Facebook

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, ACLU and several other civil rights and privacy groups are asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Facebook for its tracking of users on websites after they have logged out of the social networking site.

Facebook says it has stopped the practice, but that is not stopping the uproar about it. Reps. Edward Markey and Joe Barton, co-chairs of Congress's Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, also want the FTC to look into the issue.

You're never going to get free airline tickets simply by clicking a link on Facebook and accepting a third-party app — not from JetBlue, not from Delta Airlines, and not from the latest airline name to be abused by social network scammers, Southwest Airlines.

If you care to keep your past in the past, Facebook's new version of the profile, called Timeline, makes that a little more difficult.

With Timeline, every status update, wall post and photo ever posted since the day you joined Facebook becomes easily searchable to you and your friends. For many--early adopters especially--dredging up the past for all to see can be a privacy nightmare.

Plenty of people wonder how much information Facebook holds about you - but fewer know that, if you live in the European Union, you have a legal right to obtain it.

Unsurprisingly, it's not something Facebook is keen to tell you about, either - which is why the form required to do so is buried away on the social networking site. Campaign group Europe vs Facebook plans to change all that, prompting EU citizens to request a copy of all private data that's held about them.

Every time you visit a site that features a Facebook "Like" button, your Web wanderings are sent back to the social network, even after you log off your account.

Amongst the recent new changes to appear on Facebook, there is a "ticker" (a rolling real time list of what your friends are doing).

Not everyone has received it yet, because it's on a staggered rollout, but millions have already seen it.

You'll find it on the right hand side of your Facebook page, in the collapsible chat bar. It's smashing if you want to keep fully up-to-date with your friends' activity, but there is a problem with it.

Facebook users worried about the risk of clicking on malicious links while using the social networking service are being offered a new app web that filters friend from foe.

Available as a live beta, ShareSafe from F-Secure uses "patent-pending" technology to scan links users plan to send to friends, or do the same in reverse when links arrive from other sources. Once installed, users simply navigate to the Sharesafe page where links can be pasted for security testing.

Not content to let Google+ hog the spotlight the day of its grand opening, Facebook caught many users off-guard last night as it rolled out a host of changes without much in the way or warning or direction. What's evident is that Facebook and Google+ are pulling out all stops to win over social networkers of the world, though at least one of the changes to Facebook may have users scrambling to alter their privacy settings and friends lists.

A group of security researchers based in Egypt have created a tool that will make social engineering easier because it automates the collection of hidden Facebook profile data that is otherwise only accessible to friends in a user's network.

The cross-platform, Java-based tool is called "Facebook Pwn" and is described by those who developed it as a "Facebook profile dumper."

The premise of a new Facebook app called "If I Die" is sweet if a little morbid: You record a video message that will be played for your loved ones after your death. As the app advertisement says: "Death can catch you anywhere, anytime. Leave your If I Die message before it's too late."