Facebook Bans Google+ Ads

Barbara, not Barbie writes "Not content with making it hard for people to export their Facebook contacts to Google+, Facebook has now banned all ads from app developer Michael Lee Johnson, who ran an ad saying 'Add Michael to Google+.' Facebook sent him the following message: 'Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions.'"

Comments

Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

As the crazy left continues to suggest job-killing tax hikes, I just wanted to take a minute to assure that you will vote against such lunatic measures in the future. Raising taxes on ANYONE, rich, poor, or otherwise means they have less money to spend ... both to directly employ your husbands and daughters, or to purchase the products that they make at their jobs. We need lower taxes, not higher taxes. I've placed all of my funds to money-market in anticipation of the upcoming political stalemate and market crash. You will thank me. I will be the one purchasing your product and financing your project once all other funds are gone. We in this country need to get back to fending for ourselves, and not relying on the sociaL safety net. This is the way it was done when we were great. We can be great again - just stop feeding the bunnies, get back to real Type-A personalities getting shit done - no health care for slackers, no welfare, no unemployment - if you're unemployed, you don't have money. Period. Get rid of that job-killing tax on employers, the ones who create wealth. It's the worst possible tax you could have. I will vote 1000% Republican in 2012, and hope for your sake that you will too. Fareed Zakaria is completely loony. P.S. Who is the hot blonde chick on the Kindle commercials? And anyone else like cheerleaders who can do the splits?

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, please keep voting Republican... I'm so close to buying my own Boeing 747 and would hate to also have to forgo buying another Bentley for my daughter if my taxes are raised back to pre-2001 levels.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Surt]

I always have to wonder. Where do the anti tax hikes people think the money goes? It's not like the government isn't going to spend it, and that the people they give it to aren't going to spend it (at least not significantly less so than the people who held it in the first place, and in most cases, they are more likely to spend it).

Which means ... taxes create jobs. More jobs than you would get without taxes. I think the success of the stimulus has pretty much proven that to all but the very stupid.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a LOT of stupid people.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

That argument is, in general, good, but the current situation calls for tax hikes to pay off debt. They're frankly necessary, because the debt has to be paid somehow, and increasing revenue along with cutting spending is the way to do it. But, paying off debt runs the inherent risk of feeding extreme political rhetoric: the right can now say that the money isn't being re-spent in America to create American jobs, but rather being poured into debts that only [pick one: punish the rich, enrich bankers and the rich, enrich the Communist Chinese; note that these positions are not necessarily true or even consistent, but rather rhetorical].

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[thomasw_lrd]

Source please?

Last report I saw said that is cost 278,000 to create every job that was created from the stimulus bill. I'm not disagreeing with you, since I have no numbers on how much consumer spending it costs to create one job. I would be interested in learning more.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[andydread]

Sean Hannity? What are you doing on Slashdot?

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[hedwards]

That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. If you've got a job that pays $20k a year then you're probably looking at an additional $20k or so in overhead, and that's for jobs where you're just providing a service, now since the stimulus money was largely focused on construction and infrastructure, you'd be looking at a hell of a lot more than that in materials.

Additionally, a lot of the stimulus spending was on things which we should have been spending money on already. The government wasn't going around damaging infrastructure just to give people a job, that was largely done by neglect and a refusal of the citizens to pay the taxes to maintain it.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[cdrguru]

We're not talking about taking tax money and spending it in the US, we're talking about taking tax money and spending it on paying off China so they keep lending us money so we can become even more indebited to them.

Right now, China (and perhaps the Saudis) are financing $0.46 of every dollar the US government spends. When it creeps past $0.50 we might very well see someone from China sitting down with the President and Congress to decide how the money coming from China is going be spent - after all, they will pretty much own over 50% of the budget. Does this really sound like a good idea?

Sure, raising taxes would be great. We should also consider a "wealth tax" not just a income taxes. Right now, the folks making the most money aren't receiving it as a salary subject to income taxes but they are getting it as capital gains which is taxed at a much lower, fixed rate. That means that an income tax increase isn't going to affect capital gains income at all and would therefore be totally non-productive. I really want to see someone proposing that it should be illegal to have more than a couple of million dollars and the government should just take it all. That would really fix the economy, now wouldn't it? Make the US the home of poor people once again. Eliminate wealth in the US and give it all to the government to spend.

So how come Obama hasn't pushed any of his WPA-like programs that he was talking about during his campaign? Instead of spending over $200,000 per job with his stimulus program, how about some real government-paid jobs for millions of people? Fix unemployment by hiring people, not paying four times as much to someone else to hire someone.

Come on, if what we want is a real government-sponsored economy where the government actually supports people, then bring it on! Let's see it happen and see the results.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[v1]

In a pure economy, you can't spend money you don't have. But in a credit-economy, that unfortunately doesn't hold true. So cutting taxes by itself doesn't stop the blockheads from charging it and increasing national debt. That generally only works so long though before they start cutting back spending. But governments in general are notorious for loose spending, since the ones cutting the checks are not dealing with their own money. So it all tends to boil down to lack of fiscal responsibility. (which Greece is finally reaching the end of their rope on)

Getting partisan, it's generally safe to say that republicans lower taxes and raise national debt, democrats raise taxes and lower national debt. It's "seesaw economics". People get tired of high taxes so they vote in republicans who lower taxes, raise debt, and depress the economy. People get tired of high debt and poor economy and vote in democrats that raise taxes, lower debt, and recover the economy. Rinse and repeat. The voters drive the cycle.

I really don't have a stance on whether taxes need to be raised or lowered. It really doesn't matter, one way or another, every dollar the government spends needs to be paid for, either now, or later. So many people just don't understand/realize that. Spending is the true issue, and we the people generally have very little say in that. If you lower the spending, you can lower the taxing, it's just that dead simple. All we can do is vote for congresscritters that we hope will be more sensible with the spending, but it never seems to materialize. It all comes down to greed really, every representative tries to get things for their state, leading to pork. But it's not just one or two or ten of them doing it, they pretty much all do it. And once you get into that situation, the only "losers" are the few that don't do it, so the result is, nobody wants to stop. And so it never ends, or at least not until you can get just about everyone to agree on fixing it at once, which is really hard to do.

The whole issue of "pork" comes down to compromise, need, and greed. If group A has a legitimate need for X, they can't get it without "compromise", which often means giving group B their Y as well, which very often is an unnecessary luxury. Group B is being greedy, and can get away with it because group A requires their help to get what they need. As a result we all are forced to pay for the unnecessary Y. That's the essence of pork. Find a way to fix that, and you can actually lower taxes without raising debt and damaging the economy.

Also, trying to simply say "taxes create jobs" ignores that circle of finance, specifically "jobs pay taxes". It doesn't make money, it just moves it around. The only way for a country to actually make money is by clearing a higher margin on exports than it loses on imports. (again money only moves, but from outside the country to inside it)

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you're trolling but I also know there really are people who think what you post. You see capitalism works best when money moves around. Right now money is consolidating into large corporations and the wealthy. Profits are at all time highs. Cash on hand for corporations is at all time highs. The theory that more money in the hands of corporations and other 'job makers' is failing. Job growth is abysmal. Corporations are cutting back as profits climb. The system is becoming more fragile. Socialism is a symptom of failed capitalism.

If the wealthy do not want society to take their money from them (taxes are the nice way) then they need to decide to reinvest in the society that made them wealthy. Food and shelter are what matters to society. History has shown that this can be achieved with a healthy capitalist system. However, current events is showing that system is sick. My hope is that the wealthy remember that a high tide lifts all boats. So to all that are reading this, remember, a hungry neighbor is a potential enemy. Care for your fellow man or we will all suffer.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Truekaiser]

The greatest marking job of the past several decades was the one used to get average folks who will never ever have at the very least $500,000+ to their name to vote against their own self interests.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Surt]

The source is just reality of numbers. The government spends everything it takes in, and then some. Poorer people with less money spend a larger fraction of their income than rich people (who can afford to save / hold back).

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[thomasw_lrd]

So 40k in a year in jobs that took 278k to create. That's almost 14 years to recoup the loss at 100% tax. This seems inefficient to me.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Actually, it's the other way around. When taxes on the rich are low, business owners take the profits out of the business for "job-creating" items like big houses, cars, boats and bribes^Wpolitical contributions. As tax rates rise, owners leave more and more money in the business, spending more on hiring and R&D. But keep up the noble work of shilling for your plutocrat masters. I'm sure one day one of them will pat you on the head for your loyalty.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[wisnoskij]

"This is the way it was done when we were great."

Actuality taxes used to be a hell of a lot higher beck when America was great.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

I always have to wonder. Where do the anti tax hikes people think the money goes? It's not like the government isn't going to spend it, and that the people they give it to aren't going to spend it (at least not significantly less so than the people who held it in the first place, and in most cases, they are more likely to spend it).

Are you arguing for increased taxation, or increased spending? Because they're really quite unrelated things in present federal finance, and assuming $X of new taxation corresponds to $X of new spending (i.e. a fixed deficit level) is disingenuous.

Which means ... taxes create jobs. More jobs than you would get without taxes. I think the success of the stimulus has pretty much proven that to all but the very stupid.

Eh, yeah, there's some very stupid going on, but also, taxation inherently harms the economy by destroying value. (See here, or your favorite microeconomics text.) So even assuming your fixed-deficit model, unless the government expenditure of its tax revenue is more effective in job creation by enough to pay back that destroyed value, the tea-partiers are actually right, even though none of them could explain why.

Of course, to what degree government expenditures actually create more jobs vs. private expenditures is mostly a matter of conjecture, since economics is probably the hardest science to obtain field measurements without unknown confounding factors.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Dzimas]

The "crazy left" you refer to tend to be very middle of the road. Many of us in other country would term the Democrats "moderate conservatives." Last time I checked, you don't have the Greens or Social Democrats - they've been run out of town as leftist extremists. That said, e constant barrage of attacks against the "crazy left", "socialists" and "liberals" seems to be an effective approach to painting middle-of-the road policies and voters as undesirable and extreme.

As far as raising taxes goes, it seems only rational to conclude that the USA can't keep increasing borrowing forever. At some point, the nation will either have to reduce the deficit or default (hopefully not by triggering a world war and legislating a default). Your taxes don't just magically disappear - they go to pay for operating the county (salaries, construction, defense and federal contracts). And, honestly, you're likely to send the majority of your disposable income out of the country in the form of electronics purchases, fancy German cars and "made in China" purchases.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Volante3192]

Eh, yeah, there's some very stupid going on, but also, taxation inherently harms the economy by destroying value.

Of course, taking that to the absurd extreme, zero taxation would mean a perfect economy.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[similar_name]

I don't think it's that simple. I doubt the numbers are so comparable as 278k to create 40k worth of a job. For Instance according to some quick Google searches GE's total revenue in 2010 was 150 billion. They employ ~300,000 people. Taking 150,000,000,000 divided by 300,000 yields a ratio of $500,000 to 1 job. There's more to it than money spent (tax payer or consumer) = x number of jobs. Don't get me wrong I would rather see money move around on it's own in the private sector but that doesn't seem to be happening.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Volante3192]

Job killing tax hikes. That's a laugh. How many jobs were killed under the lowest tax rates ever since the 1940s? Wait, I'm sorry, history for you doesn't exist prior to January 2009... (And you thought creationists were easy to make fun of with their 6000 years of history...these folks whitewash the day they were born from the map!)

Here's another fact your side loves to trot out: 47% pay no federal income tax.
You know WHY that is?
Well, once they pay for little things like food, shelter, clothing...there's nothing left to tax. Fancy that... So all those evil evil welfare programs are in place so they're able to survive without having to riot for food. Provide a living wage, people can get off welfare programs AND have disposable income to buy new iFruits. The economy MOVES.

Course, I think it's a good thing when the population as a whole has money to spend rather than 1% hoarding it all in Scrooge McDuck like towers...but I only had 4 weeks of economics class in high school...

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Volante3192]

Facts? We don't need no steenking facts!!

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Unkyjar]

Do you understand how selling Treasury Bonds functions?

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Ricwot]

Or, taking it logically, in that 100% taxation would mean no growth in the economy, and 0% would mean less than the optimal due to war and raiding, there is an optimum between 0% and 100% taxation. Look for the Armey Curve.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[MichaelKristopeit416]

In a pure economy, you can't spend money you don't have. But in a credit-economy, that unfortunately doesn't hold true...

and in a fiat currency credit-economy where losses are hedged by government bailouts, that extremely fortunately doesn't hold true.

fortunately for me.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Volante3192]

So, if it takes 278k to create one 40k job, where did the remaining 238k go? Up in flames? Into the luminescent ether?

An economy is little more than the movement of money from point A to point B.
Here we have point A of 278k. Then there's a point B of 40k. But there's also going to be a point B of, oh, let's say 20k for human resources. 10k for materials.

Numbers are, essentially, pulled out of point C (for colon) but it's the theory that's important, not the numbers per se. That 238k doesn't vanish; that's money, not some stock value. It's doing something.

Now, I won't say this is not open to exploitation and abuse. I also won't argue that, under an itemized examination, it is the most efficient way. But I will say there is going to be overhead. There's always overhead. Even in the most efficient, streamlined process, there's overhead, and that overhead ALSO contributes to the economy.

Even beancounters need to eat.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

History contradicts your assertions.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:MarginalIncomeTax.svg

Tax rates for the rich were high through the "golden age" of the 50's and 60's: in fact, in 1953, when unemployment was lowest, the tax rate on the rich was close to its highest.

Jobs are created when money is in circulation. High taxes on the rich take money out of hoarding and put it into circulation. When taxes are low, the rich hoard money: sure, there's some investment in enterprise, but there's far more speculation in commodities, real estate, currencies, metals, etc. Except for real estate, these don't create jobs: commodities do fine without speculation, and real estate only produces jobs when it's residential or commercial and new and not-bubbly, not when it's about buying up farmland in central Africa (like some major funds now do).

Tax rates haven't been as low as they are now since the beginning of the Great Depression. It's periods of low taxation that sequester money and deprive free enterprise of demand for its products (that is to say, of the supply of money). Under low rates of taxation, only the super-wealthy gain, while the economy rots away, whereas under high rates of top-bracket taxation, the entire country grows richer, including the ultra-rich, but they just get richer more slowly.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[MichaelKristopeit416]

why do you cower? i know you're cowering but i also know there really are people who think you are wrong.

Socialism is a symptom only of those who require labels that could never be completely correct be placed on everything that only theoretically affects them. if efficient capitalism leads to robotic farm hands, and automated commerce, then the system utilized to create and distribute your stated claims becomes more fragile.

the US has had farm subsidies and social security and numerous medical programs for the elderly and disabled for as long as i've been alive... so when exactly did capitalism fail?

you're an idiot.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL that's the cutest lefty logic I've ever read. Taxes create jobs, and I suppose wealthy investors just hoard the money like Scrooge McDuck?

You're fucking retarded. No need to gild that particularly lily.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[tebixan]

Why doesn't the left bring up this point? The whole argument on the right is that the millionaires and billionaires are 'job creators' and taxing them will slow recovery. Well, the real job creator is demand for goods and services. Billionaires don't create jobs for no reason, they do it to fulfill a need. If the lower classes and the government aren't spending any money because the rich have it all, then there is no demand for the goods and services that the rich offer. That's the sitution we're in now. Taxes are at near historic lows and the wealthiest 5% of the country are hoarding 50% of the nations wealth.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[tebixan]

What does this have to do with Facebook or Google+?

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Volante3192]

I've found 'logical' arguments to not work in this sort of debate.

We could lower taxes to 1% and people would STILL clamor for 'lower taxes.'
Maybe the lower taxes side needs to come out and give us an actual number. How much is this 'optimum'?

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Volante3192]

Businesses are sitting on $2 trillion in cash.

Government spends everything it brings in (and then some).

Who's the retard, again?

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Volante3192]

We do. Regularly. You can't fight a religious war with facts, though.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Divebus]

Scrooge McDuck - exactly. Large corporations are interested in only a few things:
        Shareholder value
        Sending jobs offshore (where it's cheaper to do things)
        Paying themselves massive salaries and bonuses
        Purchasing laws to let them keep everything

This concentrates all the money with the wealthiest people. The more money one entity has, the less money everyone else has. Nothing flows - "Trickle Down Economics" has proven not to work. We think corporations are all about creating wonderful products to make our lives easier and a pleasure to live; no, it's about making money.

It isn't taxes that don't create jobs, it's the behavior of the people who are supposed to create jobs. They have no obligation to make the economy run. The Republicans represent the wealthy lords and are learning how to bully everyone to get what they want - money. The Democrats represent the people who are supposed to earn a wage and can't, so they over compensate with public programs and fail to make corporations and the wealthy pay the same percentage of tax the middle pays. The Democrats also represent the people who WON'T earn a living - people who have gamed the system into paying them to make babies and not do anything (I actually worked with a single mother of three who became pregnant again and exulted that she was going to have another Government baby - we all wanted to slap her. She made a ton of dough off that).

Corporations aren't going to pay people they don't employ, but sending jobs overseas leaves a lot of the workforce on the Gov't dole. Someone has to pay for that. Either bring the jobs back to the homeland or use some of those billions in profit to help the people survive. Why should a corporation which inhibits the economy get a tax break? Conversely, make the people living on the Gov't dole actually WORK. Make them work on infrastructure projects or something. Don't show up for work, you don't get paid. It's very WPA, but that's about where we're headed.

There was a move to make a "Flat Tax" at one time. What happened to that? Pay 15% of what you earn. Period. Whether you're a corporation or an individual above a certain poverty line, you pay. No deductions.

Thomas Jefferson, where are you? We need you now.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Ricwot]

Apparently it's somewhere between 6 and 11%, but I believe it can vary, and is different for different countries.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Divebus]

Oh... forgot a hundred other variables, but make people accountable for the work they do. Labor unions were invented to keep powerful corporate lords from abusing the workforce, and boy, did they ever abuse the workforce. Quite often, Unions turned into a bludgeon to protect workers who are doing a bad job, or to artificially inflate the labor force with way more workers than needed. No wonder jobs are going overseas. Cause and effect.

If an Automaker is making cars that fall apart, something has to be fixed. You can't export a car like that. Sometimes you have to fix the workforce and it becomes Automaker vs Labor Union which deflects workers' accountability. Sometimes you have to fix the Automaker deciding to use a cheap fuel pump which makes the car explode on impact because it's more profitable. Either way, both of these groups need to realize that making bad cars kills exports. Exports is the only way to make money. Japan, Inc. realized this a LONG time ago and the Gov't holds the Corporations and Workers accountable for product quality.

Replace "Automaker" with any other entity.

Don't get me started on Banks.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Those subsidies are a perfect example of where capitalism fails. Without the government "interfering" with unrestricted capitalism by providing subsidies, food costs would increase substantially and the poor would starve. Same goes for Social Security: many more people would be homeless without it.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Opportunist]

There are two kinds of people who are against tax increase. Selfish, rich people who couldn't care less if a million people died as long as they got a million bucks more, and dumb poor people who swallowed the hype and think that by paying 10% less tax they could afford anything and would be better off.

It's actually that simple.

The only entity in a country that is interested in creating jobs for the sake of getting people employed is the government. Nobody else benefits from someone being employed as directly, aside of the employed person himself. They, and only they, have the ability to create a job and an interest in creating one. The "rich people creating jobs" myth is just that. A myth. Imagine you're rich. Now where would it cross your mind to "hmm... I should create jobs, ya know..."? You might want something accomplished, but that means you will try to create as few jobs as possible. Why? Because that costs your money. DUH!

