Report: Facebook Read Users' Text Messages. Update: Facebook is denying claims raised by a British newspaper that reported it had read text messages of people who downloaded the Facebook app to their smartphones. The London Sunday Times is reporting that Facebook read text messages of users who downloaded the social network's smartphone app. The story is behind a paywall, but Fox News summarized the article and said Facebook admitted to reading text messages as part of a trial to launch its own messaging service.
It is not clear whether Facebook has discontinued the practice. We've asked Facebook for comment and will update when we hear back from them. "The Sunday Times has done some creative conspiracy theorizing but the suggestion that we're secretly reading people's texts is ridiculous. "Your personal information is a precious commodity, and companies will go to great lengths to get their hands on as much of it as possible," Emma Draper, of the Privacy International campaign group, told the London Times. Facebook Readies IPO Filing. Will Facebook Really Create 1,000 Millionaires? - The Wealth Report.
By Robert Frank Facebook’s IPO has set new records for wealth hyperbole. Associated Press It’s the “best investment ever!” It’s the biggest liquidity event ever! It’s about to unleash a new wealth wave in America! But the most widely repeated superlative about the Facebook IPO is that it will create “1,000 overnight millionaires.” This is impossible to know, of course. Tech IPO watchers might recall Google’s IPO in 2004. With Facebook, the “1,000 millionaire” claim first showed up in a Reuters article in December. If the 1,000 number is true, then every one of the company’s 700 employees as of the end of 2008, as well as hundreds of other employees and investors, have shares worth at least $1 million or more. Reuters concedes that there is no precise data on how many shares are owned by how many employees. That was 2009, of course. Facebook will no doubt create a large amount of wealth for a single company.
More like a splash than a “wave.” Facebook execs pump cash into PAC - Tony Romm. Top officials at Facebook pumped $170,000 into the company’s new PAC in 2011 — a sure sign that the company is ready to be a political player as it prepares for its IPO this year. Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, David Ebersman, Marne Levine, Joe Lockhart and Joel Kaplan each maxed out to the PAC with $5,000 contributions last year, according to its first year-end disclosure.
Some of the company’s board members — including Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen and Erskine Bowles — also showered Facebook’s new election checkbook with cash. Continue Reading It’s a high level of buy-in from the top echelon of the company — one that signals a growing desire at Facebook to become more active politically, and an investment that puts the company’s PAC a small step closer to the same political class as other major tech companies. Facebook filed to launch its PAC in September, with Kaplan as its lead treasurer, just as the company was beefing up its Washington presence. Zuckerberg Tops Google Founders in IPO With $28.4 Billion Facebook Stake. Facebook Inc. (FB)’s initial public offering may value Mark Zuckerberg’s stake at $28.4 billion, making him richer than Google Inc. (GOOG)’s co-founders and almost on par with Larry Ellison, who started Oracle Corp. (ORCL) 35 years ago. The 27-year-old founder and chief executive officer of Facebook is the company’s top stakeholder as it prepares to go public, with 533.8 million shares, or 28.4 percent, according to a regulatory filing yesterday.
Investment firms Accel Partners and Digital Sky Technologies own a combined 16.8 percent. Facebook said in its prospectus that it plans to raise as much as $5 billion in an IPO. The Menlo Park, California-based company is discussing a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion, two people familiar with the matter said last week. “It looks from this as if Zuckerberg is maintaining a lot of control,” said Rebecca Lieb, an analyst at Altimeter Group in New York.
Lockup Period Facebook Executives Accel’s Investment. Facebook Board Shows White Male Influence. Most of Facebook Inc.’s more than 800 million users are women. You wouldn’t know it from looking at the board, whose seven directors are all men. The disconnect puts the social-media company at odds with others in the industry that have at least one female director, including LinkedIn Corp. and Google Inc., and from most big public companies in the U.S. Just 11.3 percent of the Fortune 500 had male-only boards last year, according to Catalyst, a New York-based nonprofit that researches women and business issues. “We’re long past having to defend or explain why women should be on boards, given all the data that shows how companies with female as well as male directors perform better,” said Anne Mulcahy, former chairman and chief executive officer of Xerox Corp. and a director at Johnson & Johnson Co., Target Corp. and Washington Post Co.
“It’s unfortunate when companies with a large percentage of women constituents don’t reflect that in their boardrooms.” Female Public Face Social Mission. The Zuckerberg Tax. 'If I Die' App Lets You Leave A Facebook Message After You're Gone. From our newsroom to your inbox weekday mornings at 9AM. Sign Up NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Want to leave a Facebook post after your time is up? There’s an app for that. It’s called “If I Die,” and lets you leave a Facebook message behind that is not to be posted until after your earthly demise. Gary Baumgarten spoke with several Facebook users to get their take on the app, and the reactions were mixed.
Some were not overly enamored with the premise, while others admitted to seeing some purpose with the program. LISTEN: 1010 WINS’Gary Baumgarten reports… “I think it’s great. “There may be some people who are like terminally ill who want to leave a message,” user Pete said. Another told Baumgarten that if he has something to say, he’ll open his mouth while he still is able.
“I would think that it’s a little too late after you are dead. Even others were already planning what message they would leave. User Bogie planned to keep his message short, sweet, and to the point. Murdoch: we screwed up MySpace 'in every way possible'