I was having a great day today. Back from a birthday weekend in Vegas and ready to spend countless hours in front of my laptop. I hop on google reader and begin to catch up on tech news. Apple bricked the Iphone for customers who are smarter then Apple would like, youTube launched adsense (so I guess they make money now) and facebook might face consumer fraud charges. Huh? Consumer fraud. For what?
The Internet social networking site Facebook Inc. that promotes its safety for young teens from sexual predators and promises prompt responses to concerns has been warned by the New York attorney general that it may face a consumer fraud charge for failing to do either, a Cuomo official confirmed Sunday.....
But it's now a much larger and growing social networking site and the safeguards and apparently the response times for complaints aren't what they were a year ago, Lerner said. Cuomo is calling on the site to revise its claims.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--cuomo-facebook0930sep30,0,3857577.story
Wow. Revise their claims? Have these people been on My(Slut/Space) or any of other social networks? Facebook has great privacy policies that restrict people's profiles to a point where you can't even see a person's picture. Which sucks sometimes cause you want to see if a chick is hot. She adds you as a friend and turns out to be a whale. However, that's another topic all together. Maybe facebook should roll out a "pee in a cup to make friends" option or something.
Bad Parents
People need to stop expecting the internet to raise their children. Get your kid's password and log on their account from time to time. Stop handing off the responsibility of raising your kid to other people. I bet these are the same people that send their kids to school and complain that they sweet little billy is ill mannered.
Come on Cuomo
I knew facebook was getting big but I didn't know it got to the "If I can get my name in the same headline as facebook it will help my political career" status. Come on Cuomo...there are a lot better ways for the Attorney General of New York to get his name in the paper then riding the facebook wave. You tried to run for governor and had your ass handed to you, since then have made insane claims to get your name out there with some avail. You're like a D-list celebrity that does stupid things to get into the tabloids. Just release a sex tape, it worked for other spoiled kids.
...Criticism was much more heated, however, in a series of lawsuits and investigations surrounding a Florida based S&L institution in which he was accused of illegal, hostile take-over maneuvers among other things. This problem tapered off after Attorney General Janet Reno declined to initiate a full investigation. A spectrum of excuses and accusations were offered to explain this situation.
In tandem with this last situation is the extremely sharp and heavily documented criticism coming from Catherine Fitts, former HUD Assistant Secretary and FHA Administrator under Jack Kemp and HUD independent contractor under Henry Cisneros and Andrew Cuomo. She, basically, accuses him of fraud and links his name to HUD vendors who also provided him with lucrative benefits of various types.