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

A flat tax on disposable income, maybe, but it is unconscionable to take away a poor family's food money in the interest of not having higher taxes on the rich. A simple flat deduction for modest living expenses could work, though, and wouldn't be open to gaming the system (because there would be few or no parameters that would affect the amount of the deduction).

Such a change could bring about all sorts of other problems, though. Rich people donate lots of money, but not solely for the sake of being charitable. Oftentimes the tax deduction is a consideration in making the donation. Most of the deductions exist for a good reason, and I fear that eliminating them all would do more harm than good. A simplification of the tax code certainly is necessary, though, and in the process should eliminate the loopholes that corporations and wealthy people use to avoid paying the taxes that they should.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a perfect example of where government fails. Farm subsidies include price floor support, which keeps prices higher than they would be otherwise. Ethanol subsidies divert crop land to industrial corn land and increase food prices. Sugar import quotas double the price of sugar and lead to industrial use of corn syrup, raising prices. p You pay for it twice - once as taxes, once as higher food prices at the store.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Cash isn't cash. Even cash reserves are in a bank, which lets the bank lend against them. So cash being cash doesn't mean it's doing nothing. And I've worked for a Fortune 100 where the "cash" account was in liquid securities as well, so they considered stock and bonds to be "cash." So I read reports of the levels of cash hoarded with a grain of salt, until someone shows me pictures of CEO mattresses stuffed with cash.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the lower taxes side needs to come out and give us an actual number. How much is this 'optimum'?

Here in Sweden we're at 56% percent tax and the left STILL calmor for 'higher taxes'.
Maybe the higher taxes side needs to come out and give us an actual number. How much is this 'optimum'?

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[MichaelKristopeit417]

capitalism failed because the poor didn't starve?

why do you cower in my shadow? what are you afraid of?

you're completely pathetic.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

What?

History contradicts your assertions.

Gotta love /. where people say 'you're wrong' and then go on to state exactly the same thing.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[MichaelKristopeit418]

It's a perfect example of where government fails. Farm subsidies include price floor support, which keeps prices higher than they would be otherwise. Ethanol subsidies divert crop land to industrial corn land and increase food prices. Sugar import quotas double the price of sugar and lead to industrial use of corn syrup, raising prices. p You pay for it twice - once as taxes, once as higher food prices at the store.

unless you work in any of the industries you are claiming benefit... then it's a perfect example of where government doesn't fail... but i'm sure you don't understand the concept of relativity, as you have chosen to relate your identity to that of NOTHING.

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[similar_name]

That would require the government to only spend 6-11% of GDP. We're a long way away from that. Government spending The 90's were in the right direction but still way off.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Divebus]

That's why I said "individual above a certain poverty line", so someone earning less than $18,000 a year (just saying) pays 0% tax. Even some sliding scale where you kick in gradually more % until you get to 15% at some income breakpoint would smooth that out.

Yes, donations are mostly influenced by tax advantages rather than philanthropy. How many of those donation accepting organizations only send 2% of the take to the advertised beneficiary anyway?

The deductions... you're right, that's sticky. If I pay 33% tax now and have the home mortgage deduction taken away in exchange for 15% flat tax, I think that's about a wash. The other deductions - and there are a ton - need to be addressed or accounted for so it's not a punishment to the individual. Corporate tax incentives also need to be addressed to encourage construction of factories in places that need work. Otherwise, corporations the size of GM, CitiCorp or Bank of America which (or "who" since they're considered an individual now) pay no taxes goes away. Corporate brass with gazillion dollar salaries, benefits and bonuses also pay 15%.

Yes; eliminate the loopholes. People would rather burn money than pay any portion of it as taxes.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anthony Mouse]

If there exists $2 trillion in cash, somebody has to be "sitting on it" -- it doesn't cease to exist when someone spends it, so at any given time it has to be in the possession of some entity. If the government collects money in taxes from businesses who are holding it and "spends" it so that it ends up in the hands of defense contractors who continue to hold it, it has done nothing for the economy but to transfer money from a company that earned it to a company that knows how to get a no bid contract, thereby creating a disincentive to earn money legitimately and an increased incentive to lobby for government contracts.

The problem with arguing about whether government spending is better for the economy in the abstract than lower taxes is that the details are what determines the answer. If the government provides medical services to the public, the economic effect is basically neutral -- it doesn't make a lot of difference whether the doctor gets paid by a private insurance company that collects premiums or a public agency that collects taxes. However, if you raise taxes on a bunch of doctors who then have to fire their landscapers and the government gives that money to defense contractors who stick the money in their Evil Company Mattresses, the economic consequences are negative: The landscapers lose their jobs and the defense contractors don't create any. And if you increase taxes on the defense contractors so that they have to pay the government with money from the Evil Company Mattresses and then the government gives it to a bunch of highway construction workers who go out and fix potholes, you create those jobs. The details are what matters -- you can't say in the abstract that private spending or government spending is better.

The thing that kills it for government spending is how the government gets the money: Let's say the government decides there should be government single payer healthcare. That requires high taxes, but in theory that isn't a problem, because they just take the money people would otherwise have spent on private insurance. The problem comes when the CEO realizes how much money he can save if he opens a factory offshore where they have much lower taxes because they don't have government healthcare, all while he can still go see the doctor here for free. The high taxes drive capital flight, tax avoidance and off-shoring. Then you have to raise taxes even more in order to continue providing the same services with the smaller tax base. The thing expected to be economically neutral in actuality has caused the local factory to be shut down and shipped off to China and has caused the doctors to have to fire their landscapers in order to pay the higher taxes to cover healthcare for the now-unemployed factory workers (and unemployed landscapers), etc.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Job killing?

What jobs?

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Ricwot]

This I completely understand. That does not make it wrong, just unlikely to happen, two vary different things.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Volante3192]

My point, in a nutshell, is government spending creates more jobs than business lack of spending.

You could have a 0% corporate tax, but it wouldn't do any good for the economy as a whole if they simply keep it in liquid assets instead of expansion and hiring. (Fine, anon coward, I'll use the longer term that, for the common plebe, means the same thing.)

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Gerzel]

Indeed. Though also remember about a third of that stimulus was in tax cuts.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Zontar The Mindless]

I'd really like to know where the 56% figure comes from, and who actually pays that much.

I've lived and worked in Sweden for nearly 5 years, I'm in the top income tax bracket, I don't take any significant deductions, and my rate's only about 40%.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

so when exactly did capitalism fail?

Define failing. Socialism failed because it claimed to provide for everyone and yet most of the countries that try it end up starving millions to death, so it was incapable of providing for everyone. WIth capitalism, if millions starved to death, well, that's just how it works: if you can't pay, you can't eat.

If you go with the literal definition of capitalism, that it encourages capital development through ownership of profits from that capital, then capitalism failed when people started bulldozing houses in order to save the value of their remaining properties. Once you start intentionally destroying capital for profit, it's over.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

You gotta read the previous post which it replies.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[pakar]

1. Employer-tax of ~30% (15% for people younger than 26 and older than 61 only have ~10%)
2. normal tax of ~31%.

So, income of 10000 - 30% = 7000, 7000 - 31% = ~4800 = ~52% tax...

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[micheas]

Note to mods.

This could be considered a -1 redundant.

If there was a -1 overly obvious flag that would also be a candidate, Being as there is not a minus -1 overly obvious flag, overrated was probably the way to go.

However this does not count as flame bait as nobody is likely to argue with it.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[micheas]

Some of the other money went to things like cement, lumber, gravel, steel and other construction materials.

You can't just line up a bunch of people and tell them to fix a road, you have to provide them with the supplies to repair the road.

The 278k figure is for jobs directly created by the spending program, it does not include private sector jobs that were indirectly created by orders of raw goods, as you cannot easily directly correlate when surplus capacity was exceeded and more labor was required.

The stimulus program was not as successful as hoped because the people who got the jobs spent a much greater percentage of their money on paying off debts and retirement accounts than expected by the economists.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[micheas]

That is almost never a talking point, fairness and other ideals tend to make it into the talking points, especially the talking points of West Coast US Union leaders.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[sonicmerlin]

Lol... "cower in my shadow". Says the moron with a 2 million + ID. Oh god that's hilarious. What is it with the arrogant teens on Slashdot? Why don't you get out of your parents' house and live in the real world a bit?

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[MichaelKristopeit418]

you're either an idiot or an ignorant hypocrite... i live at 4513 brittany ct. eau claire wi. 54701. i live there with my wife, children, dogs, and numerous firearms.

cower in my shadow some more behind your chosen auditory fantasy based pseudonym, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[mesterha]

I agree, the only time a business will create jobs is when they feel they will get a reasonable return on their investment. If they don't feel they can get a reasonable return today then it doesn't matter if you give them a bunch of money. They will keep the money because they have already determined that it's not profitable to hire more people.

It's even worse in this type of economy because the poor labor market means they can extract more work out of less people. This further reduces the value of keeping people employed. Just look at the recent record profits made by some corporations. They aren't using this money to hire because they don't think it's profitable to expand their business.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly the money's in non-cash assets: commodities markets, precious metals, etc. When gold is at a historic high, money's clearly being hoarded, since gold has traditionally been a "mattress" investment due to the perception (whether valid or not) that its value is secure. Likewise, when you can dump the strategic petroleum reserve on the market and barely dent prices, you know there's not a supply-demand relationship underlying the commodity price, but a massive amount of money being tied up in commodities speculation. Speculation's even worse than stuffing money in a mattress, since the profits added by each middleman in the chain of speculative transactions eventually become a cost to the consumer, so it pulls more money out of circulation and into the hoards.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Culture20]

Yes, please keep voting Republican... I'm so close to buying my own Boeing 747 and would hate to also have to forgo buying another Bentley for my daughter if my taxes are raised back to pre-2001 levels.

And someone wants to sell you that 747 and bentley. And someone wants to sell the parts and tools to make them, etc. It's called trickle down, my friends. And a trickle is better than unemployment.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[diamondmagic]

There's this cool thing called supply and demand that raises and lowers market prices until supply matches demand. You do realize that there's not whole lot you can do with cash itself, sitting on money doesn't actually make anyone richer in the present, yes? So if someone's saving money, it's because they're expecting it to be worth more in the future than it is worth to them right now. Taxing it away and then having the government spend it only hurts private investment.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[diamondmagic]

The more money one entity has, the less money everyone else has.

So what? Money is not wealth. The richest person in the world in 1800 still couldn't afford air conditioning. What does it matter who is getting how much wealthier, so long as everyone is? Someone can't become rich without benefiting someone else in the process, so I don't see the problem.

"Trickle Down Economics" has proven not to work

What part of "Hey let's not tax away the assets of the producers of our society" has been proven not to work? "Trickle down" (hey let's not take money from people who are profitable) is not the same as government subsidies (hey let's take money from people and fund unprofitable ventures instead).

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[lucm]

> Where do the anti tax hikes people think the money goes?

The question is not: where the tax money goes. The question is: where does it come from. Answer that and you will get the real reason why the gap between the poor and the rich is increasing.

Poor people don't pay tax. Rich people can afford the little tax they pay once their accountant has been on their case, or they can afford to move their business in a fiscal paradise. Who's left? The people who used to be in the middle class, the one paying for the $46 trillions that the government will spend over the next 10 years (including the $8.7 additional trillions that the current administration is proposing).

It's a complete shame that someone wants to increase tax when even the GAO can't give an estimate of how much money is wasted in the current budget.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anthony Mouse]

My point, in a nutshell, is government spending creates more jobs than business lack of spending.

My point is that you can't say that in the abstract. It depends on what the corporations being taxed would do with the money and on what the government would do with it instead, and on how much capital flight the increased taxes will cause (which is determined by what and who taxes are increased on), etc. It just isn't as simple as "government spending > private spending" or the reverse.

Incidentally, if businesses are for some reason hoarding cash, the government has a much better alternative than tax-and-spend: The government can control the level of inflation by printing more or less money. If businesses are hoarding cash, the government can print more money which a) allows the government to do spending without raising taxes and b) sets a fire under the private interests to keep the cash flowing, because hoarding it will incur a loss of real value as the currency is diluted.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[EastCoastSurfer]

The real problem is that neither side is right. Tax hikes on the 'rich' and cutting some pork out of the budget is akin to using a 5 gallon bucket to bail out water while on the titanic. At this point neither will do much. The only way out of this is really a complicated plan no one wants to hear.

First, tax rates across the board need to rise some. Back to Clinton levels would probably be okay, but the government would need to be careful to not kill growth. Revenue growth is key. People like to rip on Reagan, and rightly so for his spending, but if you look at his second year as president once his tax cuts went into place, the federal revenue went way up over the Carter years. The entire economy grew and lower rates led to more revenue. Of course this only works to a point and we're likely below that point right now.

Second, pork while fun to point out is ignoring the elephants in the room - all of the government entitlement programs and military. These have to be scaled back. We have pushed the can down the line too long at this point. Obviously people want more programs when they are essentially free. Well it's time for the frank conversation that they are in fact not free.

The final piece is healthcare costs. This has to also be addressed in order to do any real problem solving because they tie into item two.

Without the three above pieces in place any talk of fixing the deficit or budge is basically bullshit rhetoric, and both sides are equally guilty of spouting this nonsense.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Volante3192]

It just isn't as simple as "government spending > private spending" or the reverse.

I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing "government spending > private hoarding."

If they're sitting on two tril, pass out some bonuses down the line. Wouldn't hurt morale either, I bet.

Oh, and the gov has been printing money...and in one of their usual not-so-bright moves, though, they've been giving THAT to the businesses as well.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

An obtuse answer. Montecello actually had passive air conditioning in the late 1700's early, 1800 with air intakes outside and hundreds of feet of buried tunnels to cool the air entering the building. It didn't work too well.

What part of "spreading the burden" don't you understand? The rich get richer because, somehow, they escape paying even a fair share of what it takes to support an entire society. They're still rich, eeking out a meager living on $2million a year - oh boo hoo.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Price floors ensure stability. Without them we'd see food costs plummet and then shoot back up and then down, and then up. Over the medium term the average price may be lower than without subsidization, but in the short term the instability would create disruptions in the food supply, and over the longer term the instability would produce market consolidation that inevitably results in higher average prices. The choices is short to medium term average lower prices with some seasons of starvation among the non-wealthy.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Even better: only on Slashdot can someone get to +5 informative by replying to the wrong post.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT. HTH. HAND.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Lord Kano]

That would require the government to only spend 6-11% of GDP. We're a long way away from that. Government spending The 90's were in the right direction but still way off.

Not exactly. We'd be OK spending up to about 18 of GDP. For the past ~60 years, tax revenue has been about 18% of GDP, regardless of the rate of taxation.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Alamais]

Wait, people were RESPONSIBLE!? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Why does it feel like we're desperately climbing up a rope that's already been cut?

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[rohan972]

I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing "government spending > private hoarding."

Scrooge McDuck is a fictional character. The CEO's of the fortune 500 companies do not have vaults of cash they go swimming in. When a company has "cash" it isn't a pile of notes in the basement, it's in a bank. If you got a loan for your home or to start up a small business, that's the sort of place the money you got loaned came from.

Corporations do not hoard cash in a way that takes it out of the economy. Only Grandma with her bundle of cash hidden in the flower pot does.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[rohan972]

The only entity in a country that is interested in creating jobs for the sake of getting people employed is the government.

The government can only pay a wage by taxing someone else. Since it is obviously impossible to tax public employee's enough to pay all the public employee's wages, ultimately that wage money has to be taxed from the private sector. So the government can only thrive to the extent that the private sector thrives first.

The dependent is not superior to the provider.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be all nice and good, except the way to generate revenue in government from taxes is to grow business. If business isn't growing because they're hunkering down waiting for the tax hike, if they aren't growing because no one has any money to buy, the tax revenues at the government level will not grow. You can't draw blood from a turnip (or however that saying goes).

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Opportunist]

I know the whole idea is completely alien to someone in the US, but the government could run a business that sells its service instead of taxing people for it. Like, say, you want a passport, you pay for the service. You want a permit, you pay for it. And government could even run businesses and sell products for profit. But I guess that's too freakish for the US to even fathom the possibility. Government actually running a business... that's soooo communist!

The funny thing is that a lot of infrastructure in my country was actually government run. Gas, water, power, phone... and in general it was quite good and also affordable. Now most of it is private owned. Prices didn't drop as promised, but at least the service is crappier now.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[nschubach]

What a load of crap.

Taxes go sky high before the 1920s... great depression happens. Lowered taxes, great depression ends just as the first war starts... There were also high taxes during the 70s and I wouldn't call them "enlightened years." Economic condition has little to do with the amount of taxes on the rich and you are disingenuous to try to pin the worlds woes on the richer part of the community. According to only the information on that chart, jacking up the taxes on the rich will only put us into another great depression.

Why would you assume that the wealthy hoard because of taxes? They hoard when they estimate lows. It has little to do with income taxes. If I have money in hoard and the government jacks up taxes, I'm not going to go spend all that money. I'm going to keep it in hoard until taxes go down so I can get more for my money. Jobs and money circulate when people feel good about the stability of the country. Lately, people haven't been feeling stable. They've been feeling robbed.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[nschubach]

Rich buy fancy houses with fancy windows, fancy decks, fancy pools, fancy furniture and all kinds of fancy stuff. Who makes that stuff? They created jobs. They didn't have to think about doing it. They just did it.

Granted, there would be more jobs to create fancy stuff if more people had fancy houses, but that's not the point of my post. To state that the rich don't create jobs is a misnomer. You make it sound as though the rich don't buy expensive stuff to show off and they hoard all their cash.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Ricwot]

I have no argument with that, it was more about an optimum, which is argued in the style of a laffer curve argument by Richard Armey that it's 11.42 of GDP, a misremembering on my part. I'm not really arguing what it is, but where it would be best. I'm sure it's possible to reduce tax to that level.

http://www.house.gov/jec/growth/govtsize/govtsize.htm

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Opportunist]

For a couple of reasons this is still by no means any better than a lot of "poor" people having enough money to spend. Actually, the whole "rich spend more money" myth is another myth waiting to be debunked.

First of all, they have a choice. And in an economic downturn, do you think they go on a vanity spending spree or start to hold onto what they got in case times get worse? Rich people already have a lot, and they are more likely to use the vanity items they have already rather than buying new ones when the economy looks bleak and the chance for more riches isn't that great. Do I need another yacht? Not really, the old one still looks great and it does what it has to do. Yes, I'd like that bigger one, but ... that can wait a year. And that pool house isn't really something I need right now either. Someone who is "poor" but wants to have some fun has to spend now. There is little entertainment of lasting value he has. What does a "poor" person have in terms of lasting entertainment items? A TV and maybe a console. The moment he wants to see a movie on the big screen, it's the movie theater. He doesn't have an entertainment system for 5k bucks at home. The moment he wants to engage in any sport at all he has to pay to play. He doesn't have a tennis court behind his house and can just invite his friends over for a game.

