Facebook Scam: 'See Who Has Viewed Your Profile'

Curious to see who views your Facebook profile page?

You're out of luck. Status updates, Facebook groups, and pages claiming to let users see who has viewed their Facebook profile pages are scams, often linking users to ad-filled sites.

In recent days, for instance, you may have seen your Facebook friends speaking in bizarrely adolescent chatroom vernacular:

"OMG OMG OMG... I cant believe this actually works! Now you really can see who viewed your profile! on [LINK]."

"If you're tempted to click on the link, you're taken to a webpage that encourages you to go a little deeper and permit an application to have access to your Facebook profile," wrote Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, in a blog post.

According to Sophos, over 60,000 people clicked into the claim in a few hours.

But as Facebook noted in July, there is no way anyone can see who has viewed their profile, and no way others can create such a function.

"We're working hard to block and remove websites, Pages, and applications that claim to do this. If you see one, don't be fooled, and report it to us immediately," the company wrote on its security page.

Clicking into these links usually directs people to ad-filled pages. Others might promise to exchange a profile-viewing feature if a user can generate enough likes and linkshares.

"If you've been hit by a scam like this, remove references to it from your newsfeed, and revoke the right of rogue applications to access your profile via Account/ Privacy Settings/ Applications and Websites," Cluley suggests.

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http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373574,00.asp

Googler Offered $3.5M to Turn Down Facebook

It's a common trick of the trade. You're looking for a raise but your employer won't give you one. So, you tell them you're going to go work for a competitor, hoping they'll so scared of losing you to the competition, they'll offer you more money to stay. Well, I don’t know if that was this Googler's plan when he told his employer that he had been offered a job at Facebook, but he definitely got offered a very handsome bonus to stay in Mountain View.

TechCrunch reports that Google recently offered a staff engineer $3.5 million in restricted stock to stop him leaving for Facebook. It's not clear whether or not this person had already received a job offer from the biggest social network in town, but Michael Arrington writes that he was being "heavily romanced" by Facebook.

TC reports that this isn't the first time this has happened. In fact, though the search giant won't make a nice counteroffer for everyone trying to leave, Google will often go to great lengths to stop staff leaving for the likes of Facebook, Twitter and even LinkedIn. By the sounds of things, this particular deal is bigger than the rest. That $3.5 million in restricted stock will vest over time, so it's not surprising to learn that the engineer reportedly accepted and stayed at Google. Wouldn't you?

Read more about Google's method of retaining engineers and other valuable members of staff on  

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/google-making-extraordinary-counteroffers-to-stop-flow-of-employees-to-facebook/

Feds: Woman illegally fired over Facebook remarks

Federal authorities say a Connecticut woman was illegally fired from her job as an emergency medical technician after she posted disparaging remarks about her boss on Facebook.

The National Labor Relations Board alleges that the woman's comments are protected speech under federal law that allows employees to discuss their jobs and working conditions with co-workers.

The case could set a precedent as more workers use social networking sites.

A spokesman for American Medical Response of Connecticut says the employee was fired because of complaints about her work. But the company defends its policy prohibiting workers from depicting the company in any way on the Internet.

An administrative law judge is expected to hear the case in January.

Read more

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9JCQQNO0.htm

Race to become first to 'like' Queen on Facebook

The Queen is said to have personally approved the plans for her page, which will go live tomorrow at 8am

At 8am an official British Monarchy page will be launched on the world’s most popular social networking website, allowing users to connect with the Royal family online.

Although it will not be possible to befriend the Queen or her relatives personally, website users will be able to state that they “like” her page.

There will be a public list of friends of the page, prompting a race to become the first to press the “like” button on Monday morning.

The British Monarchy page will provide a hi-tech version of the traditional court and social announcements, detailing the daily engagements of members of the Royal family.

Fans will also be able to comment on these announcements.

Buckingham Palace says it does not know how many people will look at its Facebook page, although the official @BritishMonarchy account on Twitter already has 70,148 followers.

There is also TheRoyalChannel on YouTube, the video-sharing website, which has 32,418 subscribers and whose films have been watched 8.3million times over the past three years.

However fans eager to look at the Queen’s presence on Facebook bombarded an unofficial page on Sunday, perhaps unaware that the real site was yet to go live.

The number of people who “like” the unofficial page rose from 16,293 to 18,613 on Sunday afternoon, after details of the official page were included in weekend newspapers, with many of them welcoming the Queen to cyberspace.

Buckingham Palace will not attempt to remove unauthorised tributes to the monarchy.

"I don't think that's in the spirit of Facebook," said a spokesman.