Social-networking star Facebook surpassed Google to become the most visited website in the United States for the first time last week, industry analysts showed.
Facebook's homepage finished the week ending March 13 as the most visited site in the country, according to industry tracker Hitwise.
The "important milestone," as described by Hitwise director of research Heather Dougherty, came as Facebook enjoyed a massive 185% increase in visits in the same period, compared to the same week in 2009.
By comparison, visits to search engine home Google.com increased only 9% in the same time -- although the tracker does not include Google property sites such as the popular Gmail email service, YouTube and Google Maps.
Taken together, Facebook.com and Google.com amounted to 14% of the entire U.S. Internet visits last week, Dougherty said.
Google has been positioning challenges in recent months to Facebook and the micro-blogging site Twitter by adding the social-networking feature Buzz to its Gmail service.
In what could signal an escalating battle between Facebook and Google, the leading social-networking service celebrated its sixth birthday earlier this year with changes including a new message inbox that echoes Gmail's format.
Facebook boasts some 400 million users while Gmail had 176 million unique visitors in December, according to tracking firm comScore.
Ah yes, when it comes to Facebook, it's fun to update your status, isn't it? Yeah, I know Huy Dang likes to update with everything that is on his mind, including some pretty funny crap that doesn't make any sense, such as "Huy Dang is currently headed to school in style on a 2008 New Flyer D40LFR."
Well, when you're in the army, would you reveal your plans to your enemies? Well, what's what happened on Facebook, and it's kind of funny.
The Israeli military called off a raid in Palestinian territory after a soldier posted details, including the time and place, on social networking website Facebook, Israel's Army Radio reported on Wednesday.
The soldier, who has since been relieved of combat duty, described in a status update how his unit planned a "clean-up" arrest raid in a West Bank area, the radio station said. Facebook friends then reported him to military authorities.
The Israeli military spokesman's office had no immediate comment.
Israel says raids in the West Bank are aimed at detaining militants suspected of planning attacks on Israelis. Palestinian officials say the incursions undermine efforts by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority to enforce law and order in the territory.
A couple of teachers that were engaging in some interesting misconduct recently have been suspended after they were caught on video. And of course, the video went viral.
The video in question, which was taken last Wednesday during a busy pep rally for students in grades 9 to 12 at Churchill High School in Winnipeg, shows students giggling, gasping and screaming as female teacher receives a strip club-style lap dance from a male teacher.
By Thursday afternoon, students were spreading a minute-long video of the dance amongst each other on Facebook... and by Tuesday afternoon, clips from the video were aired on the CBC.
The minute-long clip, which looks like it was recorded on a cellular phone, shows the male teacher bobbing his head near the female teacher's genitals, and grinding his rear end against her crotch.
The teachers, who are said to be relatively new teachers, were sent home with pay after a parent complained about the video, said Winnipeg School Division trustee Michael Babinsky.
Damn teachers and their strip-club-style lap dances...
Canada's privacy watchdog on Wednesday announced another investigation into Facebook after fielding a fresh complaint about a new tool launched on the popular social-networking website.
The probe comes on the heels of a sweeping investigation last year, in which Canada's privacy commissioner asked Facebook to change a number of policies and practices to comply with the country's private-sector privacy law. Facebook agreed to make changes, but the California-based company is now once again on the radar of Canada's privacy commissioner.
The new investigation will focus on a tool introduced last month, requiring users to review their privacy settings. The complainant alleges that the new default settings would have made a user's information more readily available than the settings the user previously had put into place.
"The individual's complaint mirrors some of the concerns that our office has heard and expressed to Facebook in recent months," said Elizabeth Denham, the assistant privacy commissioner who spearheaded the original investigation that spanned a year and who will also lead the second probe. "Some Facebook users are disappointed by certain changes being made to the site -- changes that were supposed to strengthen their privacy and the protection of their personal information."
Last July, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart released the findings of an in-depth examination of privacy issues raised by site, which now claims 350 million users worldwide, including about 13 million Canadians. Key concerns relate to Facebook's transparency and clarity, including the need to better explain how it handles the personal information and how it shares personal information with third-party developers that create applications, such as games and quizzes, for the social-networking site.
The report also recommended that Facebook provide users with increased control over their personal information. The following month, Facebook agreed to modify its site within one year to address the commissioner's concerns.
Since then, however, "changes to the site's privacy information, settings and tools have sparked criticism from users who feel that personal information posted to the site is, in some instances, even more exposed now than before," according to the commissioner.
Darren Meister, a professor of information systems at the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business, said Facebook is "just the next big company that's walking into this problem."
The value to a company of being involved in a social-networking space is in being able to target ads toward specific users, said Meister.
"They're providing a free service to the users, and what they need to pay for that service is the ability to target ads. And as they continue to innovate this service, we have this evolving social contract: What information do I allow to be public and what is private? People keep asking, 'Where's that line?'"
In a statement, Facebook said last month's rollout was both transparent and within the bounds of Canada's private-sector privacy law.
"We have not seen the complaint but we are confident that the transition process begun more than a month ago was transparent, consistent with user expectations, and within the law. Specifically, the announcement and education campaign by Facebook around the changes was unprecedented in its scope and included a detailed preview of the changes and flows with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner."
Further, "any recommended changes to a user's privacy settings were clearly shown to the user repeatedly and were not implemented until the user accepted these changes. In addition, users were required to review the final settings after any changes and pointed to where they could reverse or further customize their settings," Facebook said in a statement.
Only a tiny fraction of Canadians who flock to social networking sites actually trust the operators to keep their personal information private and secure, a government-sponsored survey has found. The newly released results found that only 6% trust the sites, compared with 79% of Canadians who don't trust them at all. Meanwhile, 15% said they were neutral on the question.
Along with an overwhelming lack of trust in social networking sites, the survey, commissioned by Natural Resources Canada to gauge the public mood about privacy and geo-special information, also found a very tepid response to street-view images of private homes, such as Google Street View.
When asked if these images should be allowed in Canada, only 26% agreed compared to 36% who said they should not be allowed; 36% were neutral on the subject.
Meanwhile, a strong majority -- 74% -- think it's important for the federal government to regulate images of private residences appearing on Internet mapping tools.
The online survey of 2,200 Canadians was administered last fall, just before the Canadian launch of Google Street View with a company commitment to blur all faces that were captured in the images.
The survey was also completed after Facebook announced new safeguards to protect the privacy of users in response to demands from Canada's privacy commissioner.
"What I think this shows is that people aren't really buying the assurances that (private) sector companies are giving them and taking them with a grain of salt," said Avner Levin.
The director of the privacy and cyber crime institute at Ryerson University's Ted Rogers School of Management in Toronto cited media reports of hacked celebrity Twitter accounts and Facebook scams.
"People see that and say, 'Sure they're reassuring me that my information will be safe and secure, but I don't have a sense from reading the news,' " said Levin.
However, Levin said that the disconnect between people's attitudes and their behaviour offers some good news for site operators and online businesses.
Since 2008, comScore Inc., a marketing firm specializing in measuring the digital world, has named Canada as the #1 nation in the world in social networking adoption.
Google Canada, meanwhile, reported that global traffic doubled on the day the company launched Street View in Canada last October; and, before the launch, Canadians viewed more than 150 million street view images in other countries in the first nine months of 2009.
"What we see with personal information is a lot people are concerned about their personal information and how it's protected, but it doesn't translate into some kind of action, like, 'I'm going to stop using this particular website or this online service,' " said Levin.
The survey also found that trust in the private sector to protect personal information is low. Only 18% said they trusted large corporations to keep their personal information secure, compared to 15% for small businesses.