More important, though: Poor people have to spend their money here. Rich people don't. Actually, for rich people it's far more a question of a "standard of living" to not spend their money domestically. They don't go on a shopping spree in the local mall, they go to Paris for that. They don't buy a table in the local furniture store, they have it designed by some Italian crafter, and not from local wood but from exotic one. They don't buy the local refreshments (from water to wine), they want imported goods. And most of all they don't spend their vacation somewhere where they can drive to. They fly to the currently "fashionable" locations around the globe. Poor people don't have the choice. They have to spend their money here, simply because going somewhere else is already blowing the budget.

So please, stop with the myth of rich people creating jobs by spending money. They don't. Or rather, only if they want to. Poor people have to.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[nschubach]

For a couple of reasons this is still by no means any better than a lot of "poor" people having enough money to spend.

Thus when I said:

Granted, there would be more jobs to create fancy stuff if more people had fancy houses

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Opportunist]

That's not even necessary. We don't need "more" money. We just need more people with enough money to spend it. That's all. It is actually that simple. If we both have 1000 bucks, we both buy a DVD player. If I have 2000 and you have nothing, I buy one DVD player but I won't buy two. You might notice that there ain't more money going around, it's the same amount of money pooled, but still more goods get sold in the former example.

The optimum for the economy is reached when everyone has as much money as he'd need to satisfy the needs he has. Surplus money is actually wasted money, since it will be stockpiled and does not get into circulation. And that's what spins the economy. The economy is dependent on buying and selling of goods, and the more is bought and sold, the stronger the economy gets. If I have more money than what I'd spend on goods and services, that money is pretty much useless for the economy.

Oh, I could invest it? Yes, that would be even worse. Worse? Yes, worse. At least in the current situation, it's about the worst thing that I could do. Because investing means that I put my money into supply, not demand. I put it into the production aspect of the market, not into consumption. And if we don't have a shortage of one thing right now, then it's a shortage of supply. There's plenty of supply, what's lacking is demand! Adding to the supply side will only worsen the problem but not solve it. Because if I invest my money into production of goods and services, what I'll want is interest or profit. There isn't any other good reason to pump my money into the supply side. Putting money into demand satisfies one or more of my needs, putting it into supply does not do that. This increases the pressure on the supply side to generate revenue, only adding to the current problem where revenue isn't really something that comes easy.

If you look around the globe and check which nations got hit by the recession, and how hard they got hit, you will notice that countries that tried to level the amount of money in its population are usually not feeling the downturn as badly as nations with a big rich-poor bracket. The reason is very simple: In the former countries, the demand didn't plummet with poor people unable to even satisfy their bare physical needs anymore. There, the demand did of course diminish, but by no means in the same extend as in countries that subscribe to the "let the market sort it out" point of view.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[nschubach]

Yeah... that's what I said. I don't know why you feel the need to argue. If more people had fancy houses instead of just a few, more people would buy fancy things for those fancy houses and create even more jobs.

But to blatantly say the rich don't create jobs is a fallacy.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Opportunist]

Did you even read what I wrote? It's kinda disheartening to elaborate on a topic only to be misunderstood. The point is not that more people should be rich. The point is that the money needs to be better distributed.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[nschubach]

Yes, I did. I don't disagree, but I don't agree that money should be "taken" from the rich and given to the poor either. Money just handed out will be mis-appropriated and fall right back in the hands of those that don't "need" it and we'll be right back to where we are today. Sure, there may be a few "glory years" but eventually it will come crashing back to what it is now. I do not know of a good way to "resolve" the problem though besides a thorough revamp of the system along with a mass re-education (fat chance) of the people who don't spend wisely. If you establish a poverty line where there are no taxes and you have enough to live, people will live on that line and do no more than they need to continue living. They'll be struck by a natural disaster (planning is for chumps!) and be screaming on the news on how some President hates them. If you don't have some barrier, you'll have people who don't want to or can't work living on the streets asking for handouts. Now you have the people that feel the need to help others spending their "allotment" helping them and reducing their overall net worth... again, crashing back into the same routine.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Opportunist]

Spend wisely? Fuck no! People have to squander and spend without thinking! That's actually what drives the economy, as stupid as it sounds: Stupid people with money are a godsend for a demand side fixing attempt. Those who don't know anything have to hire someone who does. Those that can't fix their car need a mechanic. Those that can't fix their plumbing need a plumber.

And while I'm not a big friend of handouts, giving people enough to live on will at least do something against crime. People who want to enjoy their soma and don't want anything more will not do more either way. If you don't give them what they need to survive, what do you think they'll do? Go and starve to death? No. They'll break the law if necessary to get what they need. If I neither have a home nor food, do you think I care too much whether I mug you for the 20 bucks in your wallet? If you want people to stay within the law, give them something to lose. And very obviously the threat of losing your liberty isn't one that keeps people on this side of the law.

But on the other hand, make working worth it. Let's be honest here: If I had to work 40 hours a week to get 400 bucks at the end of the month, I won't work. I'll go and hack servers. Or if I can't do that, I'll mug you. I won't work for those pennies, and neither do a lot of people. Working has to pay. I want honest money for honest work, it was possible in the 50s to sustain a family on a single income, today you often have people working 2 or more jobs, each, husband and wife, to just get by. And that's bull. Sorry, that's bull. If someone is as dedicated to work that he can and wants to work 80+ hours a week, he should get rich that way. Even if he isn't top qualified Ivy-League material, investing that much time of your life should pay!

Back to the point.

How do you think money would be mis-appropriated if you handed it to the poor? What would they do with it? Save it? Very obviously, you don't (unless I read that wrong). They will spend it! They will buy services for it! They'll get a haircut, they'll go and squander it at the mall, they'll buy something. And that's what's missing today. We can stop it when the economy is back on track, but right now what we need is money in people who want to spend it. And that's the poor. Or rather, the "stupid". Because, as you rightly analyzed, they don't plan. They spend. In today, gone tomorrow. They want bling and crap, and they'll spend their money on that. Most of all, these are the people who need services because they're unable to do anything by themselves. And services are about the best thing you could sell. Because selling a service means that you have someone employed who gets money for work without spending resources. It's generated GDP without expenditure.

Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure why you think your guns are relevant to this discussion. Sounds to me like you're looking for trouble. Are you?

Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Abstrackt]

Even if Facebook really didn't disable this guy's account for running a Google+ ad they have effectively become an ad for Google+ themselves.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, can't help wondering how people that incompetent could have been so successful to begin with - "no, you mustn't advertise our competitor, let us do it for you".

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[airfoobar]

However, if they did, isn't it anti-competitive?

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Richard_at_work]

No - Facebook aren't doing anything here to stop the competition, nothing says they have to advertise their competition within their own service.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Surt]

You're allowed to be as anti-competitive as you want until you have a monopoly position and the government gets involved. Facebook hardly has a monopoly on social networking, there are literally dozens of competitors in the space, and at least 5 of them have substantial market share.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Locutus]

we'll see if this even makes it out of the geekier side of the online news forums. It's the 'other' forums where the advertising would be effective since most everyone here has already heard of Google+.

on a side note, I wonder when Facebook will start disabling all users using a Gmail account for their email address.

LoB

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Dachannien]

I'm not sure the Streisand Effect applies here. Everyone's heard of Google+ by now, and there's no way Facebook could ever prevent that, with Google's dominance in the advertising world.

But the one big reason that Google+ will be dominated by Facebook has nothing to do with whether people have heard of Google+ or not. Instead, it's that nobody's on Google+, and everybody's already on Facebook.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[DJRumpy]

In what other world do you live that a corporation must be forced to advertise for a competitor? Seems like everyone immediately loves to scream anti-competitive at the first sign of stress between two companies. It's called competition.

Facebook shouldn't be required to advertise for a competitor. They are a privately owned company and in no way would this ever be considered anti-competitive.

That said, Facebook better get it's shit in order if it hopes to compete, or become the next MySpace. Google+ doesn't have much of a community as of yet, just a bunch of accounts without a lot of activity. It lacks anything compelling for now but that could easily change with just the whim's of it's user base, or some new feature that hasn't been thought of. People have a short attention span, and Facebook is already on thin ice.

Even if Facebook really didn't disable this guy's account for running a Google+ ad they have effectively become an ad for Google+ themselves.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not violating a law, they're just being dicks. But the public doesn't care about the former, only the latter.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[hedwards]

That's not really how that works. You're supposed to obey the law without the government having to go in and enforce it. If the government had to bring people into court every time somebody got in their car, that would be absolutely ridiculous.

FB, definitely does have a significant enough share of the market that things like this aren't legal. If MySpace was doing it nobody would care because they're not relevant, FB OTOH is the largest site in a niche where size does in fact matter.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[hedwards]

Is this really any different than Google getting investigated for allegedly boosting results of its products? I think the jury is still out on whether or not that's been going on, but just because it's their site, doesn't mean that they can do what they like. There are certain responsibilities and limitations which come into play when you're that dominant in an industry.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone's heard of Google+ by now

Not even remotely true. I'm not sure what you sample was - but my anecdote is that I ask people almost every day if they have signed up for G+ yet and most of them look blank and ask what the heck is a Google+. This is working in an IT company. Granted, many of them don't follow IT news online and don't have IT related hobbies at home - and those are the ones who haven't heard of G+. If some IT people don't know about it yet, I imagine in other industries nobody knows about it.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Locutus]

never mind, I see TFA is on C'net

LoB

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[darjen]

Oh really? Have you ever heard of MySpace?

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Omnifarious]

I think the most interesting 20% of my Facebook friends are on Google+. Perhaps the percentage is even higher.

So, as far as I'm concerned, everybody's already on Google+.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Locutus]

wasn't "everyone" once on MySpace and I recall something called AOL once used by "everyone" too. Don't forget, Android OEMs often do deals with Google which include Google services like their app store, gmail, google chat, google voice, google maps, etc. Preloaded with a gmail account. That's lots of devices every day with users who could easily switch social networks.

It does not help that Facebook has partnered with Microsoft and is therefore blocking lots of Google ads from their site and being as aggressive about it as if Microsoft was at the helm.

LoB

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[multisync]

nothing says they have to advertise their competition within their own service.

Exactly. You don't see ads for the Superbowl on competing networks.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure the Streisand Effect applies here. Everyone's heard of Facebook by now, and there's no way MySpace could ever prevent that, with Facebook's dominance in the hipster world.

But the one big reason that Facebook will be dominated by MySpace has nothing to do with whether people have heard of Facebook or not. Instead, it's that nobody's on Facebook, and everybody's already on MySpace.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

It happens..the tobacco industry is forced to advertise smoking cessation. The casino industry is required to advertise to help some gamblers quit gambling.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Surt]

The anti competition laws apply only to monopolies. So you're not disobeying until you hold a monopoly position.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[ColdWetDog]

It happens..the tobacco industry is forced to advertise smoking cessation. The casino industry is required to advertise to help some gamblers quit gambling.

Those are specific laws invoked generated by enabling legislation (the casinos) or as a result of losing a legal battle (tobacco). They have nothing to do with competition.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you're an utility or other industry subject to government regulation: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/204218/Customer-Asks-For-Itemized-Bill-Verizon-Tells-Her-To-Get-a-Subpoena

Here's an interesting thought: At what point would Internet companies like Google for search, Facebook for collaboration, etc, reach the point where they should be considered as (and regulated as) utilities?

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[maxwell demon]

Is this really any different than Google getting investigated for allegedly boosting results of its products?

Yes. Facebook disabled an account. Now if Google removed their competitors from Google search results, then it would be the equivalent.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

Not sure that I'd call Facebook a monopoly, but "market share" is a bad way to think about social networks, since if you add up everyone's market share you end up with more than 100%--people are on more than one network. Network effects are key here--people don't want a Facebook account because of specific features of Facebook, they want a Facebook account because everyone else has a Facebook account. So if you're looking for a competitor to Facebook, you don't just want a different social network, you want a different social network that all of your friends also belong to. And depending on who you are and who your friends are, Facebook may very well have a monopoly on that product.

Really, when you join Facebook, you aren't just becoming a customer, you're becoming the product--you're becoming the reason other people want to join Facebook, and the reason advertisers and app developers want to do business on Facebook.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[taxman_10m]

What is irksome is when companies have terms of service but then ignore them or rewrite them on a whim if it happens that the terms are beneficial to someone other than themselves.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[maxwell demon]

Even if really everyone has heard of Google+ (which I doubt), it gives an extra incentive to get a Google+ account: It makes obvious that Facebook can cancel your account at any time without giving you a reason (it is a guess that it's due to the Google+ ads).

Note that a Google+ account and a Facebook account are not mutually exclusive.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Bengie]

Because I never see Comcast commercials on my Charter Comm network or AT&T commercials for broadband.

Because Intel not allowing AMD to use x86 wasn't an issue. Nope, nothing anti-competitive.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Zamphatta]

You're right. That guy just trolled Facebook ingeniously. /thread

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[sustik]

Disclaimer: I have no Facebook or Google+ account (and I plan to have neither).

For me this tells that Facebook is being scared. Probably they are right. They
do not trust that they would be able to maintain their customer base in the face of Google+
and other competitors if compared service. Face it: they do not offer anything that that
others could not. All the power of social networking sites are in the numbers, nothing else.
So they are very rational when they do all they can to minimize exposure to competitors.
So I think they do everything they can to stop competitors (but stay within the law I hope).

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[gnapster]

If Michael gets a Google+ account through an invitation by a slashdotter, then that is the Streisand effect at its finest.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[taxman_10m]

Thinking about it a bit more, don't you find it problematic that you aren't so much agreeing to terms as you are signing a blank piece of paper? That is what it amounts to from the person agreeing to terms. No real appeal process either. Reminds me a bit about the libertarian law blogger who had her account suspended by Google a while back: http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/120678/

Someone can probably google up a better link on that. It's interesting reading, not least of all because she is a libertarian.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Lunix Nutcase]

Because I never see Comcast commercials on my Charter Comm network or AT&T commercials for broadband.

Those are national ads that were paid and broadcast from the networks not from the cable provider, numbnuts. Nothing stops your local provider from replacing those with local ads to block them.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[murdocj]

Show me the law that says that you have to direct your customers to your competitor.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[murdocj]

Which doesn't apply in this case, unless Facebook added the terms of service about ads for competitors recently.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[MichaelKristopeit417]

Disclaimer: I have no Facebook or Google+ account (and I plan to have neither).

you plan to have neither no Facebook or Google+ account?

Disclaimer: you don't understand logic.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[murdocj]

If Facebook was an internet search provider, then yes, it would be equivalent, but they aren't.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[taxman_10m]

Someone else posted below that the terms include a catchall at the end, Terms of Service, section 11 "Special Provisions Applicable to Advertisers" number 13 "We may reject or remove any ad for any reason."

Like I said in another comment, you may as well be signing a blank piece of paper.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[murdocj]

Even if really everyone has heard of Google+ (which I doubt), it gives an extra incentive to get a Google+ account: It makes obvious that Facebook can cancel your account at any time without giving you a reason....

You mean like the following from Google's terms of service: "you acknowledge and agree that Google may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the Services (or any features within the Services) to you or to users generally at Google’s sole discretion, without prior notice to you"?

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[NeutronCowboy]

Is this really any different than Google getting investigated for allegedly boosting results of its products?

People still trot out this canard? for the record, the search results have never been altered. What some idiot blogger complained about is that for specific search terms, Google would use its own stock charting results above the results, instead of, say, Yahoos. That's identical to it providing direct definitions for words, doing calculations from the search bar or any other heuristic that resulted in Google very clearly saying "here's the data we think you were looking for", and then placing below it the standard site search results. For stock tickers, Google Finance wasn't even the top result; that would be Yahoo. And even the Google Finance charts had direct links to the major other charting sites - directly under the mini chart on the search result page.

So give it a rest. Stop spreading what is by now an outright lie.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[cgenman]

That's definitely arguable. Google would be in deep antitrust if Facebook suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from all Google search results.

Not running the ads are one thing. Banning the account is another. If he can prove that he was negatively impacted by what was essentially punitive actions by a company for using a competitor, he might have grounds.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[cgenman]

But everybody's already on Facebook. It's hard to get momentum behind a social networking service that everyone is already on and behind. LiveJournal, Friendster, and MySpace all reached massive amounts of users, and then sputtered. New users bring energy and vitality to a social community. And if you've already got all of the users, how are you going to get that new energy and momentum?

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[AvitarX]

Blocking third party migrators is a problem for me.

And it makes google+ with the one click data downloand very compelling.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Microsoft shouldn't be required to list alternate, competing browsers when you install their operating system?

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[DJRumpy]

All of which has nothing to do with being anti-competitive. This argument is similar to cell provider agreements which they can change at a whim, although that in itself should be illegal, it's not anti-competitive. It is akin to the Chewbacca defense, in that someone speaks of something which they hope to use to distract people form the original topic.

If anything, these TOS agreements allow them to be more competitive at the expense of the consumer. In the end, the TOS of a company is nothing but a nice description of what they will try to provide, and a set of guidelines that they expect their consumers to abide by. Since the company makes the rules, they can change them at a whim, whereas a 'consumer' is expected to adhere to them or face the consequences. Again all irrelevant when it comes to the term 'anti-competitive'.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[fast turtle]

If they do that, then I'll be able to sue em for Spamming my Gmail Account as I get 2-5 messages each day from them and Yes I don't have anyone I follow and all of my privacy settings are at max. So why in hell do I get 2-5 messages each day from Facebook?

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[noodler]

Well, the Strisand effect would come into effect when Facebook would look sour about Google+ and showing weakness in its users eyes.
That may lead to a mass exodus and THEN you will know the effect is in effect, effectively.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[sirsnork]

Because they really want to sell you penis enlargement drugs, why else would you get email you don't want? ;P

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[bhartman34]

Nothing stops your local provider from replacing those with local ads to block them.

And yet, they don't. That's the point. Try and find a Comcast channel you can't find a FIOS ad on.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that worked well for Myspace.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[statusbar]

Market share?

The people who use facebook do not represent facebook's customers. They are the product which is sold to the advertisers.

Facebook's market share is related to the advertisers.

This is the same with google.

Perhaps in terms of 'Social Network oriented advertising market share', facebook's market share is bigger than google?

--jeffk++

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[hedwards]

It's not a "canard" it's a serious violation of antitrust law. You cannot use the size of your corporation to harm competition in the sector. What they're doing there is essentially double dipping. They get to show an additional ad at the expense of the competition by virtue of controlling the search results. I'm not sure how precisely it isn't an antitrust violation.

This is just like in the past where there would be links to Google products without any indication that they weren't paid results causing confusion in the browser.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Miseph]

"Nothing stops your local provider from replacing those with local ads to block them"

Except for FCC regulations and contracts, and the inclusion of non-replacement clauses in their network contracts. The system is set up such that national broadcasts leave a chunk of time for local broadcasters, and local broadcasters leave a chunk of time for cable and other companies. Nobody overwrites anyone else's ads, because they actually can't.

Incidentally, the government can and does overwrite those time slots: that's what the EBS is for.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Zontar The Mindless]

I wonder when Facebook will start disabling all users using a Gmail account for their email address.

At about the same time that they start offering free email accounts with Web, POP, and IMAP access and 7+ GB storage...?

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah not everyone is on Google + (for now), but that's a good thing because the people who annoy (old ladies who forward me chain letters, etc.) me aren't there, but my interesting tech savvy friends are.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Znork]

Network effects are only valid as long as there is a useful network. Once the utility degrades to the extent that you dare not post anything but the most inane chatter because the whole world might be listening in and even the small tidbits that can be gleaned may come back and cause trouble in real life social networks then it doesn't matter if all your friends are there, you can't use it to communicate with them anyway.

