Looks like an even bigger impact on privacy from Facebook has been stopped, or at least delayed for now in Europe. The facial recognition tool has been suspended due to a recommendation by the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland, Billy Hawkes, from the last year that Facebook should make some changes first. Even though Hawkes didn’t asked for the tool's total removal it is delayed until October 15 for now. He said that “Facebook is sending a clear signal of its wish to demonstrate its commitment to best practice in data protection compliance.”

No sooner has Facebook given pages the ability to make offers to people then we see one of the first cams using the new system. Now, we all know that Facebook has to do something to keep people interested and in particular they need to give businesses the ability to push their products on other Facebook users. This can help Facebook generate more revenue… blah, blah, blah. However Facebook really does need to do something about their anti-spam and scam detection tools they are pretty much non-existent.

Google didn’t wait long to respond to Facebook's purchase of popular photo service Instagram. They went out and bought Nik Software an Instagram rival. The terms of the deal are not still known but it is believed that Google's main target was Snapseed. This is a part of Nik Software that is responsible for photo editing and is currently available for iOS, PC, Mac but also with an Android version on the way. It was probably easier for Google to purchase the whole company rather than just one of their apps, so they keep the same team and get all of their products without any concerns about copyright or patent infringements.

Instagram has officially become part of Facebook today. Instagram passed the 5 billion photos mark and Facebook had to pay $1 billion to get a hold of this rising photo service. Both companies claim that Instagram will keep a decent part of their independence. The deal was announced in April but it took them 5 months to finish it because of certain regulations they had to fulfill. ”The Instagram app and its features will stay the same one you know and love, and we’ll keep working together to build a better Instagram for everyone.” came the comment today from Instagram, their team will move to the Facebook offices and work from there.

Facebook is facing something of a crisis of identity. Back when the company was still privately held everything looked very solid for the social networking giant to build into a behemoth and then push into the public market raking in even more cash. The reality of the situation was not so bright and cheerful as multiple analysts have commented on. Simply put Facebook did not turn out to be a good initial development for multiple reasons. Still we have to give them credit, they are trying to turn things around and we may possibly see Facebook turn things around financially.

There was a lot going on in the stock market yesterday. Apple became one of the top companies in the world for a number that actually means nothing (Market Cap). The Market Capitalization of a company is the value of a single share multiplied by the number of tradable shares available. This gives the purchase price of market value of a company. In order for someone to buy out Apple they would have to come up with a staggering amount of money. However, that number still means nothing when it comes to the actual company and its “value”.

Over the last week (and over the weekend) there were two significant rumors in the gaming industry that may be cause for concern. OnLive, a cloud gaming company, first showed indications that it was having financial trouble when reports surfaced that they had laid off all of their employees in a single movement. This move was enough for the tech world to speculate that OnLive was going under. However, it was later revealed that all of their employees were let go in order to pave the way for a buyout by an unnamed company

When Facebook decided to go public we had a feeling that is was a very ill-conceived idea and that their tendency to do things that their users and lawmakers do not like would come back to hurt them. On the days leading up to the IPO there was a flurry of activity while people tried to get stock that they felt was going to be a goldmine similar to Microsoft or even Apple. On the other hand there were a few more level headed people that remembered the secretive way Facebook does things and knew that it was only a matter of time before the stock tanked.

Identity theft is nothing new and unfortunately it is also still very common. By Some estimates 1 out of 3 people will have experienced identity theft of some sort. After a close relative had their identity stolen I did a little bit of research into the methods that some use to steal others identities and was surprised at how easy it is to do. Now that we have social sites like Facebook, Twitter and more it is actually becoming easier to steal people’s personal information and do massive amounts of damage to them financially and personally.

Leveraging the hype around the 2012 Olympics in London cyber criminals are pushing out malware via spam emails claiming that Gabrielle Douglas, who won a gold medal in Women's  Gymnastics All Around, will face lifetime ban from sport.  Obviously they are expecting that false news about doping scandals will help a lot in spreading the malware. The email is suggesting a link that will open up a false youtube page and prompt you to download  Adobe Flash plugin to view the content. Sophos, which first reported on this spam, detects the malware as Troj/Agent-XIK and Troj/JSRedir-IA.