Trust was highest among medical institutions and government departments, but the levels were hardly impressive.
Meanwhile, 58% said they trusted medical institutions to keep their personal information private and secure, compared to 46% for provincial and federal governments.
Meanwhile, more than half of the respondents said they had experienced a violation of personal information or privacy. However, this had little impact on the overall level of concern about the privacy of their personal information; it ranged from 80 to 85% for all respondents, even if they had not experienced a violation.
The polling firm Phase 5 Consulting Group Inc. weighted the data from the online poll to reflect national statistics by region, age and gender.
As well, the firm conducted a telephone survey of 550 Canadians to validate the online results, with a margin of error of 4%, 19 times out of 20.
Canwest Global Communications Corporation has been searching for three months for an investor willing to put $65 million into its company, which is currently under court protection from creditors.
The investment would be part of a deal to rearrange the company's debt and allow it to emerge from court supervision.
The report by the Globe and Mail says that Canwest's financial advisers at RBC Dominion Securities last week identified Corus Entertainment, Shaw Communications, Fairfax Financial Holdings and Jim Pattison Group as potential bidders and are now trying to get the best possible terms from them.
RBC Dominion is also running a separate auction of Canwest's newspaper holdings, which are held in a different subsidiary, and are also under creditor protection.
Canadians are getting crazier every day as they play 'FarmVille,' which is an online simulation game that draws in 74 million users around the world every day, making it the most popular game among Facebook's 350 million users.
In the game, players manage a virtual farm by planting, growing, harvesting virtual crops, trees and livestock.
"It's very addictive," said Toronto television producer Robert Prowse, 59, who says he spends about half an hour a day on the game. "It was my sister-in-law in Calgary who got me playing, because everybody's looking for neighbours. In order to get points and expand your farm and things like that you have to find other players."
Players can buy everything they need for their farm, including seeds, trees, animals, buildings and more land, with currency called "coins." Players can earn coins by selling crops or accumulating cash at a rate of $1 per experience level. For those who like to cheat and don't like to earn their coins and cash in the virtual world, real-world credits cards can be used to buy them from the developer, Zynga, which gets most of its corporate revenue from the sale of virtual goods.
The latest scams by cyber-criminals are taking advantage of the public's tendency to help out friends and family in trouble, which is complicated by the public's naive trust in the safety of social networking, according to security experts.
An annual security report by Cisco Systems, Inc. reports that social networks have become a "playground for cyber criminals."
The report says that members of these sites (Facebook, MySpace, etc.) trust other members of the site too much, and don't take the time to protect themselves from viruses and malicious computer software.
"There is an excess of trust in social networking," said Henry Stern, senior security researcher for Cisco in Canada.
Social media "exploded" in 2009 with Facebook alone seeing 350 million users this year. The report indicated that social media will continue to grow in 2010, as businesses start to realize the value of engaging with the social media.
The number of people receiving employment insurance benefits declined in October, continuing a downward trend that began in July, according to Statistics Canada.
Regular EI beneficiaries were down 0.5% from September 809,600, according to Statistics Canada. But, still, beneficiaries were up 61.8% from last year.
Well, that's sort of a kick-ass development, right?
Facebook's revamped privacy settings will push more user data onto the Internet and, in some cases, make privacy protection harder for Facebook users, digital civil liberties experts said.
While acknowledging that many of the changes unveiled Wednesday will be good for privacy, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Attorney Kevin Bankston said the social-networking giant is also removing some important privacy controls that it should have kept.
"I think you're better off in some ways and worse off in some ways," he said. "It's really a mixed bag."
Ari Schwartz, chief operating officer of the Centre for Democracy and Technology, offered a similarly mixed review. According to him, giving people more control over who sees their individual posts is a good thing, but the new default privacy settings will push a lot more information into the public realm. That "actually has a negative effect on privacy," he said.
Bankston was more forthright in an EFF blog post.
"Our conclusion? These new 'privacy' changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before," Bankston wrote. "Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data."
Facebook began rolling out its new privacy settings Wednesday, responding to critics who had said the existing system was needlessly complex and frequently ineffective. By simplifying the way privacy is set up, Facebook says it will improve its users' privacy.
"Numerous settings and complicated options can make it harder for people to make informed decisions about their privacy or about the Facebook experience they want," said Elliot Schrage, Facebook's vice president of communications, public policy and marketing, in a press conference.
To date, between 15 and 20% of Facebook's 350 million users take the time to adjust their privacy settings. But with the changes unveiled Wednesday, all users will have to go through a privacy configuration wizard to set their preferences.
Users who had not previously selected their own privacy settings, and who now go with Facebook's default settings, will be publishing their status messages and wall posts to everyone on the Internet. That will mark a change for most users because until now, Facebook's default settings restricted this material to friends and people within a person's network.
The change will be most noticeable to people who used the default settings in the past and decide to stick with Facebook's new defaults, Schwartz said. "If you haven't set your settings in the past, you'll probably be surprised by what happens," he said. "You'll probably show up in Google."
The EFF's Bankston said some information that could previously be kept from the public -- profile pictures, for example -- will now be publicly available no matter what. Facebook does give users the option of removing this type of information from search engines, however, making it harder for someone who is not connected to a user to view it.
Facebook has also eliminated a privacy option that blocked personal information from being shared via the Facebook API (application program interface).
"This is perhaps one of the biggest problems," Bankston said. "Without using any apps at all, your information will be shared with hundreds if not thousands of Facebook application developers by virtue of your friends choosing to use apps," he said.
Facebook is ditching this option because it was not widely used, and contributed to the complexity problem Facebook is trying to tackle, a company spokesman said. "The controls had become too complex," he said. "People were not exercising control because they were overwhelmed by the choices."
Approximately 350,000 people presently block the Facebook API from accessing their data, he added. That's just 0.1% of Facebook users.
A large part of Facebook's problem stems from the company's decision to remove networks, which in some cases had grown too large to be meaningful. However, Schwartz said, they did give users a way to post information without sharing it with the world at large.
Now the world at large is going to get a much better look at Facebook than ever before.
Students studying economic forecasting at the University of Saskatchewan expect holiday spending to meet historic highs this month. Professor Eric Howe's Economics 307 class has forecast December spending in the province to reach $1.15 billion, the same level it reached in December 2007 when spending in the province hit an all-time high.
"I think their forecast is bang-on," Howe said about his students' work. "I do my own forecast of retail sales and the average (of) their forecasts is very similar to my forecast... so now it will be really interesting to see if their forecast is more accurate than mine."
As part of Howe's Economics 307 class, a third-year undergraduate course, students individually forecast monthly Saskatchewan retail sales as their final assignment for the term. Using forecasts from the 25 students who wrote the final assignment, the economics professor calculated the average forecast for December.
Howe said his students' average forecast continues a trend that has seen a rise every year in December retail sales in Saskatchewan. With the exception of 2007, an anomaly year, a graph of December spending during the past five years would show a steady increase in expenditures.
"We're basically returning back to trend, but the trend is now up enough that we're equalling 2007, equalling the previous record," he said.
The retail sales forecast of $1.15 billion in the province this month is 4.5% higher than December 2008's retail sales of $1.1 billion, said Howe. The increase, he explained, will make a real difference in retailers' cash registers.
"I think it's good news for retail sellers, getting a year-over-year increase of four per cent. In real terms, with inflation, their nominal sales will be up more than that," he said. "That's a pretty good increase."
Howe said retailers can expect to make 9.6% of their annual sales this month, which is a return to a normal state. Data shows December sales accounted for an average of 9.8% of retailers' annual sales during the past decade. The December sales percentage, which was 10.4% in 1992, is slowly dropping due to the increasing secularization of Canadian society and the increasing religious diversity in the country leading to a decrease in the importance of Christmas, Howe explained.