Which is pretty much the situation Facebook is in. It's lost a lot of its network effect because for many people it's unusable for the very thing it could be useful for. Which means that any competitor that offers 'something' instead of 'nothing' becomes more appealing.

Still, from what I've seen of google+ it doesn't look like it's going to be it. Slight improvement on Facebook and a company that might be just a bit less sleazy, but nowhere near a place where you can feel safe having private conversations with close friends, sharing your media archive, bantering politics with select groups, etc.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

differently than other starting up social network, google plus could reach the 200 million user of gmail at day one.

this could tip the balance in his favor in such a short time to put facebook belly up in a month or two.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they do - they offer 700M other users. That means when I log in to Facebook, I can connect with just about everyone I know. When I log into Google+ I can connect with a few geeks I know.

Not all advantages are technical.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I have no Facebook or Google+ account (and I plan to have neither).

I fail to see the relevance of this disclaimer.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

You're allowed to be as anti-competitive as you want until you have a monopoly position and the government gets involved.

That statement is so wrong I don't know where to start. The century-old Sherman Act is just one counter-example, outlawing anti-competitive behavior typically done by multiple (i.e. non-monopolist) competitors.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[hey!]

Depends on the terms of service between Facebook and the developer. If mentioning a competitive social media service in an ad is a violation of the TOS, then they're within their rights. If it's NOT mentioned in the TOS, they can change the TOS, take the the "offending" ads and tell the developer not to post any more such ads. It's not clear for me that the ad in question violates Facebooks TOS, because he's trolling for a Google+ invite and that's not cross-promotion.

Here's the issue: Facebook solicits developers in order to add value to its service. As a developer, you invest your creativity and labor, and get access to eyeballs. It's not Facebook doing you a favor or vice versa. It's one hand washing the other. Now this guy managed to piss Facebook off while not technically breaking any rules, and they've decided to make an example of him.

Now I say you're a fool if you invest in a business relationship with an organization that treats developers that way.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[raehl]

Well, that's not entirely true. MySpace and Friendster somehow managed to lose all of my friends to Facebook. And it wasn't because my friends were already on Facebook - it was because Facebook was better.

There are three key factors in why Facebook did well:

1) They made it easy for kids to find other kids at their colleges. That got them their initial critical mass.
2) They didn't let users make their profile pages majorly annoying like MySpace did.
3) Zynga.

Google+ is a real threat because lots of people are already on Google's services, so Google already has that initial critical mass. If Google gets Zynga to put their future games on Google+ in addition to or instead of Facebook, Facebook is in real trouble.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

If the power is the numbers then what Facebook has to offer is the numbers. You've defeated your own argument. And you can't format a post for shit.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[yakatz]

Try and find a Comcast channel you can't find a FIOS ad on.

On the other hand, I was at someone's house watching FiOS TV and Verizon was doing a VERY poor job of replacing the ads in the video feed with their own ads.
The start and end times of the ads were off by a second or two, so you would see the first two seconds of an ad, suddenly it would change to a different ad, then when the program resumed, you would miss the first second or two.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[micheas]

The blog fell afoul of google's anti-spam algorithm and was down for a few days.

Considering how much of the blog is one or two sentences about political news followed by lots of comments, I can see how this erroneously received a spam flag.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[tyrione]

You had to ask this question? Does Nordstrom have to advertise for The Bon Marche? How about Nike advertising for Reebok or Adidas? Mother gave me great advice as a kid, ``Think before you speak.'' In this case, ``Think before your write.''

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Barbara, not Barbie]

Google+ doesn't have much of a community as of yet, just a bunch of accounts without a lot of activity.

I would have agreed with you a few days ago ... but then again, I only got my G+ account 6 days ago. Today? Already more active than Failbook ... people who wouldn't touch facebook except "well, my family is on it" (pretty much the only reason I ever look there) are flocking to G+. It's only a matter of time before the rest follow, and Facebook knows that.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[DJRumpy]

I have to admit I hope it takes off. It seems like there is no competition in the social network space. It's about damn time ;)

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[sustik]

Neither you. English is my second language and needs improvement.
(But my MS in Math was in the field of logic.)
Btw, no offense taken, we all err.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Barbara, not Barbie]

So join it. If you need an invite, email barbara dot hudson at gmail dot com. You probably won't be surprised at how many slashdotters are already there.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

no but you do see adds for directv and dish network on comcast

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Surt]

Please go read the Sherman Act, it says nothing like what you think it does. Here's the wiki page, with links to the actual text.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[murdocj]

Yes, and Google has the same catchall. It's not like Facebook is unique.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[MichaelKristopeit419]

they didn't teach you about double negatives at the place you got your Mostly Sucked in Math?

Btw.... Btw doesn't mean anything... BTW might... even btw... but Btw is ignorant hypocrisy. why would you claim you didn't not take no offense? so..... are you saying you are wrong as a result of an error, or you think i think you should be offended, even though you claim you weren't wrong?

language is not the problem... unless you're not not including the speaker.

err some more.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[taxman_10m]

It was more than being down. She freaked out because they deleted her archives and wouldn't restore them.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[micheas]

I also just noticed the report abuse button on the top of the page. (a blogger feature that I guess is on all blogs)

I suspect that that was pressed a lot as at would be on any moderately high profile political blog.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice new Streisand Effect. Well done FB.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[NeutronCowboy]

You have no idea what anti-trust laws are targeted at, what a monopoly is and you have even less of an idea what you're proposing as solution. Start reading here: http://iris.nyit.edu/~shartman/mba0101/trust.htm.

This is just like in the past where there would be links to Google products without any indication that they weren't paid results causing confusion in the browser.

You're now just flat out lying. Is anyone paying you for this shit?

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[davesag]

Same here. There is a massive overlap between my facebook friends and my G+ contacts, and I expect, eventually, to have more contacts in G+ than Facebook, much like I have far more twitter followers than facebook friends. The reason is that I only connect to people I know in Facebook, and the stuff I post there is stuff I share around to my friends for fun. Already there are lots of people who have me in their G+ circles that I don't actually know — that's fine as long as I can filter out the noise.

I really don't see why people think that G+ is somehow a rival to Facebook. This was the reaction people had to Twitter v facebook too. They are different, serve different needs, but have largely the same audience. I'll happily connect my Twitter account to G+ but I'd never dream of connecting it to Facebook.

Facebook's lists take a different, subtractive approach to sharing, where you choose which groups of people to exclude from your posts. G+ circles take an additive approach where you must choose who to push posts to. Twitter's lists are different again in that you can't choose to post a tweet only to some people but not others, but you can choose to focus on posts from smaller groups of people (whether you actually follow them or not).

Post to Twitter to promote something, Post to facebook to share something with friends. What posting to G+ circles is for is yet to be decided but the differences in philosophical basis will mean we will find different, yet complimentary uses for all of them I am sure.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[vaporland]

1. corporations have better rights than individuals
2. form an LLC
3. claim corporate rights were violated
4. litigate
5. profit!

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[perryizgr8]

they didn't teach you about double negatives at the place you got your Mostly Sucked in Math?

Btw.... Btw doesn't mean anything... BTW might... even btw... but Btw is ignorant hypocrisy. why would you claim you didn't not take no offense? so..... are you saying you are wrong as a result of an error, or you think i think you should be offended, even though you claim you weren't wrong?

language is not the problem... unless you're not not including the speaker.

err some more.

ironic asshole, you are.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[johnsnails]

spot on. any publicity is good publicity etc.. Also make people more aware of fb's anti competive nature, although im sure they will turn aound and plead 'conflict of interest' side note, I created a page on fb https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Im-slowly-migrating-away-from-fb-to-google-Whos-with-me/120882101335548 wondering if I can have fb block it if I get enough likes or whatever... feel free to try bring fb's servers to a grinding hault /. community!

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[geekoid]

really that's your example? a network doesn't run competing ads on other networks for something 2 billion people already know about?

Yes, the world is exactly that simple. It's all 1 overly simple bad example from being explained.

Mmmm.. if they are kicked and facebook doesn't sight a break in the eula, then,in fact, they can sue facebook.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[geekoid]

Wrong. Stopping going on about shit you know nothing about. Stop it...just stop.

You look stupid, stop looking stupid. There is enough of that already. If you don't know, then don't post.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[AK Marc]

Microsoft is forced to advertise Google.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[geekoid]

Only because they don't have a 'Logical unsound' argument' button.

This couldn't have happened to a nicer person.

Intellectually, it's a tragedy, emotional I was a happy that it happened. SO many times I have had discussion with people that linked to her blog, and I had to write a very precise and detailed dissection of the post.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Grismar]

Disclaimer: I have no Facebook or Google+ account (and I plan to have neither).

So, you "plan to have neither", which infers a change from a current situation in which you apparently do not have neither. So that implies you were using "or" exclusively and we are led to the conclusion you have both? (congratulations, so do I)

I disagree with the reasoning of the rest of your post. When someone is the market leader, most eyes are on them (I wish they weren't, I'm still hoping Diaspora will take off). But if your terms of use allow removing ads from competitors, you only have to weigh the Streisand effect against the effectiveness of those ads. Apparently, either Facebook has shown poor judgement or these were some really good ads. That's all there is to it.

Any conclusions about their state of mind ("scared") or intentions ("do not trust") is mere speculation on your part. The facts do not contradict your speculations, but they don't follow from them either. I also disagree that Facebook doesn't have anything others don't - they have customers, i.e. eyeballs and they have contracts with the likes of Zynga and that's making them a metric truckload of money every day. Money someone else *could* be making, but isn't. That's the whole point of the game.

Unless someone offers something Facebook does not have, taking away their customers will be very hard indeed. And I don't think "Circles" is the answer here, though Google is doing a decent job of integrating many of its other offerings in Google+.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing people who know you cross to the other side of the street when they see you coming.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Compaqt]

>Does Nordstrom have to advertise for The Bon Marche?

In regards of Facebook:

1. Maybe, according to federal anti-trust law. Whether that's a good or bad thing is different matter.

2. In a sense, Facebook can do anything it wants. But, then, so can users. There's a tipping point where users will abandon it (as they did with Friendster and MySpace). I doubt if this is the tipping point, though.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[anonymov]

when you install their operating system

, not when you install their browser.

It would be analogous if they had to advertise, say, Linux when you install their operating system.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[mcgrew]

Big nasty companies are big nasty companies. Google disabled my gmail account several years ago. I hadn't even used it much, signed up for the sm62704 /. account with it, emailed friends and family (no mass emails or even more than one respondent. No clue as to what term of service I allegedly violated, no recourse whatever, just an invitation to sign up for a different user name.

I declined and went to yahoo. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Finally signed up for another gmail account yesterday to post at slashdot, but I'm not going to use it for anywhere I might need it for password recovery. PIA when they yank an email address, annoying when they disable it with no explanation.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that is how it works. The laws are specifically more restrictive for a monopoly. For instance what MS did was completely legal back in the day until they were declared a monopoly at which point many of their practises became questionable or ilegal. What FB is done might be considered unethical (though even that is borderline as there is no law that says you have to allow people to use your services in a way that negatively impacts you) and what they did certainly isn't illegal.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Anonymous Coward]

GP's sentence isn't perfect, but it doesn't mean what you appear to think it means. If you're going to be a grammar nazi, at least make sure you speak the language something is written in before attempting to make corrections.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[captain_sweatpants]

really that's your example? a network doesn't run competing ads on other networks for something 2 billion people already know about?

I think you massively overestimate world-wide interest in the Superbowl.
On the other hand well in excess of 2 billion people are aware of google (and most of them will soon be aware of google+ too.)

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[justsayin]

That's OK, I will go start one for you. No, don't thank me. It's no problem. brb

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[bluefoxlucid]

CITE you ignorant fucking curr, CITE! Sight is what you do with your fucking EYES!

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[MichaelKristopeit411]

ur mum's face is an ironic asshole.

you forgot to bold face my second application of valid double negative logic.

you're an idiot.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[perryizgr8]

but surprise, you're still an asshole!

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[DickBreath]

> However, if they did, isn't it anti-competitive?

Restraint of trade.



Facebook: restraint of trade.
Google: restraint of tirade.

Google: partner with everyone, sue no one.
Apple: partner with no one, sue everyone.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Myopic]

I see adverts for satellite TV on cable TV.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Myopic]

I don't think that's the legal definition of 'monopoly'. But I'm not a lawyer, are you?

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Surt]

Feel free to provide documentation if you think you can prove I'm wrong. Of course you can't.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Surt]

I'm not, but you don't have to be a lawyer to be able to understand easily defined concepts.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/monopoly

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[MichaelKristopeit411]

ur mum's face're still an asshole.

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

cower in my shadow some more behind your chosen less than gr8 at spelling themed pseudonym, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Sparrow1492]

Umm, did not Microsoft have to do the exact same thing back in the IE days? They were required to add other browsers (the competition) so that they were not anti-competitive. Whey I showed up in Germany last year I got a nice new MS patch offered to force browser choice.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[thelenm]

Your English is fine... there was nothing wrong with that sentence. It was perfectly understandable. That guy is just being an asshole.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Myopic]

Fair enough. Although that definition doesn't seem to jibe with my understanding of the AT&T or Windows monopoly cases, because neither had "the exclusive power to carry on a particular business or trade". Maybe the courts rely more on this part of the definition: "In a monopoly, one or more persons or companies totally dominates an economic market".

Facebook might not have "the exclusive power to carry on the particular business of social networking", but it does "totally dominate the economic market of social networking".

I still think a lawyer would have to comment, to clear up the confusion.

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[X0563511]

Especially as it reads like he wasn't even advertising it, just making it easy for people to find him on it.

It's not like it read "click here to find me on Google+ and abandon this shitty service" instead...

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Bucky24]

He might actually have a case about being negatively affected. There are people these days who live by their facebook accounts. Though since he was asking people to add him on Google+, he obviously has a Google+ account, so he might not be affected all that much. On the other hand if he's an app developer he might be losing revenue if his account gets blocked (I'm not entirely sure if facebook apps work that way though).

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[Bucky24]

At this point, as far as I know, Google+ doesn't even have ads. So by your logic their market share would be zero?

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[statusbar]

Correct! No ads yet!

If you think of the people with googleplus accounts as their market, what percentage of the "global social network marketplace" is the revenue that google generates by charging these people for their accounts? Hmm... $0 / $0 = NaN

So why do they do it?

--jeffk++

Re:Well, that's one way to advertise....

[macinnisrr]

So, you "plan to have neither", which infers a change from a current situation in which you apparently do not have neither. So that implies you were using "or" exclusively and we are led to the conclusion you have both? (congratulations, so do I)

Actually, what the OP said "implies" an idea. You "inferred" that idea. So perhaps you meant to say "...from which I infer a change", or "...which implies a change".

I Hate to be a grammar Nazi, but you started it ;-).

Same story, different day...

[Anonymous Coward]

When will companies realize that putting your head in the sand and pretending the competition does not exist will make it go away? This is a stupid move on facebook's part. If you are scared of the new competition, than innovate and make your product better. Otherwise you will end up like Blockbuster, GM, and countless others examples throughout history.

Re:Same story, different day...

[Richard_at_work]

I'm sorry, but I didn't realise that GMs or Blockbusters troubles started when they refused to advertise their rivals in their own stores or showrooms...

Re:Same story, different day...

[Anonymous Coward]

you stupid fuck. he was suggesting they innovate. learn how to read.

Re:Same story, different day...

[Richard_at_work]

His suggestion had nothing to do with the topic at hand, banning an ad for a rival network does not imply they are burying their heads in the sand, nor does it imply that they are suffering from a lack of innovation - learn to think for yourself, you pathetic little shit.

Re:Same story, different day...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, did they have an advertising system? (Something others can use for doing ads, not just an in house self promotion.)
That's why those companies aren't part of this discussion, other than being companies that tanked for some reason...

Re:Same story, different day...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your remark might be treated as something other than "ignorant" if not for Bing and Yahoo ads showing up in Google...

Re:Same story, different day...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point. It's not that they refused to advertise their rivals, it's that somehow having advertisement for their rivals is a problem. If you're confident that your product is better than your competitors you'd invite them to have a closer look at both, would you not?

This is just facebook going through the same companies as the parent pointed out (You can add RIM, Apple and Microsoft to the list as far as I'm concerned). There seems to be a certain tipping point once an organization gets large enough that it can no longer respond to innovations in it's field. It's stuck in it's own corporate environment and cannot adjust quickly enough.

I personally had a facebook account for two weeks but their privacy issues made me run for the hills. Google+ seems to me like a better alternative to keeping in touch with coworkers (ie social networking for jobs).

Re:Same story, different day...

[TheRaven64]

And yet Google actually did show me adverts for Bing. If you're confident in your product, then running adverts for your competitors is great - they pay you money, but you don't lose any customers. If you aren't confident in your product, then refusing to run adverts for your competitor announces this to the world.

Re:Same story, different day...

[cHiphead]

Sounds like a Zuckerberg directed or inspired move on facebook's part. A snarky fuck-face way of running a business, as expected.

Re:Same story, different day...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would +1 you on that post, but I use Facebook.

Re:Same story, different day...

[Anonymous Coward]

No they started when they refused to innovate and started worrying about other things like using legal maneuvering to fight competition, or keeping a stock price high while not worrying about your core product, or a hundred other things. I think the parent's post was pointing out that when you spend more time worrying about other people, things, companies, laws, etc that are not your core business you eventually have issues. Therefore they should instead worry about their own product and making it better.

Re:Same story, different day...

[Anonymous Coward]

More like a legitimate customer who used the "community" bulletin board on the Blockbuster wall to post a flyer about his own awesomeness and how he has an account with Hollywood video. Then Blockbuster, instead of just removing the flyer, bans the customer from the store.

Re:Same story, different day...

[Anonymous Coward]

OP didn't say anything about blockbuster or gm refusing ads, it said they lost to competition by pretending they didn't exist. Reading comprehension ftw!

Re:Same story, different day...

[Anonymous Coward]

I duno, Google pretty much does the same thing to it's advertisers, with the same 'you did something wrong, we can't tell you what, and you can't appeal'

Re:Same story, different day...

[Anonymous Coward]

The really funny part is that Facebook and MySpace interact.

Re:Same story, different day...

[randyleepublic]

Actually, yes that was precisely their problem. If an enterprise can not hold its competitors up to the light of day, and then demonstrate why it is superior, then they are not in "business", but are parasites.

Re:Same story, different day...

[geekoid]

Did you have to try hard to miss the point, or does it come natural to you?

GM bad blockbuster tried to ignore the competition, and adopt on there own speed instead of being nimble.
Facebook is doing the same that. That was the posters point, dumbass.

Re:Same story, different day...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well actually yes it does, but then, you're an Apple fanboy so I suppose we can excuse you for being incapable of rational thought and logical argument.

Re:Same story, different day...

[Anonymous Coward]

+1

Re:Same story, different day...

[snadrus]

hmmm... Lets look at the year:
Nokia partners with Microsoft..... Then has the worst quarter ever & is slated for serious trouble & buyout.
Facebook partners with Microsoft (Bing, Skype)..... Then has innovation stalls & is slated for serious trouble & buyout.

There's a much bigger anti-Microsoft crowd than Slashdot.

More people will notice now...

