Following on from a Wall Street Journal investigation that uncovered the selling of user IDs (UIDs) to advertisers, Facebook first updated its API to encrypt UIDs and now says it discovered "instances where a data broker was paying developers for UIDs".

However as the number of privacy breaches grows the company will become more acutely aware that avenues it might have thought were open for it to abuse users' personal data are slowly being shut off.

Under the bill, the company that sold the domain name registration to the website could be forced to revoke the domain name of the site if it is being used for copyright infringement or counterfeiting.

Critics worry that the measure will hamper free speech, and by allowing domain names to be shut down.

The coalition of businesses and groups dismissed such claims, saying, "some foreign countries have engaged in political censorship long before this bill was introduced and they will continue to do so regardless of whether this legislation is enacted."

Many of the most popular applications, or "apps," on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information - in effect, providing access to people's names and, in some cases, their friends' names - to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

The issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook's strictest privacy settings.

The apps reviewed by the Journal were sending Facebook ID numbers to at least 25 advertising and data firms, several of which build profiles of Internet users by tracking their online activities.

Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) internet customers lost access to Fox.com and Fox programming on Hulu for a time Saturday afternoon'the result of a misguided effort on News Corp.'s part to cut off online viewing as an alternative in its standoff with the cable operator over retrans fees.

Fox backed off the blockade but may have started a dangerous game of dominoes when it comes to the debate over online content access and net neutrality.

A source familiar with the situation said Fox agreed to restore the programming when it realized people who were not Cablevision video subscribers were affected and thart there was no way online to discern between the two.

The study, which surveyed 3,001 people over the summer, found that 74 percent of American adults use the Internet. And out of that group, 23 percent of folks have tried video calls, chats, or teleconferences over the Web.

In the study it was the first time that the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project asked about the use of video calling online and via cell phones.

Schneier said: "Less privacy makes a better market for social networks. Facebook is the worst offender - not because it's evil but because its market is selling user data to its commercial partners."

"Don't fool yourself that use are the user of social networks - you are the product."

While ISPs can't prevent users getting infected with bots, they are in a superb position to detect the signs of infection.

The idea is that ISPs could detect signs -- say, by intercepting outbound spam, or botnet command-and-control traffic -- and cut the infected customer off from the internet.

Panda Security's third-quarter report also found that 50 percent of all spam came from 10 countries, with India, Brazil, and Russia as the top three sources.

Among the countries with the most Trojan attacks in the third quarter, Taiwan led the list, followed by Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Poland, and Spain.

The FBI now wants to require all encrypted communications systems to have backdoors for surveillance, according to a New York Times report.

According to the proposal, any company doing business in the States could not create an encrypted communication system without having a way for the government to order the company to decrypt it.

Despite that, the FBI is saying that its spying capabilities could be degraded unless the Congress requires companies using encryption to remake their current systems so that the companies have some way to spy on the communications.

Facebook went offline for the second time in two days yesterday. The Thursday outage--which lasted more than two hours for some users--is a tale of a database control gone awry and illustrates the need for effective testing and change control procedures.

Ultimately, Facebook was forced to shut the site down and take the affected database cluster offline to break the loop.

The Facebook outage was caused by implementing a configuration value on the live Web site without proper testing and validation.