Monthly retail sales include all spending in the province during the time period. For December, Howe said, that means spending on everyday items such as groceries and gasoline are included with spending on presents and other holiday items. Howe's students, meanwhile, will have to wait until the new year to see how close their forecasts were to actual spending. When Statistics Canada releases its December retail spending figures in the early months of 2010, Howe will give the 10 students whose forecasts were closest to the actual figure bonus marks toward their final grade.
Until then, the students will be keeping their eyes on Saskatoon shoppers.
"So we all have to go out and buy nice presents for each other," Howe said.
Canadians are the top users of social networking sites in the world, according to a new survey.
A Forrester Research report released Thursday showed four out of five online Canadians use social media and almost 57% participate in social networks at least once a month, making them the most active social networkers of any market regularly surveyed by Forrester.
"I can't imagine a marketer who would ignore something that this many Canadians are using," said Nate Elliott, principle analyst at Forrester and author of the report. "If you are not participating in social media right now as a marketer, then you are late."
Americans are the next most active social networkers behind Canadians at 51% with the United Kingdom coming third at 38%.
If you add in all social media, from those who simply peruse blogs or watch YouTube videos all the way up to content creators, the number of Canadians using social media climbs to almost 80%.
Facebook is the most popular social network in Canada, with almost 10 times as many weekly visitors as MySpace.
And social media is cutting across all generations. Not surprisingly, almost every online member of Generation Y -- generally those between the ages of 18 and 29 -- uses social technologies and they are more likely to be contributors to social media, while 85% of Generation X, between 30 and 45, uses social technologies. However, boomers and seniors aren't left out, as 8% of online seniors are considered creators in social media.
Elliott's report found Canada is home to more people who regularly use social networks than any of the twelve countries Forrester regularly surveys.
The statistics come from Forrester's North American Technographics Financial Services, Media and Marketing Online Survey, polling 5,886 Canadians aged 18 to 88 in August and September.
The survey is accurate plus or minus 1.3% 19 times out of 20.
Facebook announced last night that it has adopted its new proposed privacy policy, which it revamped to fulfil its commitment to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to update the policy to make it more accessible and easier to understand.
Last month, the popular social-networking website opened up its proposed changes to comments, followed by a possible vote by users. But by the November 5 deadline, fewer than 7,000 comments had been submitted, which was the threshold which makes a vote necessary according to the site's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.
"Because of this -- and the fact that many of the comments were positive -- we've decided to adopt the revised policy," said Michael Richter, Facebook's deputy general counsel for intellectual property, product and regulatory affairs.
In August, problems outlined by Canada's privacy commissioner forced the California-based company to change the way it handled the personal information of its 300 million users.
A testament to how popular social networking has become, Oxford American Dictionary has picked the word "unfriend" as word of the year.
According to the dictionary, "unfriend" is a verb that means "to remove someone as a friend on a social networking site such as Facebook."
"It has both currency and potential longevity," said Christine Lindberg, a senior lexicographer with the dictionary on Monday. "In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year... unfriend has real lex-appeal."
Challengers for the word of the year included the Twitter term, "hashtag;" netbook, "sexting" and "tramp stamp."
Back in February, Facebook introduced the "Like" feature on people's statuses, and eventually was extended to most posts, as status updates became posts as well. Then, the posts people made on your Wall had the "Like" feature as well.
Well, there are now Mozilla Firefox extensions that add a "dislike" button to Facebook, letting users who have it installed mark things they don't like.
Sadly, the people whose status updates you don't like won't be able to see the "dislike," unless they have the plug-in installed.
There are actually two options. The one that doesn't notify the actual user, and one that does. Now that would be evil...
I had a feeling that this would happen, and I'm glad I was sort of right.
Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition, Michael Ignatieff said that his party will no longer seek to take down the Conservative government, suggesting that the Conservative government will stay in power until at least next spring's federal budget.
"We've said clearly we won't support the government but, at the same time, we won't try to defeat the government each time," Ignatieff told reporters yesterday after making an appearance at a day care in Ottawa.
Earlier this month, the Conservative government stayed in power after Mr. Ignatieff's Liberal party failed to take the government down.
On Tuesday, Mr. Ignatieff would not commit to tabling another motion of non-confidence the next time the party has the opportunity.
The U.S. Secret Service is currently trying to identify the people who launched an online poll on Facebook recently that basically asks: "Should Barack Obama be killed?"
Facebook shut down the user-generated poll yesterday, which was titled "Should Obama be killed?" and offered choices of yes, no, maybe and "if he cuts my health care."
"Once we found out about it, we worked with Facebook to have it removed," Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley told AFP.
"We are certainly investigating; just like we would with any threat case."
More than 750 Facebook users had reportedly cast votes by the time the poll was yanked from the wildly-popular online social networking website.
"This is sick and sad," a Facebook user with the screen name Cocoa Fly said in a posting as the poll fueled passionate online exchanges at the website. "All of this anti-Obama rage is pure racism."
The poll was created over the weekend using a third-party application that lets users conduct their own surveys, according to Facebook Barry Schnitt.
"People were usually doing trivial polls like asking friends where they should go for dinner or what they thought of a certain movie," Schnitt said of the application. "Then there was the offensive one created by an individual user."
Facebook was forced to shut down the application to get rid of the poll since surveys using the application were controlled by the outside developer, and will remain disabled until the developer assures Facebook that the controversial survey has been removed and there are policies and procedures for handling such concerns in the future, according to Schnitt.
There is a Conservative Prime Minister out there who has launched a stirring defence of universal health care, and lauded U.S. President Barack Obama in his "bare-knuckle" political battle to extend benefits to all Americans.
And no, it's not Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It's actually Brian Mulroney.
Brian Mulroney used a speech to 700 Conservative supporters in Montreal to wade where Prime Minister Stephen Harper has steadfastly refused to venture: the bitter U.S. debate over health reform.
The former Prime Minister drew parellels between Obama's uphill fight to reform health care to his own struggles as Prime Minister, which may have cost him popularity, but benefitted the country.
"Political capital is acquired to spend in great causes for one's country," Mulroney said Thursday. "Prime Ministers are not chosen to seek popularity. They are chosen to provide leadership... President Obama is fighting for a form of universal health care and is encountering ferocious resistance.
"The attacks on President Obama are often bitter and mean-spirited and his approval ratings are sinking like a stone. Still, he fights on..."
"Fifty years from today, Americans will revere the name, 'Obama.'"
Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned Thursday night against having no "exit" strategy from high government deficit and debt levels, delivering his message to a U.S. business audience already that is currently "jittery" about the U.S. government's spending. Arriving in New York after meeting earlier Thursday with U.S. Congressional leaders in Washington, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that "stimulus measures" continued to be necessary as long as the recovery from recession appeared "fragile."
He also repeated calls he made on Capitol Hill and when he met U.S. President Barack Obama Wednesday for the United States to guard against trade protectionism, which Canada sees in so-called "Buy America" provisions of the U.S. economic stimulus package and other legislation. However, he signalled that a failure of the U.S. government to move toward balancing its books could stifle longer-term economic expansion.
"There must be plans put in place to exit from high levels of government deficits and debt so that capital investment in the private sector is not eventually crowded out," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said.
Speaking at New York's Grand Hyatt Hotel, Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressed a blue-ribbon gathering of the Washington-based Canadian American Business Council, which bills itself as the "voice of business in the world's most prosperous relationship."