[kullnd]

Funny thing is that alot less people would have noticed such a stunt had Facebook just left it alone... Thanks to their decision, I didn't even have to log into Facebook to see the ad, he doesn't have to pay for the impression of the ad to me, and Facebook doesn't get the money for it! ... Sweet Deal

Re:More people will notice now...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was just thinking what a creative way to circumvent my adblock that was.

Re:More people will notice now...

[dcollins]

But the next million times it happens (or pre-empted from happening due to chilling effects), it won't land on Slashdot's main page. So the expected-value analysis is probably still in Facebook's favor.

Re:More people will notice now...

[Anonymous Coward]

the Streisand Effect...

Re:More people will notice now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Google should pull a facebook.

And remove any and all mention of facebook from all google sites and products.

bang. no more facebook. :)

Re:More people will notice now...

[ColdWetDog]

the Streisand Effect...

Funny that this article was submitted by Barbara.

Re:More people will notice now...

[kingturkey]

Do you really think that the number of people just 'discovering' Facebook via a Google search now is significant? Maybe it would cause problems for some older people who don't understand the difference between the Google search bar on their homepage and the address bar.

Re:More people will notice now...

[chimpo13]

I think you underestimate the people that look for facebook by typing facebook into the google thingy.

Re:More people will notice now...

[TheRaven64]

Last statistics I saw showed that facebook was one of the most searched-for terms on Google. facebook.com and www.facebook.com were also near the top of the list. Lots of people type site addresses into their search bar.

Re:More people will notice now...

[Barbara, not Barbie]

the Streisand Effect...

Funny that this article was submitted by Barbara.

I must be having a blonde day - this is the sort of article that just screams "Streisand Effect."

Too bad I used up my mod points earlier today, so consider yourself +1 Funny.

Re:More people will notice now...

[micheas]

Facebook blocks a lot of the reasonably public part of its site from google.

Re:More people will notice now...

[StripedCow]

Funny thing is that alot less people would have noticed such a stunt had Facebook just left it alone...

Yes, but did anyone actually verify the claims of the submitter?
It may just as well be a stunt from the side of Google (I'm not implying it is, just that it could be so).

Re:More people will notice now...

[Compaqt]

What annoys me is how they want you to sign up even to view pages.

Strangely, though, it's able to be made available to googlebot. Hence, you can search for a page, and then view Google's cache of it.

Anyone want an invite?

[chalsall]

Anyone want an invite? Post your e-mail address here, or e-mail gplus@wabbit.com.

If you e-mail me, I promise not to give your e-mail address to any spammers, nor use it myself other than to send the invite.

Certainly better than posting it publicly here!

Re:Anyone want an invite?

[edxwelch]

Yeah, I'd appreciate it: ones31@yahoo.com ;)

Re:Anyone want an invite?

[LynnwoodRooster]

I don't know... Your slashot UID is a bit too high for me to trust blindly...

Re:Anyone want an invite?

[Ihmhi]

Sent you an e-mail, although not from this address. Thanks for the offer dood!.

Re:Anyone want an invite?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like an invite please.

kthxbye

Re:Anyone want an invite?

[Sparx139]

Why not create a dummy account to give to this guy, and then invite yourself from that? (I don't have a Google+ account yet so I'm not sure if it doesn't work this way)

Re:Anyone want an invite?

[Asic Eng]

Sure, I want one: 8m6m68ae8k@snkmail.com (looks weird but works, and I don't care if it gets to the spammers).

Re:Anyone want an invite?

[Zugok]

yes please, my last one was ballsed up when it went to a Google Apps account

supergroovegear [at] hotmail [dot] com

Thanks,

Re:Anyone want an invite?

[chalsall]

Dummy accounts (or, as I call them, "throw-away" addresses) certainly seem to be an option. The invites don't appear to be bound to the sent-to-email address.

So far today 17 people have taken me up on my offer for invites via direct e-mail. If anyone of them see spam which can be contributed to this, please let them post that fact here.

I'm legit -- not a spammer nor e-mail address harvester -- I just loath Facebook, and want to see Google+ reach critical mass ASAP.

Re:Anyone want an invite?

[LynnwoodRooster]

WHOOSH! Look at chalsall's UID. Now read my statement again...

Re:Anyone want an invite?

[geekoid]

so low ID equals trustworthy?
  Makes me wish I hadn't sold my 3 digits ID...naw, not really.

Re:Anyone want an invite?

[cyclomedia]

ooh, me, me me!!

richardacre@[slashdot username].co.uk

Re:Anyone want an invite?

[chalsall]

so low ID equals trustworthy?

Doesn't hurt...

Also, the fact the wabbit.com domain has existed since 1995 doesn't hurt either....

Fuck yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook is dying

Re:Fuck yeah

[Frosty Piss]

Facebook is dying

Unfortunately, it will take several years before this becomes clear to the masses - even MySpace is still limping along, there are some people who still use it... Sure, Facebook is the new MySpace, but the death-spiral is a multi year event.

Re:Fuck yeah

[Sylak]

MySpace has entirely changed its focus from the individual to the collective though. It's still one of the better ways for local business or underfunded (and some very well off) bands to get themselves out there without needing to spend the money on web design, hosting, and storage/transfer. Yes, there are still individual profiles, but largely the only ones updating are bands and businesses.

Re:Fuck yeah

[hedwards]

It would have already happened, but have you priced silver lately?

Re:Fuck yeah

[phantomfive]

The timing is excellent, however. Shortly before Google+ was announced, I saw someone estimating a $1trillion estimate for the future valuation of Facebook. Now we are seeing that 75% of capital markets executives at investment banks believe that the multi-billion dollar valuations for many private companies are too high.. Some people are calling the Facebook IPO the greatest short opportunity ever.

If Facebook doesn't IPO soon, the multi-year death-spiral will hit their investors first.

Re:Fuck yeah

[Frosty Piss]

If Facebook doesn't IPO soon, the multi-year death-spiral will hit their investors first.

I think they missed the IPO boat. Investors are already nervous about FB.

Re:Fuck yeah

[phantomfive]

I so hope you are right. It will put a smile and may face, and make my day bright.

Re:Fuck yeah

[yodleboy]

Facebook provides an easy to use way for people to stay in touch. I certainly don't use much email to keep in contact with friends and relatives out of state these days. There will always be a market for that kind of tool and the average Joe that finally got on Facebook in 2010 won't be going anywhere. There are millions of Facebook users that are extremely averse to change. Even if some miracle service that was clearly better in every possible way came along they'd stay on Facebook. Myspace failed because they couldn't decide what the hell they wanted to be. Facebook has a clear identity.

What might happen is people get sick of 3000 "friends" and finally clean up their friends list, but I doubt it. Never mind the addictiveness of those crappy Zynga games. I know people that spaz if they don't mess with CafeWorld 12 times a day. They plan their schedules around being able to get online and cook virtual food. It's brought WoW type addiction to the masses. Anyway, I just don't see it going anywhere any time soon.

Re:Fuck yeah

[Megane]

Did Netcraft confirm it?

Re:Fuck yeah

[justsomebody]

WHAAAAT? public retard collection is dying?

Re:Fuck yeah

[ADRA]

I agree that Facebook has some serious reasons to be nervous about their value, but I don't think the stink has truly set in with investment circles yet.

I would say that MySpace was bought somewhat after its swan song because of perception and indomitably. Facebook hasn't even reached the peak of its success yet, though I can start to see the tip of the mountain myself.

I could make the same stability claims about most internet driven businesses. Google's strong now, but who says they couldn't be shown up by any number of up-starts? Its happened before, and it can happen again. Google's plus is that they're actually trying to diversify. Having dozens of unique and compelling properties makes it hard for someone to come in and replace lock-stock.

Re:Fuck yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Like to piss in other people's cornflakes, huh?

Re:Fuck yeah

[Frosty Piss]

Facebook hasn't even reached the peak of its success yet,

I think this is very debatable.

The useful and unique features of FB have already been established, and much of the new "features" amount to things that are only useful to Facebook's customers to commercially leverage the personal information of the Facebook Sheeple for commercial financial gain.

For a significant percentage of Facebook users, it's only purpose is to play mindless inane "games". Certainly Facebook as a social networking tool is clearly in a precipitous decline.

Re:Fuck yeah

[Frosty Piss]

Oops, I meant "its" not "it's".

As one of these guys wh really HATES people who do not grasp it's/its, there/their/they're, and so on, I should be more careful...

Re:Fuck yeah

[Mashiki]

That's because it is going to be the greatest short ever. Anyone who plays the market past a causal level is already salivating at making a quick buck off this. I know I am.

Re:Fuck yeah

[phantomfive]

lol fastest listing-to-delisting time ever!

Re:Fuck yeah

[TheRaven64]

They already had the benefits of an IPO, without all of that pesky regulation. They sold a large chunk of stock to Goldman Sachs, which then hyped it and sold overpriced shares in a fund backed by facebook shares. Facebook was therefore able to sell a large amount of stock at an inflated price. GS then hyped it some more publicly, allowing their favoured investors to sell the shares and leave the facebook shares owned - indirectly - by their dupes.

Re:Fuck yeah

[John Bresnahan]

Facebook is dying

Next you'll be telling me that BSD is dying!

Re:Fuck yeah

[EzInKy]

The thing your are forgetting is most people still listen to their neighborhood geek, and neighborhood geeks are telling them that facebook is all about sucking in the money.

Also...

[Jessified]

Also in the news, Google bans Facebook from it's search results. Facebook complains, fails to see the humour of the situation.

Re:Also...

[AmberBlackCat]

Who goes to Google to find Facebook? The only Facebook-related thing Google is good for is finding the Facebook page of an individual who probably doesn't even want to be found. Google actually should ban Facebook from its search results.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who routinely type urls into the search bar and don't know what the address bar is for. For those people, anything Google blocks then ceases to exist.

Re:Also...

[sakdoctor]

68,000,000 people per month google the phrase "www.facebook.com"

I take it you've never seen analytics for a website.
Many, many people use google as a sort of fuzzy address bar. They mash in something resembling the URL, and google sends them there.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have NO idea how "regular people" use the web. :) People reach sites by clicking on the first Google hit and strongly believe that it's what they were looking for despite all evidence to the contrary.

My favorite example is this article that was the first hit for "facebook login" a while ago. Read the oldest comments first: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php

Re:Also...

[dcollins]

I think there was a case last year where, for a day, Google returned someone else's blog as #1 when searching for Facebook (FB itself was #2). The blog comments instantaneously filled with hundreds of angry, misspelled, all-caps rants by people infuriated that Facebook wasn't letting them log in. It was hilarious (wish I could find it now).

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine does that routinely. She'll type in the complete URL in the search field, then click on the top result that comes back. Says it works fine, and told me where I could shove my helpful suggestion about the address bar...

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

A few months ago this

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php

was on the first Google page for "facebook login". A few precious comments:

Margaret Beck
i don't understand this
Like Reply
2 weeks ago 2 Likes

Margaret Beck
why should i subscribe by e-mail
Like Reply
2 weeks ago 2 Likes

Margaret Beck
why can't i get into facebook--i signed up wks ago

Be shocked.

Re:Also...

[poind3xt3r]

Facebook

> Did you mean: Google+

Re:Also...

[cdrguru]

Isn't there a new browser option to eliminate the address bar entirely, specifically for people that can't type URLs? After all, if all you do is use Google and bookmarks, what possible use is the address bar?

Re:Also...

[hedwards]

I'll do that if I can't remember whether it's a .net .com or .org TLD. I'd rather give a little bit of money to Google than to link farmers.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Banning Facebook from its search results would probably damage it more than Facebook - being that Google is in the search business and all. Your search engine can't find Facebook, but Bing can? That sound you're hearing is the sound of everyone updating their homepages to bing.com.

Funny - the captcha for this post is 'profits'

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just use my bookmark...

"I don't need to remember my own phone number, I can just look it up in the phone book." Albert Einstein

Make yourself a good place to mark down sites you goto... Save yourself some time.

Re:Also...

[Richard_at_work]

Wouldn't that be leveraging an advantageous position in one market in order to gain an advantage in another...?

Re:Also...

[AmberBlackCat]

1. How many of those people realize it's a search engine and not an address bar?

2. How many of those people actually typed it in an address bar but their web browser's address bar is also a Google search bar?

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

A ton of us google words from a website's URL rather than remember it. It's a lot easier and just as efficient.

Re:Also...

[ColdWetDog]

Wouldn't that be leveraging an advantageous position in one market in order to gain an advantage in another...?

No, Google is everything. There is no 'other'.

Re:Also...

[grub]

The first time I saw someone do this at work, I thought "are you fucking retarded?" then I saw literally dozens of other people doing it. Mind blowing.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

I do it routinely by accident, and when some smug git starts lecturing me about it, I tell them to shove off too.

Re:Also...

[Bing Tsher E]

I have a co-worker who does that on his work computer. He thinks that by not entering the URL directly he is keeping where he surfs out of the browser's history. Whereas all he is doing is making sure at least one additional entity can 'keep track' of where he surfs from work.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are smart and kind-hearted, you'd want to treat them like pets that just happen to be able to speak.

The problem is these pets often get to vote, drive, buy guns etc. They actually have a fair bit of power over your life.

Smart sociopaths on the other hand probably see them as a resource to exploit.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you're thinking of this:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php
Still getting comments over a year later. Sort comments by oldest first to see the slew of stupidity.

Re:Also...

[cgenman]

Chrome and I.E. elegantly decide if you're trying to search or URL. If you type in facebook.com, you go to the url. If you type in facebook, you do a search for facebook.

I'm not sure how Firefox and Opera handle their URL bars, but I presume they're similar.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Found it! (I just hope you get this anon's link.)

http://blog.scansafe.com/journal/2010/2/24/cant-login-to-facebook.html

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

68 million probably doesn't cover half of them. Thousands got redirected to a blog website when the Google search term, "Facebook login," turned up another website as the 1st result one day.

Re:Also...

[dcollins]

Thank you!

Re:Also...

[Jessified]

PS if anyone wants a google+ invite, reply to this message with your email

Re:Also...

[dcollins]

And thank you!

Re:Also...

[Hadean]

Some of the top Google searches for my website are things like "face book log in" and "how to log in to face book". I have no clue how they get to my site from those searches, but either way - if that many people get to me from those searches, imagine how many people use Google just to find Facebook?

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was hilarious (wish I could find it now).
Try google.

Re:Also...

[rvw]

Who goes to Google to find Facebook? The only Facebook-related thing Google is good for is finding the Facebook page of an individual who probably doesn't even want to be found. Google actually should ban Facebook from its search results.

You don't go to Google to find Facebook (except for those people who enter www.facebook.com in the google search bar). You go to google to find an old friend, and if this friend has a facebook account, he is probably listed in the top 5 results. How many visits do you think FB gets this way? I think a lot!

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php
(3142 Comments)

Re:Also...

[noodler]

From a users perspective it's not so bad realy.
Since the carret is usually in the search field and not in the address bar, you basicly exchange the click for activating the address bar for a click on the top result.

Re:Also...

[stepdown]

You'll need to sort the comments to show the oldest ones first, but they're all still there...

ReadWriteWeb - Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here it is: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_loginpage2.php

Re:Also...

[Toonb]

LOL a teacher of me searches 'google' in the (bing) search bar of his browser, en then he types the webadress in in google

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you go. That page discusses the event, and the blog in question was Read Write Web. Found with google, of course :-)

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it http or https? With www or without? What about .com,.net, .org or perhaps .gov?

Re:Also...

[coaxial]

Not as mind blowing as searching for www.google.com on Google.

Re:Also...

[zoom-ping]

Here it is. It was the top hit for a while when you searched Google for 'facebook login'. The comments are hilarious and rage-inducing at the same time.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you go: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php

Re:Also...

[programmerar]

I've seen collegues type "www.google.com" in the google search bar, ie not the address/url bar. To get to www.google.com. And search for whatever it was they were really looking for. I work in IT by the way, and so do they.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

This was it: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but those are the people too stupid^H^H^H novice to know how to change the options.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php

Still going strong, too. Comments as recent as a week ago. Even with the readwriteweb logo and the part of the article in bold that tells them what just happened, people still ignore it all and go down to the little white box and type stupid things in.

Alternatively, you can just type "facebook users are idiots" in google and get blog posts about the blog post that started it all and many contain screenshots of some of the dumber comments.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22facebook+users+are+idiots%22

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you go.

Re:Also...

[JimboFBX]

a lot of people do this to prevent accidentally arriving at a typo-squatting webpage.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that this is the blog post you want: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_loginpage2.php

The confused comments start almost immediately

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Google banning facebook from Google Ads would be the appropriate analogy. And an equally understandable move.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you use ixquick.de you can do exactly that -- in addition to https throughout, and the (unverifiable) pledge not to log your searches, it has a proxy link for all results. Since the proxy is controlled by POST parameters rather than the URL, it doesn't leave usable records in your browser history.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL a teacher of me searches 'google' in the (bing) search bar of his browser, en then he types the webadress in in google

Let me guess, he's your English teacher. That would certainly explain quite a bit.

Re:Also...

[I_Lost_My_Puppy]

I'd like an invite, please


thestacks (at) gmail (dot) com

Re:Also...

[AmberBlackCat]

It's a shame those people don't realize you can type the same name in Facebook. It only returns Facebook results and narrows the list down based on your friends list and their friends lists. If you search for John Smith, you might actually find the one you're looking for because he's the only one on three of your friends' friends lists. As opposed to a regular search engine which will give you a million john smith results, even a million Facebook pages for john smiths. And if you search on Facebook, you get the john smiths who have opted to be hidden from search engines but still show up to "friends of friends".

And really, I'm no Facebook lover. I only get on there because everybody else is on there. If everybody moves to google, I guess I'll be moving too. Just I think all the "Google is so good and they're going to kill evil Facebook" is a bit much. First of all, they're equally evil. Second, Google has watched Facebook turn into a monster that probably surpasses every Google property except YouTube in traffic. I wouldn't say they're going to lose to Facebook. But it's not like they've been successful against Facebook any time during the last few years.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

ak@workmail.com :-)

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps:
Showing results for Google+. Search instead for Facebook.

Re:Also...

[BeanThere]

The worst part of that is how people automatically that they are not the stupid ones, but that Facebook "did something". They clearly don't know the first thing about computers but instead of their default assumption being "maybe I am just confused here", their default assumption is that they know what they are doing and that the company is at fault. Having worked tech support I've seen the same thing. I think it's a symptom of our politically correct education system teaching morons that everyone's random brainfarts are "valuable".

Re:Also...

[justsayin]

Ok, send one to me. Santa@NorthPole.com

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a network admin and the database admin in the office next to me searches with URL's. It drives me nuts.

Re:Also...

[mrob]

You mean like this? http://goo.gl/8D3LH

seriously?

[Locutus]

They tell him they can't identify which part(s) of their own Terms of Service have been violated and then tell the guy if he has any questions he should review their terms of service for the answers. WTF over. The term Sophomoric comes to mind.

At the very least they should have changed their ToS and then notified him of what he's violated.

LoB

Re:seriously?

[dcollins]

Of course, that's just an automated message that gets sent out identically any time someone is banned.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it when people get charged with offenses that the other party refuses to identify. Obviously you wouldn't have said anything in the first place if you didn't know what I did wrong, would you? Reminds me of the ref in the SA World Cup who wouldn't say who or what the offense was on the US team that drew a penalty or most of the prisoners in Gitmo.

