoking Gun website.

After Lee retweeted the message to his 240,000 followers on Twitter, the address on Edgewater Circle in Sanford, FL started to spread across Twitter and other social networks like Facebook.

The residence at that address belongs to David McClain, 72 years old and his wife Elaine, 70 years old. Property records show that they've lived at that address for about ten years now.

In an interview with The Smoking Gun, Elaine McClain said that her and her husband were afraid due to the information posted online that linked her address to Zimmerman. McClain added that they had to keep everything locked now and were staying at a hotel.

The Twitter user that tied the McCain's address to Zimmerman didn't do his homework. There are voter records tie a William George Zimmeran to the Edgewater Circle address and the McClain's do have a son named George Zimmerman, but he's 45 years old. The Zimmerman who shot Martin was just twenty-eight years old and his middle initial is M.

[Story via Washington Times]

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High School student Austin Carroll was kicked out of high school for tweeting. Photo via Web Pro News.

Watch out high school students, schools are now tracking your tweets and expelling you for what you say.

Garrett High School in Indiana expelled senior Austin Carroll for profanity he used in a tweet posted to his personal account. The student claims he posted it from home, but the school says otherwise. They believe it was posted via a school computer and that's why they expelled him.

In an interview with a local television station, Carroll said “One of my tweets was, BEEP is one of those BEEP words you can BEEP put anywhere in a BEEP sentence and it still BEEP make sense.” The student believes that since it was his own personal account, it's no business of the schools.

The principal of the school said that they have a system that tracks all of the tweets on a student's account when a student logs in via a school computer. He went on to admit that it is possible that Carroll posted the tweet while he was at home and the school's tracking system registered it when he logged in again on a school computer later that day.

For using “the F word,” Carroll was kicked out of school just three months before he was scheduled to graduate and was forced to attend an alternative school for the remainder of the year in order to complete his high school education.

An article published via a local newspaper online, says that this wasn't the first time that Carroll was punished for posting Twitter messages that the school considered obscene and it wasn't the first time that that he was in trouble in general for causing disruptions.

[Story via Mashable]

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Email is still more popular than social media, but a majority of people are using social media now. Photo via Technorati.

Don't delete your email account just yet! Everyone may be talking about Facebook, Twitter and now Pinterest, but everyone is also still using their email accounts to communicate and a just released survey says it's still the most popular method.

Eighty-five percent of people use the internet for email, while only 62% use the internet for social networking, according to a survey from private research firm Ipsos. The survey included almost 20,000 adults in 24 countries.

If you think about it, the internet was first used for sending letters, it shouldn't be surprsing that people are still using it send digital versions of letters, says Keren Gottfried, research manager at Ipsos. She adds that the majority of people online participating in social networking does show a paradigm shift since there's no equivalent in the offline world.

The number vary from country to country. In Hungry, 94% of people go online to use email, while the number is only 46% in Saudi Arabia. In Indonesia, 83% of people go online to social network (which in this study includes social media sites, forums and blogs). Social media use is also high in countries like Argentina (76%), Russia (75%) and South Africa (73%). The United States is in about the middle at 61%. Of the countries surveyed, it's the lowest in Japan (35%) and Saudi Arabia (42%).

While most people in the United States aren't using the internet for Voice-Over-IP (only 6%), other countries however average at about 14%. The Russia is the highest at 36%, Brazil is the lowest at 4%.

Two companies that are either primarily a social media network or have a social media network, Facebook and Google have both tried to replace email with their own services. Facebook launched a “modern message system” that was targeted for younger users. Google launched Google Wave, which they pulled the plug in two years later.

[Story via Mashable]

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Paul Ceglia alleges that he owns 50% of Facebook. Photo via All Things D.

In other Facebook legal news, the social media giant went to court on Monday, hoping to get a judge to throw out the case of a man claiming to own 50% of the company.

Facebook is using a team of world renowned forensic experts in an attempt to prove that the evidence showing a man named Paul Ceglina owned half of the company was forged.

In June of 2010, Ceglina filed a lawsuit saying that he had a contract with a then Harvard undergrad Mark Zuckerberg dating back to 2003 and in that contract he was given a fifty percent stake of what was then called TheFacebook.

The Facebook investigations analyzed Ceglina's hard drives, looking at the “metadata” of their email correspondence and paperwork. They says what they found is that Ceglina forged a paper contract and then created a fake email chain. Evidence of their claims included emails that had the wrong time zone. On one of those harddrives, they say they found what was an authentic contract, which while dated April 28, 2003, didn't include any mention of TheFacebook.

Orin Snyder, a Facebook lawyer said, “Ceglia has forged documents, destroyed evidence and abused the judicial system in furtherance of his criminal scheme.”

Ceglia claims that in 2003 he needed a programmer for a start-up called StreetFax. He hired Zuckerberg via an ad on Craigslist and paid him $1,000 for his work. Ceglia says they both signed a contract. Ceglia claims that contract gave him fifty percent of a project that Zuckerberg was working on called TheFacebook. In 2010, he found that contract and filed a lawsuit to claim his share.

The evidence from the hard drives isn't the only thing poking holes in Ceglia's story. Facebook also hired an ink specialist, Gerald LaPorted who examined a physical contract and determined that it had been baked in the sun in an attempt to make it look older.

[Story via NY Times]

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