At the Hyatt, Prime Minister Stephen Harper also called for continued focus on international efforts to fix the financial sector, whose troubles almost provoked a global economic meltdown last year. Looking ahead to next week's summit in Pittsburgh of the G20 leading developed and developing economies, he called for an "international peer review" mechanism to monitor countries' national financial rules and regulations.
"We cannot repeat the mistakes that almost created a financial collapse worldwide," he said.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressed perennial U.S. concern about international intrusion in its affairs by insisting his proposals fell far short of calling for "world government." But he said there has to be a "shift in mentality" south of the border to take account of the global nature of the economy today.
"All the big players have to understand that... a dynamic market economy does require governance," he said. "We have to have the countries of the world come together and look at the problems together and look at the global economy as a system."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's earlier Capitol Hill visit in Washington was rare for a Canadian Prime Minister. He pressed Canada's case for an exemption to "Buy American" provisions, contained most notably in the $787 billion U.S. economic stimulus bill. Canada and the United States have appointed negotiators to explore the possibility of an agreement that would give U.S. companies access to provincial and municipal contracts in Canada, in exchange for opening state and local contracts to Canadian firms. On his visit, Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with Senate majority leader Harry Reid and his Republican counterpart, Senator Mitch McConnell, before a separate session later with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner, the Republican minority leader.
"The discussion focused on our integrated economies, where the Prime Minister took the opportunity to raise the continued importance to fight protectionism by promoting open and free trade," Prime Minister Stephen Harper's spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, said following the Senate meeting. "The Prime Minister reiterated Canada's proposal on the issue of the Buy America clause and expressed the importance of the role that the American Senate can play in supporting a resolution."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's visit to the U.S. Capitol was part of a push to take Canada's concerns over Buy American provisions directly to their place of origin in Congress. But for all of the sharp criticism from Ottawa recently about rising U.S. protectionism, Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not voice them in public while on Capitol Hill. The Prime Minister, Pelosi and Boehner refused to take questions from reporters during a five-minute photo opportunity outside the Speaker's office. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper did make one error in protocol, mistakenly referring to Boehner as the House majority leader, in English and French remarks.
Pelosi did not try to correct the Prime Minister, and made no reference to bilateral trade irritants during her own brief remarks.
"Canada and the United States are, as we know, the closest of friends, and we value that friendship enormously in the Congress of the United States," Pelosi said. "We know they are our biggest trading partners, they are our very close neighbours, and our very good friends."
The Conservative government survived its first confidence test of the fall session today - putting off an election threat, as the House of Commons passed a budget motion that ratified the popular Home Renovation Tax Credit. The motion allows the government to implement the Home Renovation Tax Credit, which was introduced in the January federal budget.
The credit, projected to cost $3 billion over two years, enables Canadians to receive a refund of as much as $1,350 when renovating their homes or cottages. The credit covers work done, such as overhauling kitchens or installing new carpets, or supplies bought between January 27, 2009 and February 1, 2010. The Canada Revenue Agency has been administering the program on the assumption the credit has already passed into law.
But the credit has never been approved by Parliament, because it was not included in the budget implementation bill that passed in March. The motion also allows the Government of Canada to enhance benefits under a tax credit for low-income workers, extend tax deferrals for farmers affected by drought, and relax certain tariffs. The prospect of a fall election has subsided in recent days, but the Conservatives aren't out of the woods yet.
The government is expected to table a "report card" on its stimulus package on September 28, and the Liberals plan to table a non-confidence motion within days. The NDP has pledged to support the Conservative government so it can pass legislation that will expand employment insurance benefits for long-tenured workers. But the New Democrats said Thursday they would like to see some changes to the bill before it passes.
Canada's privacy commissioner announced a deal with Facebook today to beef up privacy protocols on the social networking website to curtail the personal information shared with outside companies.
"This morning I am very pleased to tell you that following further discussions with Facebook, the company has now agreed to make several changes which address the issues uncovered during our investigation," said Jennifer Stoddart.
"We're satisfied that with these changes Facebook is on the way to meeting the requirements of Canada's privacy law. The privacy of people using this site, not only in Canada but around the world, will be far better protected," she added.
Stoddart ruled last month that some Facebook practices contravened Canada's private-sector privacy act, including the way Facebook shared personal information with companies that operated third-party applications on its site. In order to download popular games and quizzes, Facebook users had to consent to share all their personal information, except their contract details. There are a million of these companies and they operate in 180 countries.
Stoddart gave Facebook 30 days to come up with a plan to address her concerns or face court action by Monday, requiring it to change its business practices to comply with Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.
As of today, she released legally binding undertakings to which the California-based company has agreed to avoid court action. Such a court proceeding over a privacy feud would have been an international first for Facebook, which has grown to more than 200 million users since its launch in 2004.
"This is hugely significant. Facebook has 12 million users in Canada alone -- that is about a third of our population," Stoddart said. "All of those users will have a far clearer picture of how their personal information is being shared once Facebook implements our recommendations. They will also have far more control about what they are sharing and with whom."
The privacy probe began last year, when the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa filed an 11-part complaint, alleging that Facebook violated key provisions of Canada's private-sector privacy law.
In addition to the concerns over third-party applications, Stoddart also ruled that Facebook's policy to indefinitely keep the personal information of people who had deactivated their accounts was contrary to the privacy act. Stoddart said it will take a year for Facebook to make changes to the third-party applications. If the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic are not satisfied with the undertakings or Facebook's carry-through on its commitments, it could file another complaint or initiate court proceedings.
"We will reserve the option to do that," said lawyer Tamir Israel. "We'll see how Facebook responds."
Facebook has moved to satisfy the requirements Canada's Privacy Commissioner, amending some policies and answering complaints about the availability of its users' personal information. The social networking site was preparing yesterday to file its response to the commissioner's finding last month that it violates Canada's privacy law. Facebook had a deadline of yesterday to comply with the commissioner's recommendations.
Tamir Israel, staff lawyer at the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, which made the initial complaint, expected Facebook to file a legal undertaking binding it to implement its proposals over a given timeline. Whether Facebook's plan meets the commissioner's standards is unknown; the response is under wraps, and the commissioner will take up to two weeks to review it.
"We will make the outcomes of our discussions public," said Anne-Marie Hayden, the Privacy Commissioner's spokeswoman.
Within the past month, the commission's staff have visited Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, California, to get in-person demonstrations of the site's technology.
"There's been a fair bit of negotiation behind the scenes," said privacy lawyer David Fraser. Discussions began more than a year ago, when the complaint was filed.
At greatest issue are the Facebook tools such as SuperPoke, FarmVille and Causes that allow users to play games with each other, or rally each other around a political position. These programs, created by outside software developers, are key to Facebook and its revenue model because they "increase engagement among users, and keep them coming back," where they can be exposed to advertising, said Gartner Inc. analyst Ray Valdes.
However, the commissioner ruled last month that developers were getting more access to users' personal data than was necessary, in contravention of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and that Facebook should "implement technological measures to restrict application developers' access only to the user information essential to run a specific application."
Most users don't differentiate between Facebook and the developers who run programs on the site, Mr. Fraser said. In a statement released yesterday, Facebook said, "Many of the recommendations in their report provide an excellent opportunity to clarify and enhance our privacy practices in a way that is consistent with our company's values and our users' expectations."
Last week, Facebook made "clarifying changes and minor updates" to the site's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Several changes address developers and operators of third-party applications and websites. For example, the statement, addressing developers initially read "you will only use the data you receive for your application, and will only use it in connection with Facebook."
The amended statement reads: "You will only request data you need to operate your application."
Another proposed revision requires each developer to have its own privacy policy, or state how it will use, display, or share user data.
In a blog posting, Facebook said the new statement is still just a proposal, and has asked for feedback from site users until today. The proposed changes have received little notice in the developer community, said Mr. Valdes.