Pretty much describes most software error handlers too. "An error has occured!" usually means "Obviously I know what the exact error was but I'm too lazy of a programmer to specify what caused the error because then I'd have to write a bunch of custom messages and all that extra code."

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are guilty of a crime. We are not going to tell you which law you broke. Please proceed immediately to the nearest prison for a prompt execution.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure. But why can't the automated program that presumably screens the content for violations indicate what violation triggered the automated message?

This is like "Assertion failed. No, I'm not telling you on what line of your code or what assertion it was. You'll have to guess." It's dumb whether a human is manually screening the content or a program is doing it. Bad policy or bad code. Take your pick.

Re:seriously?

[digitig]

So the right word isn't "Sophomoric", it's "Kafkaesque".

Re:seriously?

[MSJos]

Behold, the venerable ed(1):

% ed
s/foo/bar/x
?
%

Re:seriously?

[phantomfive]

The term Sophomoric comes to mind.

That term describes basically everything I've ever heard about Facebook management.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds a bit like my wife: "If you don't know why I am upset, I am certainly not going to tell you!"

Re:seriously?

[dcollins]

Basically agree, but I'll pick "evil policy". It's intentionally obfuscatory.

Re:seriously?

[haploc]

Sounds just as much as "You are violating our patents, but we're not going to tell you which ones."

Re:seriously?

[SpaceLifeForm]

It's the same as the U.S. Government saying you can not know if you are being spied upon. Same crap your mom told you: "cause I said so!".

Re:seriously?

[Lord Kano]

About a month ago, I got a notice that one of my posts violated their TOS, they couldn't tell me which posts and to review the TOS. I asked that question to their feedback section, I never got an answer.

LK

Re:seriously?

[Syberz]

Actually, like a lot of large enterprises, the send out generic messages to people who violate their terms. Facebook knows full well what terms were violated, they just can't be assed to personalize the notice and they don't want to handle requests for more info.

Re:seriously?

[Sparrow1492]

That's becasue their feedback and support seem to be a redirector straight to null. Just on the page because they are expected to have them.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes even YAHOO does this (surprise, not).
I was abosy ready to quit YAHOO and they have relaxed the rules although they still throw surprises at you.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you, nobody cares about yahoo.

Nonsense

[Toam]

Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions.

This is such nonsense. If he has violated it, tell him where. Giving a non-specific reason and telling him to try and work it out for himself is ridiculous.

(Yes, obviously this is a "we are banning you but not explicitly saying why, mwahaha!" but it is still bullshit)

Re:Nonsense

[tempo36]

I once got the exact same thing from eBay once... ----------- Your listing has been removed. Our decision to remove your listings was based on several factors. Please take note that this removal is not to question your item thus a help in making your listings better, in making you a better eBayer and to improve your future sales. - Community members have expressed concern with the authenticity of previous items Due to the concerns stated above, please don't relist these items. If you do, your listings will be removed and you may be subject to range of actions, including buying and selling limits or suspension of your account. This helps protect you from receiving negative Feedback or low detailed seller ratings and also prevents eBay buyers from potentially bad shopping experiences. ---------------- When I called and asked what concerns had been expressed since I had 100% feedback I was told that there is no way to access the specifics of why the item was removed and that I should....read the ToS.

Re:Nonsense

[spire3661]

Giving specific reasons would encourage people to poke at you to find weaknesses.

Re:Nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Ultimately, what they mean is that they want to be able to remove listings whenever they feel like it. It is certainly their right to do so, but then they should say so in their terms of service. Now they include some bullshit in their terms of service and then go on to disregard the terms with impunity.

Re:Nonsense

[sakdoctor]

Security through obscurity then.

Re:Nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason for no explanation is that it's a form letter they send to anyone who has violated their guidelines. It's easier and faster to send out violation notifications if they don't have to have a human point out the exact guideline that was violated, not because the guideline doesn't exist yet.

Re:Nonsense

[LocalH]

Most of the time ToS such as these do have clauses stating that they reserve the right to remove anything, anytime, for any reason, more or less.

Re:Nonsense

[hedwards]

I'm sorry, but that's not legitimate in this case. The rules are the rules and if you want people to live up to them, then they have to be clear. If they won't tell him what the violation was, then they have a responsibility to give the money back and not to spaz out if the ad gets relisted.

One of the things about rule of law is that it doesn't work if the people being expected to live under it aren't clear as to what specifically the laws are. Granted this is just a contract, but the same logic applies.

Re:Nonsense

[spire3661]

Rules are rules??? LOL, grow up

Re:Nonsense

[Bengie]

We need a law that you can never have "for any reason". A company should have to have rules stated and must abide by those rules. If it's not in the rules, they shouldn't be able to mess with your shit. A second part to that should be cherry picking is not allowed. If a company leaves up a listing/etc with a similar rule violation, but takes yours down, they should be fined for not following their own rules.

Re:Nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a disgusting piece of shit.

Re:Nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

All that might be true for a goverment.

But not a company. They can do whatever the hell they want, whenever they want, for any or no reason at all. If you don't like it. You have the right to fuck off and never come back. But they have no obligation to tell you the 'rules' or what you violated at all.

Re:Nonsense

[hedwards]

Not really, they presumably have ToS which are a part of the contract that people have to agree to in order to do business with the site. And you don't get to write the contract in such a way that the person agreeing to it has no way of knowing when if ever they breach the contract.

So, yes, they do have an obligation to say what the rules are, I can't imagine how a contract which can be rescinded by one party without disclosure of the reason could possibly be valid.

Re:Nonsense

[hedwards]

They wrote the contract and you cannot expect to enforce it if you don't tell anybody what the specifics of the contract are. Around here the first party can't hide terms in a contract and expect to enforce it. The reason for that is because of companies wanting to hide things in the contract which the signing party wouldn't consent to. It's easy enough to slip that sort of stuff into a contract without having to hide it.

Re:Nonsense

[spire3661]

What a concise answer, allow me to retort. I was merely pointing out that if you live your life saying 'rules are rules' you are going to be sorely disappointed with the reality of what actually occurs.

Re:Nonsense

[TheDarkMaster]

Exactly ... How will you follow the rules if you do not know what they are? And usually this is done on purpose, so the rule author can make any rules that he will, not letting you know in time to avoid using his service.

Re:Nonsense

[AK Marc]

I'd be happy with "for any reason" as long as they were required by law to state the exact reason. Why? Because so many reasons are illegal. "We won't list that because you are black" would be a reason, and an illegal one. So if you aren't required to explain why, then you can illegally discriminate with impunity since no one could every ask why.

But in spirit, I agree with you. Most absolute clauses have been ruled illegal. You can't just say "you will never take this to court and agree to only ever use mediation first, with a mediator chosen by us who you pay half of, and if that doesn't work, then binding arbitration again through someone we pick with costs split evenly." Yes, AT&T won a mediation clause case, but it's still not quite as bad as people say (it was essentially about skipping mediation agreed to for class action suits, not whether an individual can skip mediation). And a "we can cancel you at any time for any reason and do not ever have to explain why" is similarly unconscionable. With that clause in there, there is no contract. One side can step out of the contract at any time for any reason with no recourse by the other party, while the other party has no similar clause and is held to a large number of restrictive clauses with no benefit at all other than dealing with a "monopoly" company (monopoly being used in the incorrect manner of indicating the largest player or oligopoly, and not necessarily a strict monopoly).

Give it another month.

[kmdrtako]

At this rate I bet that $1B valuation and IPO will be all smoke.

Re:Give it another month.

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. If Facebook had done the IPO already, its shares would probably be plummeting at this news (maybe even worse than the drop the Google+ announcement might have caused). If they're doing this, they obviously consider Google+ a serious threat before it has even fully launched.

Does Google allow Facebook ads?

[Compaqt]

A lot of companies have ads set to display when a user searches for their company name. That's not apparently the case for Facebook.

But has anybody seen a Facebook ad in the context of any other search terms on Google?

Re:Does Google allow Facebook ads?

[AmberBlackCat]

I truly don't think Facebook needs ads or Google at this point. Like Google, they are basically making sure you can't use anything electronic without seeing them. Also, Google marketing has managed to make Google the new word for search and Facebook has people asking for Facebook invites as if they're asking for a phone number. Really neither of them need each other. And both of them are obviously afraid of each other. If I were Facebook right now, I'd be looking to create my own YouTube and search engine.

Re:Does Google allow Facebook ads?

[hedwards]

I doubt that Google bans Facebook ads, that would be a tremendous antitrust violation. More likely, Facebook either doesn't bother to advertise or only advertises for search terms that you haven't entered. I personally ignore the ads so I wouldn't know.

Plus, it would be counterproductive given that Google+ is largely being sold by not being Facebook, ads for Facebook likely remind people that they want in on Google+

Re:Does Google allow Facebook ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I have never seen a facebook ad. But I routinely see ads for Yahoo, Bing and other competitors on Google. So I guess it's just that Facebook doesn't advertise (and they don't really have to... people just tell each other "Hey, I'm on facebook").

Re:Does Google allow Facebook ads?

[gaelfx]

I see Facebook ads within my gmail very often, especially since Google+ has been taking the limelight.

Re:Does Google allow Facebook ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many many companies which will advertise asking you to visit their social network page on Facebook and become a fan, when you search for the company name. We do.

Re:Does Google allow Facebook ads?

[perryizgr8]

i've seen facebook ads inside gmail.

Re:Does Google allow Facebook ads?

[swillden]

Also, Google marketing has managed to make Google the new word for search

Google "marketing" did no such thing. Google users did that.

Re:Does Google allow Facebook ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they do. If you google: Facebook bans ad. Then a huge banner ad will show on the top of the page for..... Facebook advertising. Even though all of the links will be how Facebook prides itself on it's anti-competitive nature

Days of the Facebook are numbered

[hotfireball]

The Facebook is doomed. They understand that and they are trying to do anything possible to stop people running away. But it is inevitable: Google+ is much better place to do things like that.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[kevinmenzel]

Really? Because almost everyone I know on both Google+ and Facebook has pretty much already stopped using Google+ and gone back to using Facebook exclusively. It's not that Google+ isn't pretty. It's not even a critical mass thing. it's that it just does a hell of a lot less than Facebook. Sure it may be more private by default but in exchange for everything Facebook offers, given that one can also do a hell of a lot to make a Facebook profile private... (more in some ways than with a Google+ account)... it's just not worth the trade off for most people.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe in your circle of friends. But a billion posts in 2 weeks seems to disagree. Plenty of people don't use or want those extra "features" facebook throws at you but instead just want a way to keep in touch with friends in a more mature fashion than "john answered 6 or 8 questions right about marie, can you do better?"

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[Frosty Piss]

I'm not sure how you can say this so vehemently about a service that is still very much "beta".

As for me, since I am neither a "farmer" nor a member of the "mafia", the part of Facebook that Google+ does "a lot less of" is not the part of Facebook I ever used.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[MikeUW]

I've been poking around in the features of G+. I have a feeling that it's going to win (unless FB changes) based solely on the greater amount of control it gives users over privacy, as well as the openness (which I'm assuming will come when an API is published) that will allow innovative integration of G+ into other applications/web services by third-party developers.

It looks pretty plain right now, but that's because I've only got a handful of contacts. The simple fact that I can decide who gets to see each post, and that I can easily move people in/out of multiple different 'circles' to facilitate this makes G+ much better IMO already. Yeah, FB has a similar concept through 'Friend lists', but it's just plain difficult to use. Ever wanted to share a comment, photo, etc. with just a handful of specific friends in FB? You simply can't...you have to create your lists first. In G+? You can do the same with circles, but you can also add individuals. When you end up with everyone you know in your list of contacts, and when social networking becomes the best way for you to keep in touch with people important to you on a regular basis (e.g., friends/family that you don't get to see very often), this ability becomes very important.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[cdh]

Really? Because almost everybody I know on G+ has basically abandoned Facebook.

Only thing really holding some back is an API so that things like Wordpress can automatically push updates to it.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[Omestes]

it's that it just does a hell of a lot less than Facebook

Such as? I suppose I don't have to spend time each week trying to permanently block whatever stupid game people feel the need to spam me with. It makes spamming people who don't care a bit more difficult... I'm not constantly regaled to "like" or "friend" non-human corporations for no benefit to me... Not having games is a plus to me, I have Steam, I have a smart phone with a market place, I have a Wii, I have a DS, and I have a PS2, so I don't really care about Facebook games.

I don't see a down side yet.

Yes, there are some flaws, like adding pictures, and the complete lack of the ability to post things to people. Finding people who know, who are members, still sucks a bit as well. Yes, a lot of my "friends" haven't hopped over, and probably won't for some time. But, on the other hand, I've become much closer to the ones that have, including reconnecting with some people I haven't talked to in years (generally the nerdier sort). I'm also sure some of my "friends" will hop over eventually, since I'm sure they felt the same way about me when I refused to leave other social networks that allowed me to express more than a simple "I pooped today"-type-message for Facebook or MySpace,

I've been dual posting on both networks (not that hard), but have been shifting to more and more Google+ based content, since it, so far, isn't as spammy, and thus I get into deeper replies and conversations.

I don't know if Google+ will kill Facebook, but I'm guessing it will manage to woo a decent population away. It is generally a better experience, and will get more so as more people join and the networks get richer.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[kevinmenzel]

I'm not talking about games. But there are other things that Google+ misses out on that Facebook has. I mean, events is a biggie, the number of concert events that correlate to concerts that I go to is increasing on facebook, and on most of those events, there has been discussion amongst attendees about public transit options, door opening times, etc. So this isn't just a "Integrate Google Calendar and Events is solved" thing, because you need to have the "forum" atmosphere attached, or it's not a substitute.

Another example: Google+ seems to lack the ability for companies to set up pages, with multiple users administering them, at least not unless you just give everyone access to the same account, and that seems a little ridiculous, and PROBABLY violates the TOS.

There are quite a few companies that are very active in terms of responding to users on Facebook, it's become an important channel in client interaction. For example, two of the transit agencies I use regularly are very very good at responding to customer inquiries, and even go so far as to adjust service based on Facebook response. These agencies don't have the money to set up their own forum infrastructures, and even if they did, the centralized nature of social networking ensures that they get used.

I know quite a few people that would be unable to set up an email newsletter, but who can easily set up a facebook group, for when they go on a trip and want to let specific people receive updates from what is a reasonably simple interface to do so.

Now, maybe it's true that the majority of people don't use Facebook for anything like that - but it seems to me most of my friends do. It could be a cultural thing - most of my friends are in their late-teens, early-twenties, they all live in Canada (which had pretty high Facebook adoption pretty early on so there IS a bit of a critical mass thing for Canadians I guess), probably a good half or so have blackberries, and many others are switching to blackberry or back to blackberry for their next phone - and Blackberry has good Facebook integration, which browsing a website just doesn't compare to... so in this early stage, that's going to make it hard for those friends to really care, or even make the switch... Pretty much every social event in my circle of friends is planned on Facebook (again, events are important for this) - even wedding information is distributed over Facebook. I have friends who write notes and start discussions on complex issues on Facebook. Basically, at least amongst my group of 500+ friends, Facebook isn't a game site. It isn't really even mostly about sharing pictures and status updates. It's not even particularly about networking. It's about facilitating and extended current real life social interaction in virtual space. And Google+ doesn't really do that.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[Barbara, not Barbie]

One of the negatives of facebook is the abundance of spammy "business" accounts, and the fake user accounts that business creates to try to generate buzz.

As for events, just start a new circle for that event. Or even a hangout.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[shutdown -p now]

I find it exactly the opposite here. People who are on G+ are those of my FB contacts who are most interesting to follow. The rest are there seemingly to play all those silly games, which I couldn't care less about.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[kevinmenzel]

But circles are things you create, not that you join. They're one way - and it's the wrong way for events. And public events, like concerts - are you seriously suggesting that the person organizing that should have to put everyone in a circle just to keep them updated? That'd be absolutely ridiculous. Or a hangout? For an event with like 1000 attendees? Really? And on facebook, though there may be spammy businesses you can just not "like" them. And you have no reason to not block a fake account. Either way, that hasn't been my experience with most businesses on Facebook that are legitimate, and that exist in the real world.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[DragonWriter]

Really? Because almost everyone I know on both Google+ and Facebook has pretty much already stopped using Google+ and gone back to using Facebook exclusively.

Everyone you know isn't a random sample from which valid conclusions about the rest of the world can be drawn.

It's not even a critical mass thing. it's that it just does a hell of a lot less than Facebook.

Which is why its in a limited preview with core functionality; this is how Google grows products before they are ready for general release.

Sure it may be more private by default but in exchange for everything Facebook offers, given that one can also do a hell of a lot to make a Facebook profile private...

More private by default or better maximum privacy aren't major benefits of Google+, better control of who things are shared with is.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[Barbara, not Barbie]

And public events, like concerts - are you seriously suggesting that the person organizing that should have to put everyone in a circle just to keep them updated?

Why not? Once G+ is into beta, there will be an API that you'll be able to pretty much automate it.

And a hangout sounds ideal for a big event - let people drop in and out of the hangout at will, and yack with each other.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[perryizgr8]

i don't really see much of a difference between g+ and fb. except fb wins because i don't wanna give ALL my data to google.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[perryizgr8]

zynga is now bigger than ea. i think there are a lot of people who ARE farmers, or mafia. though i am not, i still think this apps thing is a dealbreaker for g+. it will create hype for a few months, and then it'll wither down like wave, or buzz.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[BeanThere]

I like G+ mainly because it feels new-frontier-ish. That'll change when the masses join.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[Omestes]

s. I mean, events is a biggie, the number of concert events that correlate to concerts that I go to is increasing on facebook, and on most of those events, there has been discussion amongst attendees about public transit options, door opening times, etc

I agree. But remember that G+ is a beta, a Google beta, meaning it isn't even close to being complete. I'm guessing the rest of Google's services will be integrated, including Calender. And I'm sure that eventually it will be all "socialized". Well maybe, since I think Calender might the the neglected mutant child locked in Google's attic from time to time.

Personally this isn't a feature I care too much about, though it would be nice. All the events that I'm invited to on Facebook are generally things I don't care about... Like my friends wanting me to pay them money so it looks like their band has some fans, and the smattering of silly political protests that I have no desire to endure.

Another example: Google+ seems to lack the ability for companies to set up pages, with multiple users administering them, at least not unless you just give everyone access to the same account, and that seems a little ridiculous, and PROBABLY violates the TOS.

This is a plus, in my book. I don't "friend" people who don't have the capability of being my friend. Having the ability to add McDonalds to a circle doesn't really enhance anything for me. If Google makes it too easy for businesses to have a presence there, I will probably even stop using G+. I hope it never gets as nasty as Facebook where there are millions of fake users who exist only to pad corporate pages so they look arbitrarily more popular... and sock puppets... Why would I be "socially networked" with a corporation?

Further, Google already said their working on it, and have some limited partnerships with a few selected companies, like Ford.

I don't think that Google is suddenly going to kill Facebook overnight. People like your friends (and most of mine) will stick with Facebook. What will probably happen, if G+ is at all successful, it Facebook will stagnate like MySpace. The pool of constant users will dwindle, people just emerging into the "social networking scene" will stop coming. The all-powerful network effect will weaken. And it will lurch on like a zombie for years. Probably, in that time, Google will adopt all of the features your talking about, wooing more and more people over since more and more of their friends are there. Until at some point 5-10 years after Google gets dominance, someone else enters the scene with a new, and sexy, service, and the same happens to Google.

