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Appeals court OKs Facebook Beacon $9.5M settlement

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has approved the $9.5 million settlement over Facebook's controversial Beacon advertising service, which could put an end to the four-year legal proceedings.

Most of the money will go toward establishing the Digital Trust Foundation, a nonprofit that will fund projects related to Internet privacy, with $2.3 million covering attorneys' fees. Objectors had originally said that the settlement terms did not go far enough to benefit Facebook users' privacy, but a majority of the 28 judges on the Court of Appeals decided Tuesday that the settlement is sufficient, Reuters reported. … Read more

Type 'buy' as a Facebook comment, buy some music

Country singer Tim McGraw wants you to buy his album -- on Facebook. Tuesday, the recording artist became one of the first people to try out a new system for selling through status updates on the social network.

McGraw's team used e-commerce platform Chirpify to encourage Facebook fans to type "buy" in the comments section of a post to instantly purchase a special edition of the star's "Two Lanes Of Freedom" album.

The effort marks the start of Chirpify's foray over to Facebook. Chirpify was founded in 2011 and began by turning tweets … Read more

Facebook prompts users to send gifts to friends with good news

Facebook has started nudging members to send gifts to friends with especially good news.

The company is featuring "Give a Gift" buttons in the News Feed alongside select status updates that mention special occasions such as a job change.

The buttons were first spotted by Inside Facebook, which obtained screenshots of status updates that talk about new jobs and show the Give a Gift suggestion. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to CNET that the buttons are part of a "newer test," and are "signaled by keywords."

The appearance of the buttons in News Feed marks … Read more

Instagram tops 100M monthly active users

Instagram, the photo-sharing network owned by Facebook, today announced that it now reaches 100 million people each month.

"Now, more than ever, people are capturing the world in real-time using Instagram -- sharing images from the farthest corners of the globe," Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, wrote in a blog post in which he echoed new boss Mark Zuckerberg's favorite mantra. "What we see as a result is a world more connected and understood through photographs."

The new revelation comes just one month after the service announced for the first time that it had 90 million … Read more

Zuckerberg and Gates join the learn-to-code movement

Hey, kids: coding is cool -- so cool that everyone from Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to NBA baller Chris Bosh wants you to do it.

The celebrities are using their star power to draw attention to Code.org, a nascent nonprofit foundation that seeks to cultivate computer programming education in schools and direct people to online coding tools.

Zuckerberg and Bosh join hip-hop artist Will.i.am, Microsoft legend Bill Gates, Twitter creator Jack Dorsey, and others in a new YouTube video designed to get students, and their teachers by association, excited about coding. The video is directed by … Read more

Facebook grapples with pages exploiting Newtown victims

Government officials and family members of victims from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have asked Facebook to delete several offensive posts or tribute pages related to the massacre, according to the Associated Press.

Authorities have said that many of the Facebook pages are being used to berate survivors and victims' families, while others are fraudulently asking for funeral fund donations.

"Certainly there have been many, too many, of these pages that are intimidating or harassing or exploitive," U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal told the Associated Press.

Facebook has responded saying that it will work to remove the … Read more

Facebook tallies 66.5M interactions around Oscars

Facebook racked up a total of 66.5 million Oscar-related social interactions between the time the nominees were announced and last night's awards ceremony, the company revealed today.

The social network said the Academy Awards scored a 7.17 on its Talk Meter, a 10-point scale that measures Facebook buzz around a specific event. For comparison, the 2012 election scored a 9.27.

"'Oscars received three times more mentions this year, while the Best Picture nominees racked up 20 times more mentions than 2012," Facebook said in a blog post. "'Les Miserables had the most Likes … Read more

Randi Zuckerberg on what it means to be 'Dot Complicated' (Q&A)

Randi Zuckerberg knows a thing or two about complications caused by the Internet.

The sister of Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has seen her fair share of controversial choices or awkward missteps become fodder for attacks from those who view her as the ultimate benefactor of nepotism.

After serving as Facebook's marketing director for six years, Zuckerberg struck out on her own with Zuckerberg Media, a media and production company that fashioned her an executive producer of the oft-panned Bravo reality television flop "Startups: Silicon Valley." She's also the lead singer for a cover band called … Read more

Facebook adds free calling to iOS app

Facebook for iPhone now doubles as a way to phone a friend for free.

The social network today released version 5.5 of its iPhone and iPad application to allow for free friend-to-friend voice calling in the U.S. and Canada.

The voice-over-IP functionality extends a feature that was first introduced on Facebook Messenger to even more of the social network's mobile audience. The feature, which should appeal to teens and cheapskates, could help the social network keep the attention of its youngest users, some of whom have, according to a recent SEC filing by the company, "reduced … Read more

Hacker says security flaw let him access any Facebook profile

A security hacker recently found a flaw in a Facebook system that allowed developers to access anyone's Facebook account through app permissions.

Though Facebook has fixed this issue, Nir Goldshlager, a Web application security specialist who looks for these types of flaws professionally, found more app authorization bugs that need fixing, according to his blog. App permissions are what developers use to access the user data needed to run their apps. Users give them access permission when they install the apps.

"I found a couple more OAuth flaws in Facebook, just waiting for a fix to post about … Read more