A new study has found that supposedly 40% of posts on Twitter are "pointless babble, which prompts the question: what the hell is the other 60%?
An analysis done by San Antonio, Texas, marketing research company Pear Analytics, found that about 37% of posts to the micro-blogging service were conversational and nearly 10% had "pass along value," meaning others were sharing the info. The remainder of posts were split fairly evenly among news, spam and self-promotion.
"We thought that both spam and self-promotion would be much higher," said the report. "We were also surprised how close conversational was to being in the top percentage."
"We would venture to guess that if this study were conducted for a longer period of time, conversational and pointless babble would likely trade places back and forth, and ultimately even out."
Whether or not our country is out of the woods yet when it comes to the recession is still being debated, but more and more Canadians are choosing to think positively about the economy, according to a new survey.
The survey, which was conducted by TNS Canadian Facts, shows that their Consumer Confidence Index at 99.2, which is up 6% from July, when it was 93.4.
The three subindexes that combine to track overall consumer confidence posted gains during the month, with the expectations Index seeing the greatest shift: up 8.5 points to 111.1 from 102.6 in July. The subindex tracks consumer sentiment for the economy, household income and employment in the next six months.
The present situation and buy indexes also increased during the month.
"Consumer confidence has been trending upward since it fell to an all-time low last December," Michael Antecol, director of the monthly study, said in a release Thursday. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
According to a "report card" recently issued by the Conference Board of Canada, Canada has been doing its homework but is still just shy of honour-student status, according to an economic report card released on Thursday, which shows that country the country is moving from a low "B" grade in 2008 to a high "B" in 2010.
According to the report, Norway will be #1 in 2010, as it was in 2008. Other "A" grades went to Australia, the United States and Belgium.
"The differences (in rankings between 2008 and 2010) largely reflect the policy stimuli adopted by each country and how much repair is needed to each country's financial sector and fiscal balance sheets," the board says.
Canada is currently moving up because it is better placed to weather the recession than most countries.
"The global recession is taking its toll on the country," the board notes. "Canada's economic growth and standard of living (as defined by income per capita) are forecast to fall in 2009, and unemployment will rise in 2009 and 2010."
"Yet Canada will move up six places in the economy ranking in 2010 because other countries are projected to be harder hit by the economic crisis."
Canada's ranking is based on expectations that five of the eight areas measured for the report card will improve relative to the other countries: GDP growth, unemployment rate, employment growth, and an increase in foreign direct investment both by foreign firms within the country and by domestic firms outside of it.
Facebook's friend list just got a little big bigger, as it announced that it agreed to acquire FriendFeed, which is a social networking website, founded by former Google employees in 2007. Financial terms of the agreement were not revealed.
FriendFeed is an all-purpose social network sharing site that draws information from a variety of web sources and allows users to post about everything they're doing online, from updating their Facebook status, to uploading Flickr photos and posting YouTube videos. Users can subscribe to receive updates about their friends' profiles and can send their own updates to their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
The worst of the recession may be over for Canada, but the government is not declaring any victory, yet. In addition to that, the jobless rate is expected to continue to increase, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday.
Late last month, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney said that the recession was over, but Mr. Harper and Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty have maintained a more cautious outlook.
"We think the worst is behind us. We're not declaring victory yet, to the extent that we're seeing some flattening out, (a few) signs of growth around the world," Harper told a televised news conference near Vancouver.
"Those signs are still very tentative. A lot of work has to be done," he said, repeating that governments around the world have to continue with plans to stimulate their economies. "We are still seeing significant job losses. We still anticipate we will see more job losses here and in other countries, so it's far too early to declare victory."
Thanks to the use of technology, people in Saskatchewan will one day be able to use one library card to access services in all municipal and regional libraries across the province of Saskatchewan.
The Government of Saskatchewan has provided the Saskatchewan Regional Library System with $5.2 million in financial support for the Saskatchewan Information and Library Services project, which will integrate municipal and regional library computer systems in the province over the next two years.
"Once again, Saskatchewan is displaying its pioneer spirit, endeavouring to be the first province to implement a provincewide library system, accessible by all of its residents," Saskatchewan Library Trustees Association (SLTA) president Bev Dubois said in a news release.
Newly appointed SLTA executive director Wendy Thienes said that several library regions formed a consortium to investigate how to go about setting up the computerized library network and have selected the software to put it in place. The funding now means that the project will now be able to move forward.
"Most of the libraries have already moved to computerized systems, so this is taking it one step further. Saskatchewan has always been kind of a leader in technology, so this is taking our library system to the next level," Thienes said. "Basically, under the one-province-one-card program, if you lived in Regina and you were visiting the town of Shaunavon, you could check a book out of the library here with your (Regina Public Library) card, or drop off books wherever."
Hmm... this could be interesting. What if I wanted to try to live the life of Huy Dang, who has been known to drive across town just because he likes the idea of dropping off his library materials at another branch, therefore causing grief for the Saskatoon Public Library? Or how about how he used to drive across town to visit the Real Canadian Superstore on 8th Street East here in Saskatoon? So... what if one day, I borrow stuff from a Saskatoon branch library and then decide drive to Regina to return it? Could I do that? Based on this story, I probably could.
The Government of Canada's privacy commissioner today ruled that Facebook is in violation of the country's privacy law, citing that "serious privacy gaps" are in the way that the popular social networking site treats its 12-million Canadian users.
Jennifer Stoddart launched the probe last year after the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa filed a complaint, alleging that Facebook violated 22 provisions of Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.
When you "deactivate" your Facebook account, it's not really deactivated. It just disappears from the general Facebook-using public and can easily be "reactivated" at any time by logging in the way you usually do. That currently violates Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronics Documents Act.
Stoddart said that an "overarching" concern relates to the "confusing" or "incomplete" way in which Facebook provides information to users about its privacy practices. The investigation also raises significant concerns around the sharing of users' personal information with third-party developers creating Facebook applications, such as games and quizzes. Currently, there are 950,000 developers operating in 180 countries.
"Facebook lacks adequate safeguards to effectively restrict these outside developers from accessing profile information," according to the report.
If Facebook does not change its practice and policies to come into compliance with Canada's privacy act, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner can take the California-based company's ass to court to have Stoddart's recommendations enforced.
At first, it began as a university social catalogue. But things have actually changed since then... because more middle-aged and older people are joining the social networking website.
The number of users aged 55 and older grew by 514% in the last six months alone, while the 35-54 age demographic swelled over 190% in the same time period.
However, the 18-24 demographic has eged up just 5% since January, according to iStrategyLabs' analysis of metrics that Facebook provides for advertisers.
"Facebook has reached such a mass prominence that, having heard it 10,000 times on CNN during the election and in other places, (older people) say, 'Well let me check this out,' " said Peter Corbett, CEO of iStrategyLabs, a Washington-based social marketing agency.
Corbett focused his analysis on U.S. users, but he says that the age patterns are likely similar for us here in Canada, even if the overall numbers are smaller. Corbett also found that there are now more American Facebook users aged 35-54 than there are under the age of 17, with about 5.7 million of the youngest users and seven million in the older age group. But based on numbers, the 18-24 set still kicks ass, as there are 17 million users in the United States alone.
For world leaders meeting this week in Italy, it's all about the aftershocks, literally and figuratively. Prime Minister Stephen Harper departs today (or has departed) for the unlikeliest of international summit venues: the mountainous, earthquake-ravaged city of L'Aquila, Italy. Barely three months after a major earthquake claimed about 300 lives and left 60,000 people homeless in the Abruzzo region just east of Rome, a converted military barracks in L'Aquila will house the Group of Eight industrialized leaders and a host of other invited nations this week. Even without another big seismic jolt in the next 48 hours (there were five small aftershocks Monday, following last Friday's alarming 4.1 Richter scale tremor) the summit agenda is as ragged and unstable as the terrain.