I'm not saying this is probable. G+ still has plenty of time to pull a Wave or a Buzz, and die quickly, and humiliatingly. Judging from Google's track record, it will either be a huge success or a completely miserable failure. There seems to be no middle ground.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[Omestes]

There is that... I kind of like it that my friend list has been pruned down to only nerds and early adopters. It means the quality of the chatter has risen significantly. Being that its a complete wasteland I've been spurned to go out and read and comment on almost perfect strangers posts, just out of sense of community. Its sort of refreshing.

Re:Days of the Facebook are numbered

[Bucky24]

fb wins because i don't wanna give ALL my data to google.

Ironically the main reason I'm using Google+ is because Google ALREADY has all of my data... That's kind of a scary thought actually.

Beginning of a Pattern?

[guttentag]

'Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions.'

In a nutshell: "Your account has been disabled, we won't do business with you anymore, and we can't tell you why." Did I miss something? Did Verizon buy out Facebook? Or are we simply seeing the beginning of a pattern in the way business is going to be conducted in the future to avoid the expense of having to pay a human being to deal with customers, and to avoid the possibility of writing anything specific that could be used in court or the media?

What ever happened to being blunt and frank, like when the Cleveland Stadium Corp responded to a complaint with a reply on company letterhead that read:

Attached is a letter that we received on November 19, 1974. I feel that you should be aware that some asshole is signing your name to stupid letters.

Very truly yours,

CLEVELAND STADIUM CORP.

Re:Beginning of a Pattern?

[Hardhead_7]

And this is why I'm ready to jettison Facebook.

Re:Beginning of a Pattern?

[Rizimar]

In a nutshell: "Your account has been disabled, we won't do business with you anymore, and we can't tell you why." Did I miss something? Did Verizon buy out Facebook?

There is a slight difference between the two: Verizon takes customers' cash without telling them why; Facebook refuses to take a customer's cash without telling them why.

Re:Beginning of a Pattern?

[glwtta]

Ooh, you're "ready"? We're all tingly with anticipation to see what you will actually do.

Re:Beginning of a Pattern?

[guttentag]

And this is why I'm ready to jettison Facebook.

Will you announce it on your wall?

Sunday July 17
Getting ready to jettison Facebook

Monday July 18
Dropped Facebook today. Sticking it to 'em.

Tuesday July 19
Got 2 messages today from friends who want me to come back to Facebook. Suspect it's not really my friends, it's Facebook masquerading as my friends. Diabolical!

Thursday July 21
Three days without Facebook so far. (5 people like this)

Thursday July 28
Ten days without Facebook so far. (Google and 31 people like this)

For what it's worth, I've been Facebook-free for about a year now. I don't miss it. At all.

Re:Beginning of a Pattern?

[CarlDenny]

Google will do the same thing to advertisers, cut them off permanently with no information about why ("to prevent giving people information to circumvent our algorithms," or something to that effect.) I think it's pretty common among online advertisers.

Also, the idea that this is because of the "add me on Google+" ad appears to be pure, inflammatory speculation.

Re:Beginning of a Pattern?

[BeanThere]

It's not the beginning of some corporate pattern, it's just Zuckerberg's personality shining through, and it has already started to hurt Facebook so I wouldn't worry, this kind of thing tends to be self-correcting --- if you've been following Facebook for a while, you would've realized long ago that their attitude has always been "let's keep pushing and find the precise line of how much we can get away with", from their ongoing privacy violations, to bullshit like the fact that others can sign you up to groups and FB declared they intend to do nothing about that. The massive sudden leap of early-adopter users to Google+ at their very moment of launch is testament to how much Zuckerberg has been irritating his own userbase, with many just waiting for some alternative to come along. The market has and will continue to define the limits of how far Zuckerberg's controlling personality. When FB does stuff like this article is about, it really does hurt their reputation, and while the effects may feel very abstract sometimes, they are real.

Re:Beginning of a Pattern?

[gaelfx]

That is by and far the most clever thing I have read today (re: the Cleveland Browns letter).

Re:Beginning of a Pattern?

[ArundelCastle]

What ever happened to being blunt and frank, like when the Cleveland Stadium Corp responded to a complaint with a reply on company letterhead that read:

I think it's only fair to point out that the example you're referring to is one smartass lawyer responding to another smartass lawyer. I sincerely doubt such a response would have been forthcoming if the letter had been from a schoolteacher, or the response from the team manager.

Re:Beginning of a Pattern?

[perryizgr8]

this is amazing! everyone should do it like this!!1

Was this a wall post?

[digitalderbs]

This article and summary are unclear about how the advert was posted--presumably it was a wall post.

The article lists various places in the terms of use that he might have violated, but this excerpt seems most likely:

""We may refuse ads at any time for any reason, including our determination that they promote competing products or services or negatively affect our business or relationship with our users."

Which seems overly-broad and anti-competitive. What exactly constitutes an ad? Can I express my interest in something only if facebook isn't developing a competing product?

Re:Was this a wall post?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're talking about buying actual advertising space on the sidebar, not just saying something in a wall post.

Re:Was this a wall post?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, you can do anything you want on Facebook, as long as it is in Facebook's best interest.

Re:Was this a wall post?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ads run in the right hand column. It's really easy to run a Facebook ad, all you have to do is be willing to pay (and not even a lot).

This isn't about a wall post. This much is totally obvious if you even glanced at the f'n article, which has a screenshot of the ad.

It's not clear from the article, but I'm guessing they didn't actually disable his Facebook account as much as revoked his permission to post ads.

Re:Was this a wall post?

[Frosty Piss]

"We may refuse ads at any time for any reason, including our determination that they promote competing products or services or negatively affect our business or relationship with our users."

Which seems overly-broad and anti-competitive. What exactly constitutes an ad? Can I express my interest in something only if facebook isn't developing a competing product?

I haven't read the FB ToS, for all I know, they define "ad" someplace else. It wouldn't surprise me.

However, your pedantic issue does not apply here. Read The Fucking Article, and you will see a screen-shot of... what is clearly an ad.

So, regardless of some vague definition of ad that may or may not exist, the content at discussion here is CLEARLY... an ad.

In my opinion, FaceBook has evolved into uselessness for me. I am neither a "farmer" nor a member of the "mafia".

But, it's just common sense that a company should not be required to advertise their competition (and please, the monopoly argument simply does not apply here).

Re:Was this a wall post?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it was an advertisement placed through their paid advertisement system.

Re:Was this a wall post?

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook is perfectly within its rights to refuse to run an ad for any reason it likes, without explaining itself.

What's not so clear is whether it's within its rights to suspend an account for "abuse" without being specific about what the "abuse" is. That's just evil.

Re:Was this a wall post?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the advertisement in question is one you can pay Facebook for- it shows up on the side of users screens. The more users click on it, the more you pay for the advert (I think). Point is, it certainly wasn't just a status update or wall post. I don't think Facebook could/would ban a user for telling their friends to add them on Google+.

You'll need to disable adblock to see it

[petegas]

In the linked story, the ad is still being pulled from a server that adblock will remove, so disable it to see it.

This Just In

[SplicerNYC]

The horseshoe industry has forbidden all its workers from mentioning the word "automobile". Said their representative, "Then and only then can we endeavor to preserve a way of life we have all come to know and love".

Interesting Strategy

[ninetyninebottles]

This is an interesting strategy on the part of Facebook. Their fear is that Google+ will grow large enough to reach critical mass and then they will have to compete based upon merit instead of their already established position. This move adds fuel to the fire of Facebook being inferior to Google+, but at the same time reduces the visibility of Google+ to the market of people on Facebook. Facebook seems to be betting on the strategy of making it hard to migrate away and keeping as many users as possible ignorant of the existence of Google+. It is probably good business, although Google ill probably be smart enough to buy the needed marketing on television and through their own ad distribution channels.

But that doesn't really matter because Facebook is already reviled for its privacy policies and poor customer service. One more instance is a drop in the bucket. And if Google+ does gain critical mass, Facebook will have to do a "turning over a new leaf" campaign anyway. So in my assessment, this is scuzzy and underhanded and probably a smart thing to do.

Re:Interesting Strategy

[hedwards]

I think the bigger concern is that they'll have to back off ass raping their users' privacy because of Google.

Go to court

[Anonymous Coward]

hopefully he will get the judge that ruled in favour of the customer in the Verizon case

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/204218/Customer-Asks-For-Itemized-Bill-Verizon-Tells-Her-To-Get-a-Subpoena

Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of you are giving this "story" way too much credit. This incident was probably just a single person in Facebook's terms of use violations department who saw an ad for a competing product (which IS against Facebook terms of use), sent a form letter to the guy and thought nothing else of it. Also, the number of people who aren't already on Google+ who will notice & care about this story is not far from zero. The average Facebook user spends their time playing Farmville, not trolling Slashdot.

I'll take one :)

[rsilvergun]

jeremy.firefox.addon@gmail.com. It's my public addy for my Firefox plug-in, so I don't mind posting it here. Thanks! :).

Can you say, "Streisand Effect"

[Announcer]

When will some organizations learn... stuff like this is best ignored, not banned.

Re:Can you say, "Streisand Effect"

[Anonymous Coward]

We now it 'The Zucker Effect'

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

They are obeying the law

[SuperKendall]

That's not really how that works. You're supposed to obey the law without the government having to go in and enforce it.

As stated, they are not a monopoly. There is freedom of speech, but there's not a REQUIREMENT that if you are a service you are required to take any advertising, no matter the content. It's perfectly legal to refuse to carry any ad, on whatever grounds.

I don't see why Facebook, or any company, should be required to participate in its own demise.

Re:They are obeying the law

[airfoobar]

In my understanding, anti-trust law doesn't only apply to monopolies, but also to any entity that abuses its dominant position in a market to reduce competition. I agree with what you say, though.

Re:They are obeying the law

[Khyber]

You don't need a monopoly to violate antitrust/anticompetitive laws.

Go back to school and learn that.

Re:They are obeying the law

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

I don't see why Facebook, or any company, should be required to participate in its own demise.

You're assuming they're giving up. If Facebook was a star sports player, and Google was the up-and-coming new kid, should Facebook refuse to talk about them in public, and abuse friends who do? I say no, they shouldn't--and it says something about them that they do.

If the star sports player was actually interested in the game itself, they would see a rival as an excuse to up their game. It gives them a chance to geek out about the sport. It gives them a chance to prove that they had that special something all along, and that they'll always be the best. They should stare in the face of the new kid, give em a smirk, and say, "Show me what you've got. No matter what it is, I'll beat it." That's competition.

But when a star player, or the company, isn't interested, why are they there? The fans come to cheer because they are interested in the sport. If the star is just lolling around and not taking anything seriously, why SHOULD they continue to be the star?

You might argue that it's business, and so they shouldn't gamble--but sports is big business, too. You might argue that any competition lowers their user base--but that's only fatal if they fall below some critical income level and become unsustainable, and that's harder to do with an ad-supported internet site. More important than either of those is, are they still trying? Are they going to keep fighting to the last breath, or would Zuck fold up the booth and go home as soon as it stopped being easy?

Change name of Slashdot to Plusdot?

[rafe.kettler]

Seriously, does _every_ article have to be about Google+? Sheesh.

Re:Change name of Slashdot to Plusdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, what you have here is the same thing you've had around here forever. People decide that they hate Company A no matter what they do. Company B puts up competition to Company A and Company B get a pass regardless if they do the same thing that Company A did all along. Just look around and you'll see it with about 90% of the shit that gets major props from the Slashdot community.

Of course they'll have their lame excuses that Company B is the better company because of some random shit but if you follow the major posters around here for any length of time you'll see that they never hold to their own logic for long. Hypocrisy and asshattedness. That's all Slashdot is anymore.

Re:Change name of Slashdot to Plusdot?

[maxwell demon]

I understand this article mainly as an article about Facebook.

Re:Change name of Slashdot to Plusdot?

[shutdown -p now]

Well, you can thank Facebook for this particular one.

Re:Was this a wall post? - No

[Anonymous Coward]

It was an ad, in the FB ad system (there is currently a screenshot of it in the article), and it was his advertiser account that got blocked for violating the TOS you sign up to as a FB advertiser. This has nothing to do with what you as a user post on your wall.

It is quite common for companies to deny competitors the right to advertise on their site/service. It only becomes a possible anti-competitive case if you are in a monopoly situation (like the case against Google now for prioritizing their own services over competitors in search results).

I got it! He DID violate the TOS!! (sort of)

[ukemike]

Terms of Service, section 11 "Special Provisions Applicable to Advertisers" number 13 "We may reject or remove any ad for any reason."

then section 14 "Termination" number 1 "If you violate the letter or spirit of this Statement, or otherwise create risk or possible legal exposure for us, we can stop providing all or part of Facebook to you."

So the guy ran afoul of section 11 number 13 and was then terminated because he created "risk." Risk of loosing users. Lame.

URLish searches are fine

[SlideGuitar]

If you use Chrome, it hardly matters whether you type a url, a search term, or a URLish search term. I don't even think about it anymore. Just mash my fingers down on the keyboard and either I get where I meant to go on the first try, or the one more click on the search results and I'm there. Anyone got a problem with that?

Re:URLish searches are fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay for sending everything you type to google.

I do associate "g" keyword with google in Firefox, so I can explicitly google for something in the url bar when I want.

I also associate "w" with wikipedia.

w facebook
g facebook

Like that.

Re:URLish searches are fine

[daktari]

Seems like you'd be wasting some energy there: an extra server query/response has to be sent across the net. Whether that would be an issue or not is debatable, but I guess when that happens billions of times every year these little bits could add up.

Re:URLish searches are fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome's address bar doesn't always make a search request; it parses the entered phrase locally and it goes directly to the webpage if the query matches a URL expression.

Data does get sent to Google if you have the prediction service enabled, but that's an async feedback operation... there's no visual delay.

Overly Dramatic?

[dmomo]

I'll get riled up when I see Facebook ban a legitimate Google+ ad. I don't doubt they would, but I don't see evidence that the ban is because it's for Google+. Suppose I put an ad on Facebook that says, "Hey everyone, Friend me on Facebook!". I have a feeling it might get the same treatment.

Re:Overly Dramatic?

[Toam]

I've seen ads to this effect. I can't say that they haven't been banned, but I doubt that they have.

No G+ for under 18s?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I sent out some invites and my daughter, and some of my nephews were denied entry to Google+ because they are not yet over 18. So Google is not really trying all that hard to woo people into its fold. But all this antics by Facebook makes it look scared. BTW I hope Facebook permits users under 18 and all these kids playing farmville in Facebook are not lying about their age.

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't facebook originally only for college students?

Google+ starting with an intentionally limited user base isn't inconsistent with social networking success at all.

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[bmo]

You're making this up. Do you know how I know?

Because the policy is 13+

There was an epic whine about the policy back on the third that made both Fark and Reddit and probably other news aggregators.

http://sunpig.com/martin/archives/2011/07/03/google-made-my-son-cry.html

Just read. Read the fucking fail and self-entitlement within that posting.

Google+ follows COPPA. Who knew?

http://www.coppa.org/coppa.htm

--
BMO

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

You're making this up. Do you know how I know?

You seen to have some English comprehension problem. My daughter's gmail account was not upgraded to G+ accidentally by Google. She got an invite from me. Filled in the form. She was queasy about entering her real date of birth and asked me if it was ok. We thought about it and I allowed her to enter it. And the g+ account was rejected. She is over 13. So her gmail account continues without any change. In what way your links show I am making this up? What made you think I alleged Google was violating COPPA? I think none of the companies, FaceBook, Yahoo, Google, MSN would violate COPPA. The fastest way to lose a brandname and goodwill is try to mess to with COPPA.

In the link you provided someone allowed his kid to get a gmail account, clearly violating the rule "no gmail for under 13s". When Google came to know it suspended the under age account. No big deal. That dad is a whiner. He should have paid the damned 9$ a year to some domain registrar and given his son an email account out of his own domain. If you use a free service from google yahoo MSN or FB, be prepared to cut off.

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

No information from children under age 13. If you are under age 13, please do not attempt to register for Facebook or provide any personal information about yourself to us. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from a child under age 13, please contact us through this help page.

Parental participation. We strongly recommend that minors 13 years of age or older ask their parents for permission before sending any information about themselves to anyone over the Internet and we encourage parents to teach their children about safe internet use practices. Materials to help parents talk to their children about safe internet use can be found on this help page.

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Anonymous Coward]

While Google+ is in "field trial", users under 18 are (sadly) not allowed. This will be relaxed to the standard "13 and older" once some child-friendly features are implemented.

Facebook currently allows users 13 and older.

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Archwyrm]

You seen to have some English comprehension problem.

Yeah, you tell him. He sure sucks at English!

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Anonymous Coward]

denied entry to Google+ because they are not yet over 18

That right there is all the reason I needed to convinced me to switch to G+. Thanks for pointing out this awesome feature.

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would be much nicer if they would NOT allow those under 18 to join...

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm sure your daughter and nephews are wonderful people a lot of 17 and unders are...well, boring and inane. For me keeping it to 18+ is a selling point as it at least reduces the tween-age wangst and associated social insanity.

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook doesn't allow under 18. Lots of kids I know are under 16 claim to be in their 20s. And facebook does *nothing* to police this. They're a wanton playground for predators.

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Anonymous Coward]

I stand corrected. minimum age is 13. Apparently you don't even need parental permission.
sigh.... it's worse than I thought.

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[bmo]

I stand corrected.

The beta is restricted to 18+ This was confirmed through... googling, specifically, the google dev blog.

This will come down to 13+ when it comes out of beta.

My reference to the other guy's page and COPPA was that I believed that your post was whining, that's all and I wanted to give justification as to why Google was restricting access..

--
BMO

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Sorry to have jumped the gun. Will take back my totally uncalled for comment about reading comprehension. Sorry buddy.

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Anonymous Coward]

I sent out some invites and my daughter, and some of my nephews were denied entry to Google+ because they are not yet over 18. So Google is not really trying all that hard to woo people into its fold. But all this antics by Facebook makes it look scared. BTW I hope Facebook permits users under 18 and all these kids playing farmville in Facebook are not lying about their age.

Where'd you send your daughter?

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Anonymous Coward]

ROTFL, funny!!!!! You really made my day...

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[perryizgr8]

facebook is for 13+. 18+ seems a bit stupid.

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[perryizgr8]

fb allows 13+

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[MichaelSmith]

facebook is for 13+. 18+ seems a bit stupid.

Its a beta. What if it starts spamming everybody with Sergey Brin's porno collection?

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Just Some Guy]

This level of civility and willingness to admit mistakes will not be tolerated here. You've been warned.

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they are trying to woo people, just not children. There are way too many 13 year olds out in the public space where they do not yet belong...

Re:No G+ for under 18s?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the point of asking for parental permission when the kid can just lie about having it?

Facebook's values

[toriver]

I take it then that Facebook happily stands behind ads for penny auction scams, "consumption loans" with exuberant rates, suspicious herbs etc.?

Google, please get G+ finished so we can ditch Zyngabook once and for all.

The Good Part Is.....

[Bing Tsher E]

...that signifies the beginning of the end of Facebook.

Hopefully FB will crumble severely before they can have their IPO.

It will zuck over Markie so nicely.