Topics range through the global economic crisis and the fallout from April's G20 economic summit in London, climate change negotiations and this December's critical UN summit in Copenhagen, stalled international aid to Africa, the contested Iranian election and international food security.
"Economic issues must be front and centre at the L'Aquila summit and leaders must focus on ways to speed recovery," Dimitri Soudas, a spokesman for Harper, said at briefing Monday in Ottawa. Soudas had just completed a three-minute pitch on Canada's superior economic position relative to other G8 members and the Conservative government's economic stimulus package, which are domestically palatable messages that the prime minister will probably talk about at the summit.
A major component of the three days of talks will indeed involve a followup to the G20 economic prescriptions agreed to in London in April - and a prelude to the next G20 meeting this autumn in Pittsburgh. Soudas said that the key "is to make sure that all these issues don't fall off the table."
From the Conservative government's perspective, a focus on the economy is much firmer ground than the summit's other big tectonic plate: post-Kyoto climate change negotiations. The Conservatives are currently working on their third climate change policy in three years. Last week, the World Wildlife Fund ranked Canada last on climate change measures among G8 countries, which include Russia, the United States, Japan, Italy, Great Britain, Germany and France.
Despite the presence in L'Aquila of some 38 national leaders representing more than 75% of global emissions, Soudas said that the G8 summit is not the primary venue for such negotiations.
"Ultimately the context in which a post-2012 climate change agreement will be reached is at a much large scale," he said.
Compare that to the heady prediction Monday of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown: "We believe 2009 is a turning point in terms of regulation, new world governance and the battle against climate change and we will get things moving together," Sarkozy said after a pre-summit meeting with Brown. Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama, attending his first G8 meeting, will lead a special session on climate change that includes non-G8 leaders from China, India, Brazil and other major developing nations.
Obama arrives in Italy with a new U.S. pledge to agree to a target of global temperatures increasing no more than 2 C, which is a goal the previous American administration strongly opposed. But three senior Canadian officials, including Soudas, could not articulate a government position on the 2 C target at Monday's briefing: "We should wait and see how the discussion goes," said one official.
However, climate change is not the only contentious issue in L'Aquila. The contested and suspect results of Iran's presidential election will also be on the table, with Canada representing one end of the range of international reaction and Russia near the other. Mr. Harper will be taking the message that "we obviously view the regime there as extremely dangerous, as a serious threat... that also has a nuclear proliferation program," said Soudas.
All such worldly discussions, of course, could be overtaken by more earthly concerns. The Italian government has contingency plans to fly the leaders by helicopter to Rome, about 100 kilometres from L'Aquila, if another major aftershock exceeds 4.1 on the Richter scale.
"There's no risk," Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told the newspaper Il Giornale. "Even if there was a quake, all the guests would be absolutely safe."
Mr. Harper plans to tour some of the devastated areas Wednesday morning, and he and his family will complete the trip with an audience with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Saturday before returning to Ottawa.
Facebook will most likely be posting billions of dollars in revenue in five years, up from about $500 million this year, according to Silicon Valley entrepreneur Mark Andreessen, who sits on Facebook's board. Andreessen told Reuters that the world's most popular online social network could pile up $1 billion in revenue this year if it pushed harder on selling advertising.
However, he added that it was more important at this stage for social sites like Facebook and Twitter to retain and grow their user base and capture market share, rather than worry too much about making lots of money right away.
"This calendar year they'll do over $500 million," Andreessen said in an interview, noting that Facebook has more than 225 million users, so revenue per user is still small. "If they pushed the throttle forward on monetization they would be doing more than a billion this year," said Andreessen, who made the cover of Time Magazine as founder of the world's first Web browser company, Netscape... which ended up stinking up the place...
Privately held Facebook, which counts venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Accel Partners, Microsoft Corp. and Russian Internet investment firm Digital Sky Technologies among its investors... has never disclosed its revenue except to say it expects 70% growth this year.
"There's every reason to expect in my view that the thing can be doing billions in revenue five years from now," Andreessen said.
Andreessen, who is starting his own venture capital fund with Netscape executive Ben Horowitz, regrets not investing in Facebook. "I probably could have if I had tried hard but I didn't," he said, recalling that he has known the founders of Facebook from the beginning.
Andreessen has invested in Twitter, the fast-growing micro-blogging site that lets users share 140-character messages known as tweets. Twitter currently makes no money, and Horowitz and Andreessen think that that is "OK" for now because the site needs to focus on increasing its number of users and improve the features it offers so that no rival can swoop in.
"They have to take the market," said Horowitz. "There is no investor in Twitter who will tell you: 'Boy, those guys are screwing up, there's no revenue yet."'
Horowitz and Andreessen point to the once-leading social network MySpace, which has fallen behind since it was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. MySpace focused too much on selling advertisements to contribute to News Corp's bottom line and not enough on developing the platform, leaving room for Facebook to come in and take market share, they said.
"If the revenue degraded the user experience then that was a very dangerous thing to do," Horowitz said.
Andreessen said it will be difficult, but not impossible, for MySpace to rebound now that Facebook has such a big following. Both he and Horowitz say they do not expect Twitter to make the same kinds of mistakes that MySpace did. Twitter was a high profile Internets start-up even before it shot into the headlines during the Iran election crisis, when the U.S. State Department called on it to reschedule planned maintenance because it considered Twitter a vital communications channel for protesters. As for Facebook, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told Reuters in May that an initial public offering was not in the cards for at least a few years. Instead, the company is allowing some shareholders to sell their shares to Digital Sky.
"Generally speaking, people who are selling their stock in Facebook now are making a mistake," Andreessen said.
Alberta is bleeding red ink at a rate never before seen in its history as the result of the plummeting energy revenues and a leading economist says that government job cuts or tax increases now appear to be a certainty.
Unless there is a major turnaround for plummeting natural gas prices, the deficit could increase by nearly $2 billion, according to the finance ministry spokesman Bart Johnson confirmed Monday in an interview.
Premier Ed Stelmach's Progressive Conservative government had already made a gloomy projection in April's provincial budget of a record $4.7 billion deficit. However, the fiscal situation has gotten much worse.
The Government of Alberta is also projecting at least five deficit budgets in a row, which will now leave Alberta with billions of new debt.
Although the youngest employees lead the pack when it comes to surfing the Internets at work, plenty of their baby boomer and senior colleagues are trolling social networking websites while they're at work. Exactly half of the "traditionalist" generation (born in 1945 or earlier) admit to visiting social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, travel reviews and YouTube on the job, a new survey reveals.
61% of boomers, commonly viewed as those born in the two decades following World War II, are doing the same, along with 73% of Gen-Xers (defined as those born between 1968 and 1980) and 81% of Gen-Ys (born between 1981 and 2000).
"There often tends to be a bias against the younger colleagues, that they're the ones who are wasting time at work online, but really the recognition is that 66 per cent of employed Canadians are visiting social networking sites at work," says Giselle Kovary, managing partner of n-gen People Performance, which commissioned the survey.
Many workplaces currently block access to social networking websites, but those aren't the only online destinationgs for employees seeking a break from the workday, Adwoa K.Buahene, cofounder of n-gen, which focuses on multi-generational workplaces.
"As one Gen-Y said to us, 'Why can't I be 15 minutes on my Facebook when I see that my baby boomer colleague is spending 15 minutes on CNN or Sportsnet?'" she says.
But, a recent study from the University of Melbourne could make bosses feel better and about their employees' online wanderings, as a researchers found that workers who engage in "workplace Internet leisure browsing" were 9% more productive than those who did not.
A pissed-off Texas homeowner has managed to get a noise citation issued against his neighbour, which happens to be an elementary school.
Cops in suburban Universal City say they had to issue the citation after Butch Armstrong complained about the noise coming from Olympia Elementary School during the school's Family Fitness Day on March 20, 2009.
Principal Terri LeBleu says the school has already built a fence, removed loudspeakers and installed noise-reducing backing on basketball goals in response to Armstrong's previous complaints.
A court date for the citation has been set for May 12, 2009.
Manitoba has become the first province in Canada to require people who encounter child pornography to report it. As of Tuesday, Manitoba made it mandatory that anyone who suspects child pornography online, in books, photographs and other audio and visual material must immediately report it, Family Services Minister Gord Mackintosh said.
"Child exploitation is already the most under-reported form of child abuse and a serious problem that has to be addressed," Mackintosh said. "This problem is even compounded by the huge growth in child pornography."
Evil social networking website Facebook expects its 200,000,000th user today, according to co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Mr. Zuckerberg, who created Facebook with two Harvard University roommates back in 2004, announced the milestone in a post on the official Facebook blog today.
"We will welcome our 200 millionth user to Facebook some time today," the 24-year-old chief executive said, describing it as a "really good start."
To celebrate the 200 millionth user, Zuckerberg said that Facebook had created a page called "Facebook for Good," for users to "share their stories about how Facebook has helped them give back to their communities, effect change or connect with a distant relative."
Right now, all the company needs to do is to figure out how to turn traffic into cash...
A reference to a banned terrorist group on the evil social networking website Facebook has landed a teen from British Columbia in court.
Inspector Paul Richards of the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team's Vancouver office says that the Facebook page was created by a youth bragging about being a member of the International Sikh Youth Foundation. The ISYF is among several banned groups under Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act.
"The ISYF has been linked with a number of violent acts, as well as other extremist groups related to Sikh extremism in India," Richards said.
The Stelmach government is facing very close scrutiny as it prepares to reveal what will be beefed up, scaled back or cut when Alberta's first deficit budget in 15 years is revealed tomorrow.
The Progressive Conservative government plans to dip into its savings to pay for programs and build infrastructure, and has warned public bodies not to expect fat funding increases.
As the once debt-free Government of Alberta settles back into the red with a forecasted $1.4 billion deficit, health and education groups will be watching closely to see how the budget affects their bottom lines.
Cyber-bullying reached Parliament Hill today after a Liberal MP introduced legislation that would make it a crime to badger a victim online.
The proposed private member's bill, which has the back of the Canadian Teachers' Federation, comes at a time when Interweb bullying is becoming increasingly prevalent through text messages, online chat rooms, blogs and websites on the Internets such as YouTube and Facebook.
If passed, Hedy Fry's bill would amend the Criminal Code to specifically include cyber-bullying in three existing provisions that outlaw harassment, defamatory libel, and spreading false messages through telecommunications.
The Canadian Teachers' Federation has lobbied for changes to the law, adopting a policy last year that supports cyber-bullying a Criminal Code offence.
As stupid as this stuff sounds, you can rest assured that this bill has a very unlikely chance of passing. Well, since it comes from the opposition, it has little chance of becoming law any time soon. First, there is a lengthy queue for private member's bills to reach the Commons floor for debate and Fry's initiative is far down that list.
Down in America, a lot of cities have carpool lanes. That means... if there are two or more people in a car, the driver of that car is allowed to use the carpool lane.
Well, some crazy bastard was caught in Washington state... doing just that.
A commuter who put a homemade dummy in the passenger seat to sneak into the carpool lane in Washington state and was caught near Seattle. But, the reasons cops pulled him over wasn't because of the dummy. It was because of the dangling belt buckle on the passenger side, which made the cop think there was a seat belt violation.
The commuter received a $124 ticket, and lost his dummy.
You know what I love to eat? Chicken McNuggets from McDonald's. Yeah... I love them.
Well, cops in Florida say a woman called 911 three times after McDonald's employees told her that they were out of Chicken McNuggets.
According to a police report, 27-year-old Fort Pierce, Florida resident Latreasa L. Goodman told cops she paid for a ten-piece last week, but was later informed that the restaurant had run out. She claims that she was refused a refund and told all sales were final.
A cashier apparently offered a larger portion of different food for the same price, but Goodman was pissed.
Earlier today, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall announced that the Government of Canada and Government of Saskatchewan will accelerate the twinning of Highway 11 between Saskatoon and Prince Albert.
"This massive building project will create hundreds of construction jobs in communities between Saskatoon and Prince Albert," said Prime Minister Stephen Harper. "A twinned Highway 11 will also open up new opportunities for local businesses by expanding access to Saskatchewan's growing resource industries."
I now start to wonder... is Premier Brad Wall done complaining about the federal budget, yet? We don't know yet... do we?
"I'd like to thank the Prime Minister for today's announcement and we recognize that without federal assistance, it would have taken much longer to complete the work we have started," said Premier Brad Wall.
Here is an interesting excerpt from a news release from the Office of the Prime Minister:
Highway 11 serves as a critical corridor to the province's resource-rich north and the twinning project will support significant mineral and timber resource development, manufacturing and touring growth in the region. The proposed improvements will provide for increased capacity, reduced logistics costs and improved access for local industries and families.
Both the Government of Saskatchewan and the Government of Canada are contributing $62 million to accelerate this project and move the completion date from 2016 to 2012.
Chika, chika, yeah! This doesn't really affect me... but it's still good news.
A while ago, Microsoft recently laid off tons of workers. And even more recently, the company realized it paid some of their laid-off employees way too much money, and asked them to return the overpayments. After a little re-consideration, they decided to say, "You can keep the money."
Due to intensive media coverage, the company decided to give the money back.
If you were one of these employees, would you give them their money back?
According to the website Compete.com, Facebook is the most kick-ass social networking website, saying that it racked up 1.2 billion visits in January.
The Interweb-tracking firm released social-networking website rankings that show MySpace slipped to second place during the course of the peast year micro-blogging service Twitter magically became third, from 22nd.
MySpace saw about 810,000,000 visits in January, while Twitter visited 54.2 million times.
Right now, if cops want to bust your ass by using your IP address, your ISP will most likely require a court warrant before they release your information.
Well, soon, that may change. Check this out:
Justice Lynne Leitch found there is "no reasonable expectation of privacy" in subscriber information kept by Internet Service Providers, in a decision issued earlier this week.
"There is no confidentiality left on the Internet if this ruling stands," said James Stribopoulos, a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto.
This is going to be bad. Canada's privacy commissioner also warned yesterday that the Conservative government's plans to revive legislation that would force ISPs to allow police to intercept Internet-based televisions "is a serious step forward toward mass surveillance" that violates the privacy of Canadians.
Basically, if you make a threat or do anything illegal, your ISP will be forced to hand over your name to the authorities, should they request it.
But, don't worry about it right now... as the law/bill has not been passed. Once that happens, we're fucked.
Recently, a 39-year-old dude in Britain decided to end his six-year marriage by announcing that he was divorced on Facebook, a court heard today.
Emma Brady only found out about her ex-husband's intentions when he changed his relationship status on Facebook to ""Neil Brady has ended his marriage to Emma Brady."
The mother of one child, who works as a conference organizer, said that she was "shocked" by her husband's decision despite that their marriage had its "ups and downs."
Now, as for Neil Brady, the husband... he's a douche. He actually abused her. That bastard!
Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano are mobsters that were jailed last month. They were "godfathers." Well, Riina was jailed last month. The other guy was jailed in 2006. Both are serving multiple life sentences.
After the jailing of those two creeps, Facebook pages glorifying the two jailed former godfathers sparked outrage among the victims of Mafia crimes and politicians.
"At first I was disturbed by the content of these 'groups'," said Rita Borsellino, sister of Paolo Borsellino, the anti-Mafia judge who was killed by the Cosa Nostra in 1992.
"I thought I would close down my Facebook page in protest, and then I realized it would be important to keep it as a tool for getting rid of these people," she told the Associated Free Press.
The Facebook sites celebrated the creeps as "men of honour."
That's a damn shame. But, the good thing is, these "fans" of these so-called "men of honour" are now of Facebook. But, that doesn't necessarily change their beliefs.
Recently, Facebook decided it just wasn't into photos of mothers' bosoms -- or anybody else's for that matter -- and started removing photos that it deemed exposed too much of a mother's breast.
This sparked an online petition called "Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!" which has garnered over 80,000 names with over 10,000 comments thus far. It has picked up lots of momentum since protesters organized what they call a virtual "nurse-in" (what a horrible pun) on Facebook, with some protestors even holding a small demonstration outside Facebook HQ in Palo Alto, California.
Well, to quote Shakespeare, "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Mess with the bull and you may get the horns, but mess with a woman's exhibitionistic nature and deny her right to show everybody how awesome it is to have a babe suckling her glands and you get an Internet shit-storm.
Facebook says while it has no issue with most breastfeeding photos per se, photos that contain a "fully exposed breast (showing the nipple or areola)" violate the site's terms of use. Photos that show 'too much' are removed.
Oh and how I love decries of how and what these mothers find offensive about the photo removal: "I find it offensive that (Facebook) can remove my photo but not the close up picture of a thonged backside I (have) seen on a friend's page or remove the 'what kama sutra position are you?' quiz application."
The mom makes a good point, certainly. No one is forcing a Facebook user to go to mom's profile to view these boob shots, or any other photo that someone else would deem 'offensive.'
However, I find it curious, especially with newfound parents who love to advertise and shove down other people's throats the joys of parenthood. Be it at a restaurant, at the beach, on Facebook... just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
The toy maker Hasbro has dropped its copyright and trademark lawsuit against the creators of the popular online word game, Scrabulous.
Based on the board game Scrabble, it was created by two brothers from Calcutta, India, Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla in 2005 because there weren't any online versions they liked.
Scrabulous gained much notoriety when its creators turned it into a Facebook application. At its height, the game has an astounding 500,000 users daily, but the application was removed when Hasbro filed the lawsuit last summer.
Hasbro owns the North American rights to Scrabble. It requested that Facebook block Scrabulous in the US, as well as Canada. Facebook obliged and the game was removed.
Electronic Arts then launched an official Scrabble game on Facebook having garnered a licensing deal with Hasbro, but that version only gets 8,900 players daily.
That's when Hasbro sued the brothers, citing violation of its copyright and trademarks.
Then Mattel Inc., another Scrabble rights owners (outside of North America) got on the bandwagon and formally requested that Facebook scrape Scrabulous off. When the developers of Scrabulous didn't budge, well... Mattel filed their own lawsuit.
After all that kick-ass controversy, Scrabulous was officially suspended as of September 2008 and relaunched as Lexulous.com.
What in good gravy did we all do before the Internet? Can anyone remember? Well, old people had sex... and the thought of that is just creepy, and scary.
A recent survey of 2,119 adult Internet users from Intel has some very eye popping results.
46% of women are more likely to forego sex for two weeks than lose Internet access for the same amount of time!
95% of all surveyed said it was "somewhat" essential to have some sort of way to get online. 65% said they couldn't live without the Internet.
The Internet reigns supreme over other luxuries according to the Intel survey: cable TV, going out to eat, shopping, and gym membership.
I'll add having a pet and knocking out visiting my dad as often onto my list.
Social-networking star Facebook surpassed Google to become the most visited website in the United States for the first time last week, industry analysts showed.
Canadians are getting crazier every day as they play 'FarmVille,' which is an online simulation game that draws in 74 million users around the world every day, making it the most popular game among Facebook's 350 million users.
The number of people receiving employment insurance benefits declined in October, continuing a downward trend that began in July, according to Statistics Canada.
Students studying economic forecasting at the University of Saskatchewan expect holiday spending to meet historic highs this month. Professor Eric Howe's Economics 307 class has forecast December spending in the province to reach $1.15 billion, the same level it reached in December 2007 when spending in the province hit an all-time high.
A testament to how popular social networking has become, Oxford American Dictionary has picked the word "unfriend" as word of the year.
The U.S. Secret Service is currently trying to identify the people who launched an online poll on Facebook recently that basically asks: "Should Barack Obama be killed?"
A new study has found that supposedly 40% of posts on Twitter are "pointless babble, which prompts the question: what the hell is the other 60%?
According to a "report card" recently issued by the Conference Board of Canada, Canada has been doing its homework but is still just shy of honour-student status, according to an economic report card released on Thursday, which shows that country the country is moving from a low "B" grade in 2008 to a high "B" in 2010.
Facebook's friend list just got a little big bigger, as it announced that it agreed to acquire FriendFeed, which is a social networking website, founded by former Google employees in 2007. Financial terms of the agreement were not revealed.
Thanks to the use of technology, people in Saskatchewan will one day be able to use one library card to access services in all municipal and regional libraries across the province of Saskatchewan.
Alberta is bleeding red ink at a rate never before seen in its history as the result of the plummeting energy revenues and a leading economist says that government job cuts or tax increases now appear to be a certainty.
Although the youngest employees lead the pack when it comes to surfing the Internets at work, plenty of their baby boomer and senior colleagues are trolling social networking websites while they're at work. Exactly half of the "traditionalist" generation (born in 1945 or earlier) admit to visiting social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, travel reviews and YouTube on the job, a new survey reveals.
A pissed-off Texas homeowner has managed to get a noise citation issued against his neighbour, which happens to be an elementary school.
Manitoba has become the first province in Canada to require people who encounter child pornography to report it. As of Tuesday, Manitoba made it mandatory that anyone who suspects child pornography online, in books, photographs and other audio and visual material must immediately report it, Family Services Minister Gord Mackintosh said.
A reference to a banned terrorist group on the evil social networking website Facebook has landed a teen from British Columbia in court.
The Stelmach government is facing very close scrutiny as it prepares to reveal what will be beefed up, scaled back or cut when Alberta's first deficit budget in 15 years is revealed tomorrow.
Cyber-bullying reached Parliament Hill today after a Liberal MP introduced legislation that would make it a crime to badger a victim online.
Down in America, a lot of cities have carpool lanes. That means... if there are two or more people in a car, the driver of that car is allowed to use the carpool lane.
You know what I love to eat? Chicken McNuggets from McDonald's. Yeah... I love them.
Earlier today, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall announced that the Government of Canada and Government of Saskatchewan will accelerate the twinning of Highway 11 between Saskatoon and Prince Albert.
A while ago, Microsoft recently laid off tons of workers. And even more recently, the company realized it paid some of their laid-off employees way too much money, and asked them to return the overpayments. After a little re-consideration, they decided to say, "You can keep the money."
Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano are mobsters that were jailed last month. They were "godfathers." Well, Riina was jailed last month. The other guy was jailed in 2006. Both are serving multiple life sentences.
The toy maker Hasbro has dropped its copyright and trademark lawsuit against the creators of the popular online word game, 
What in good gravy did we all do before the Internet? Can anyone remember? Well, old people had sex... and the thought of that is just creepy, and scary.