It's a shame we can't chain Zynga to FB so they can sink to the bottom of the bay together.

Anyhow, whatever.

Like

[Anonymous Coward]

*nm*

Bankers advice

[Anonymous Coward]

Sell fb stock in secondary mkt

Re:Was this a wall post? - No

[taxman_10m]

But this guy himself was not advertising a competitor per se any more than if he advertised his company site which linked to a Google Site. Or am I not understanding it correctly?

One good thing about google+

[Cito]

you don't get spammed with game spam from people on friends list and with adblock plus there is not a single ad on google+ to be seen anywhere, since adblock plus has perfected blocking ads especially in the google realm.

of course that will probably chance once stupid "game" i use quotes as they are just time farming tools so you see more ads, get started on google+

There's a fatal flaw in your "logic"

[Anonymous Coward]

MySpace honchos thought they were safe and wouldn't be affected by Facebook because "everyone was on Facebook." That worked out well for MySpace didn't it. Same with American car manufacturers, "Everyone buys American, who would ever by Asian?"
If google+ is perceived as cooler, more useful or whatever then Facebook is going to take a significant hit. Fatal? Who knows.

Re:Was this a wall post? - No

[gl4ss]

*But this guy himself was not advertising a competitor per se any more than if he advertised his company site which linked to a Google Site [google.com]. Or am I not understanding it correctly?* he's a social networking whore who wanted to get some buzz to his name. if you think about it a second. advertising with money to get social networking contacts, on the service of the day, he doesn't seem like a real user, but more like guerilla marketing shill.

Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[Kohath]

I wonder how many Slashdot people actually think that people who work at Facebook should be arrested and hauled off to prison for not advertising Google Plus?

Google seems to be really good at drumming up sympathy from people with a totalitarian ethic.

Search a URL for quick links & anti-phishing.

[VortexCortex]

I hope that you sir, are a perfect typist and never ever make typographical errors, especially when entering a URL. Thus you will never have to take advantage of the fact that if you enter the incorrect address into a Google search first it will direct you to the correct address and/or warn you of most malicious phishing sites that you may inadvertently visit via your much praised "address bar".

Furthermore, if you use most browser's "address bar" to incorrectly enter a URL and wind up at a phishing site, it will bring you back to the same phishing site automatically when you enter the partial URL via auto-completion search.

However, now Firefox and Chrome (unsure about IE) coordinates with lists of phishing sites in order to bring this functionality to their respective "URL / search bars" (they have no plain "address bar" available, even FF searches your history). Note that this feature most likely provides the anti-phishing provider with a list of every URL you visit online... Conversely, everyone can take advantage of the Google URL search features (including quick links to subsections of the site) regardless of the browser they are using.

Finally, I would also like you to shove your helpful suggestion into the previously recommended place considering that you do not seem qualified to be suggesting either against or for either URL entry technique, and I would recommend that you yourself follow the technique your insightful friend rightfully remains using before you make more uninformed suggestions.

addresses too confusing for most

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the whole system of having multiple extensions confuses most people. Was that GreatStore.net or GreatStore.com or GrateStore.com (all made up obviously, although those probably link to somewhere)? Pick the wrong one and you could find a malicious site. Much easier to just put GreatStore in Google and have confidence you are going to the correct site, with the correct extension and spelling. It is now very common for people to use Google more or less as the address bar.

Re:Search a URL for quick links & anti-phishin

[Drgnkght]

Allow me to introduce you to a wonderful "new" feature supported by almost every browser ever created by mankind: The Bookmark. (Maybe you should google that.)

B.O.F.H. ala Facebook

[fleebait]

|'Your account has been disabled'
|
|"Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use |and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions.'"

And it only took one mouse click.

B.O.F.H. -- without a keyboard

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[bhartman34]

I wonder how many Slashdot people actually think that people who work at Facebook should be arrested and hauled off to prison for not advertising Google Plus?

Unethical != Illegal. You can think (as I do) that Facebook is acting unethically without thinking they're acting illegally.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[Doctor_Jest]

Unfortunately (or fortunately for some) there is no jail time for being stupid. :) They aren't being unethical in a business sense. But they are doing exactly what Google wants. What better way to drum up buzz for a new service than to have the established service ban new-guy's ads? Make established social media site look like they're afraid of upstart (never mind that it's not really the point of their original suspension).

It's elementary really. Google just troll-baited Facebook and they took it. Now, like the Streisand Effect, they have drawn attention to Google+ while simultaneously looking like giant, whiny douchebags (or sandy vaginas... depending on your perspective.)

Google seems to be really good at drumming up sympathy from people with a totalitarian ethic.

Funny you should mention that. Insert any corporation in there (besides, maybe Oil companies)... and it fits for some reason. :)

Facebook says:

[drolli]

We take this as a serious competitor/

AOL ...

[jabberwock]

... gave people an easy way to stay in touch, too. And that darned AOL IM client ... it was a monopoly! I remember!

Re:AOL ...

[yodleboy]

The problem with the AOL comparison is that people had to actually sign up and PAY for AOL. Initially as a portal AND ISP, and later as just a portal. Kind of hard to convince all your friends and family to pay $14.99 a month to stay in touch. As more and more places online provided the same services for free, the cost/benefit for AOL nosedived. By the time AOL got a clue, it was too late.

actually useful for broken URL's

[dbc]

Just this morning a typographically-challenged friend of mine sent me a broken URL (obviously he didn't test it). The obvious answer is to let Google sort it out.

Yes, finally!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook will finally face the same fate as Myspace, in two years Facebook will just be a faint memory and the creators broke and in dept! And I tell you why - how many uses the facebook mail address? ;) No one I know of anyway! ;) All are using gmail and why have Facebook when Google+ integrates to that?? And you don't have to face the fear of being bitten by a vampire or grow crops in FB. No, FB is childish and mark my worlds - in two years they're gone!

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[Kohath]

You can think (as I do) that Facebook is acting unethically ...

Really? There's an ethical code somewhere that requires companies to sell advertisements to (or for) their competitors? How so? Does Facebook have to sell them ads at a discount? At a loss?

Why should they?

How very strange...

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd, I can't seem to share the linked article on Facebook.

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

we have an easy way to cancel our FB accounts

Re: Facebook Bans Google+ Ads

[jmcguirefb]

My name is Jared and I work on Facebook's Ad Policy team and I wanted to chime in and correct some facts. In this situation one user maintained multiple ad accounts, one of which triggered an independent safety mechanism that resulted in that one ad account being temporarily disabled. Out of respect to user privacy, that is all I can really share. Here is how it works - as long as an ad is not illegal or violent in any way or as a result of repeat offenses we disable the ad not the advertiser or user account.

She's right, too

[Anonymous Coward]

when you make a typo, you wonder what happened.
she's far ahead of you.

Barbara called

[tokul]

Barbara called. She wants her ad back.

I call B.S. on this whole story

[PCM2]

'Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions.'"

Facebook is an American company. Since when did any American ever use the term "advert"? Seriously, Americans do not say this. The shortened form of "advertisement" in the U.S. is "ad," not "advert." Any claim otherwise makes me want to see the actual text of the original email, if one did indeed exist. Furthermore, companies do not let random employees write emails about corporate policy and send them out without having them reviewed and vetted for language. This sounds like someone (from the UK) is using the press to hype up his own business at Facebook's expense.

Re:I call B.S. on this whole story

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really sure what you're getting at here:

1) Michael Lee Whateverhisnamewas could be from the UK - localization is a very common thing (in this case, ad could be translated to advert). If he was from Brazil, presumably Facebook coud send a notice in Spanish, not American English.

2) That could be a canned statement already vetted by the powers that be at Facebook pr.

Re:I call B.S. on this whole story

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any idea how Facebook's corporate structure works? They would most certainly have it responded to by some random person in HR. Also, just because Facebook is an American company does not mean that everyone types / speaks the same dialect.

You sir are a troll preying on the minds of the weak.

Re:I call B.S. on this whole story

[Anonymous Coward]

You're calling B.S. on an entire story based on your personal observations of how frequently "advert" is spoken/typed? Lol. Personally I encounter the word quite frequently and even utter it myself from time to time. Grumpy old lownumberdeity.

Re:I call B.S. on this whole story

[PCM2]

1) Michael Lee Whateverhisnamewas could be from the UK - localization is a very common thing (in this case, ad could be translated to advert).

It's possible, but it doesn't seem very likely. It's not like the difference between "ad' and "advert" would impact business in any significant way, so it seems more likely that Facebook, an American company, would send out emails written in American English.

If he was from Brazil, presumably Facebook coud send a notice in Spanish, not American English.

Presumably it could, but it wouldn't, because Brazilians speak Portuguese. I point it out not to make fun of you, but to illustrate that you don't seem to be particularly attuned to the subtleties of language.

2) That could be a canned statement already vetted by the powers that be at Facebook pr.

Again, to my original point, why would Facebook PR vet a canned statement that was written in British English?

Show me the email, that's what I'm saying. Otherwise this whole story sounds like hearsay.

Re:I call B.S. on this whole story

[PCM2]

I'll see your "I encounter the word quite frequently" and raise you an "I've been a professional writer and editor of American English for twelve years."

Re:I call B.S. on this whole story

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a screenshot of the original message from Facebook.

Seems the article quoted it incorrectly.

Re:I call B.S. on this whole story

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the high probability of the person employed by Facebook, yep, an American company, being a brit?

Re:I call B.S. on this whole story

[freudigst]

Rest assured that no Brit has ever worked in the Facebook PR department and ever will!

Re:I call B.S. on this whole story

[sparkz]

Is it likely that a German user would have got an email written in German, and that a French user would get an email written in French? Therefore, is it likely that a UK English (aka English!) speaking user would get an email written in English, not in American English?

Re:I call B.S. on this whole story

[Anonymous Coward]

Lolol. Ohhh. I didn't realize your profession had allowed you to see every sentence ever. My bad.

Re:I call B.S. on this whole story

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. No one in the US uses that language. This is also suspect:

"All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances."

Why use the word "should" here? Should is advice/uncertainty. If a user is banned, there's no advice or uncertainty about it-- "and WILL not be run... under any circumstances."

Re:I call B.S. on this whole story

[Anonymous Coward]

Have the British infiltrated Facebook aswell then?
Last time I checked, it is called the "advert" system.

FB do correspond via email if you're lucky enough to track down their support, I'm sure it was a "random" employee by any chance.

Facebook message sounds like an ex-girlfriend...

[Torodung]

Facebook gave Michael Lee Johnson a withering stare.

"You know what you did," she said.

"And if you don't know what you did, that's even worse. Pig."

i don't...

[bball99]

think so...

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[war4peace]

Now wait a minute.
Assume I am that developer and running those ads. Now Facebook comes and says "listen dude, we have blocked your ads. We are sorry. We feel your ads are negatively impacting us. Please either change them or run them elsewhere. Yes, we know it's not nice; yes, we know we might lose a bit of cash; but please understand our motives". Now I would be a bit pissed at them but I would understand.
I would even appreciate their approach.
But what they did is piss-poor judgement and reaction. Disabling the account altogether for clouded (yet duh!-style obvious) reasons? "We can't tell you why"? That's utter bullshit.
See, that's the difference between "some company nicely trying to protect their business" and "some company stomping on you head-on to protect their business".
Many, many EULAs say "we can disable your account for any reason or no reason" (anyone playing World of Warcraft? Yes? read it: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/termsofuse.html - "BLIZZARD MAY SUSPEND, TERMINATE, MODIFY, OR DELETE ACCOUNTS AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON OR FOR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU."). Sorry for caps, guys, it's the original shit.
And guess what. They actually DO it. Whether you hear of it or not is a different story. Most people don't publicly complain, and if they do, they don't gain momentum unless they're celebrities.
I was playing a rather crappy MMO and in our group's internal chat we were typing in Romanian. Now the game masters had no issue with private chatrooms using non-english languages; but they had a problem with their filtering bots. See, Romanian has a word (translated to English, it means "How") which is spelled "cum". And their filter reported me numerous times for abusing this word. So my account got banned (one game master actually was pressed enough to mention why). Needless to say, the account never got reactivated.

Anyway, the point is that companies AFFORD to be unethical. And they got your agreement to be so. Kinda sad if you think about it.

Re:Facebook message sounds like an ex-girlfriend..

[GlobalEcho]

Facebook gave Michael Lee Johnson a withering stare.

"You know what you did," she said.

"And if you don't know what you did, that's even worse. Pig."

You dated her, too?

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[mabhatter654]

Google CAN'T afford to act against Facebook because Google makes money from appearing to a fair advertiser... So the damage to Google's good will would be worse than messing with Facebook. Frankly, Facebook is only worth a few Billion, and most of that "stock value" not revenue... Google has that kind of CASH in their piggy bank.

Facebook CAN'T be sold to anybody now, they have too many conflicting companies with "buy in" like Microsoft but that have more interest in seeing Facebook "NOT" go to somebody else... not in seeing Facebook necessarily do WELL.

Who's really more scary here? After all Google (ok or maybe Apple) is now the new Microsoft with more cash than GOD right now.... they can "casually" wipe out out 25% of Facebook users in 60 days or less... Ouch! Over-active 20% project here.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[mabhatter654]

vision:

"Whiny douchbags + sandy vj" somebody should eventually be happy about it.

Beginning of the end for Facebook.

[Maxo-Texas]

Half the people I know have gone to Google+ now.
I'm the laggert... again.

Best case, Facebook's ad revenue drops by a third-- social networking becomes fragmented.

Worst case, better privacy features does much worse damage to Facebook. There's a lot of pent up resentment at Facebook.

and yet..

[crossmr]

When some app developer has found a new way to get around the "hide this app" feature, say by posting pictures with the user tagged or otherwise posting as the user but not "via the app" so you can't block the message without blocking the user, facebook has no problem letting these apps carry on.

Re:and yet..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Report post/spam" works just fine...

Re:and yet..

[crossmr]

But it doesn't block the actual app if other people are using the app and post similar pictures, you still see them for awhile.

Re:and yet..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but if Facebook gets lots of spam reports on the same app it gets banned.

This would worry me if I was a 12 year old girl.

[Anonymous Coward]

But, since I'm a heterosexual adult male, I have to ask "What is 'Facebook' and 'Twitter'"?

All of you who love shows such as 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' should be able to answer the question.

Zuck, you little piece of shit

[unity100]

'Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions.'

what the FUCK does that even mean ?

you asswipes are banning a USER for advertising another device of communication, because you are afraid of competition ?

i am not able to bring myself to even start seeking for reasons that could justify such a preschool-level behavior.

Two words..

[Chas]

STREISAND EFFECT!

Screw you guys, I'm going to Google+

[Anonymous Coward]

last month I was in the hospital. while there, I posted a picture and a write up of what happened on my wordpress site, expecting it up be pulled to facebook. A month later, facebook decided to finally post the acrticle, and my mom called me concerned that I was back in the hospital.

After spending half an hour trying to remove the useless wordpress updates, I finally said hell with it and created this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7626534@N03/5943080381/in/photostream

That's now my facebook profile pic. Feel free to reuse it.

Faggot Wars Zunkerberg VS Michael

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like Facebook and Google+ will be bitch slapping each other for several days now.

Realy, now. Facebook has allways been Faggot Central. Its a Gay Bisexual Queer Lesbian site!

And it run by a Queer -- Zunkerberg!

The inticement is that the straight community cann't figure out just yet that Zunkerberg is a Queer.
A homosexual. A Faggot.

Flame that fag Zunkerberg and light'm up like the Hindenburg.

Flame on.

--//

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[DragonWriter]

Unethical != Illegal.

And, beyond that, illegal != criminal. Lots of things are illegal and don't result in anyone going to jail.

so what?

[kegel dragon]

Is there really anything sinister about this? So they blocked him from running ads. They didn't remove his account. One could argue Facebook could have managed this thing better. But is Facebook obligated to run ads for a directly competing service?

Get Zynga on Google+

[Anonymous Coward]

and the rest will be history.... seriously.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[doccus]

THank you for a totally reasonable,interpretation.. I find it VERY disturbing that so many slashdotters, most of whom are probably programers themselves, don't see the inherent danger in allowing this kind of poor and monopolistic behavior.. Perhaps because I live in an over-regulated, monopolistic, competitively crippled country, that i'm sensitized to the issues.. haven experienced firsthand the damage.. But folks better wake up and realize that crippling a developers account for what amount to no more than sour grapes is a BAD thing... DONT take the 'Devils' side in this!

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[Kohath]

Boo fricken hoo. It's their house, they make the rules.

Isn't it just as unethical to run the ad for Facebook's competitor in the first place? Facebook has to follow some ethical code and be nice, but their advertisers can't be asked to be considerate in return?

Maybe if the advertiser says he's sorry and he won't do it again, then they can make up and resume a working relationship.

Re:Search a URL for quick links & anti-phishin

[AmberBlackCat]

I try not to spend too much time on Google discussions because their googlebots always mod me down if I say anything anti-Google and it just irks me. But what irks me even more is people assuming I'm male.

Anyway, I'm just saying Facebook doesn't need Google. Google doesn't need Facebook either. It just doesn't matter if Google removes Facebook from its search. I am sure there are people out there who will not be able to find Facebook if not for Google. But they probably can't use Facebook anyway because they're stuck on some guy's blog, trying to figure out why they can't log in.

And seriously, if you can't type Facebook.com, how are you going to type Google.com? I think if the web browser's address bar wasn't programmed to turn into a Google bar automatically, the numbers would look different. And honestly, if Google can kill Facebook by removing Facebook from the search index, then they should just do it already, instead of making apps to harvest Facebook information and running ads on Facebook.

While they're at it, maybe they can run an ad to the people searching Google, explaining how inefficient it is to go to a search engine and type a full website address. I understand it will correct the addresses but the web browsers have the anti-phishing built in, you know.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[Jiro]

Isn't it just as unethical to run the ad for Facebook's competitor in the first place?

Facebook just banned him for no reason. They didn't actually say "we're banning you for advertising a competitor".

If Facebook isn't willing to admit the reason why they banned him, then Facebook doesn't get the benefit of being able to claim the reason is ethical.

Re:Search is serious business

[Anonymous Coward]

If Facebook wants to get in to the search game they are going to need to hire a few more PhD. Zuckerman is not PhD level and given his attitudes doesn't stand a chance of ever getting one. He isn't as smart as he thinks based on some of Facebook's obvious screw-ups that were so bad I just cringed when they were announced as new "features". Ignoring your users complaints and calling them stupid and then doing whatever you want including things the users don't want, clearly says Zuckerman isn't smart at all, just arrogant. He wasn't the first to invent a social media web site or even a social media web site for college students. He just happen to get lucky.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[unity]

Isn't the whole reason for this article the fact that they DON'T have a monopoly? They can do whatever they want with their property, as long as the government doesn't guarantee them a monopoly then it isn't any of my business.

ethical companies do better

[MasaMuneCyrus]

Ethical companies generally perform better, regardless of how the market is doing, compared to unethical ones. (I don't have an exact source for this, but I've seen stock market studies before)
 
...Well, that's not exactly true. Companies whose users actually like the company perform better. Usually that means that the company is ethical (e.g., Atlus, XSeed Games, Valve), but not always (e.g., Apple).

What goes around comes around. A company that respects its fans and is loyal to its fans will, in return, receive loyal fans that respect the company. A company that doesn't care about its customers will, in turn, receive customers that dump the company as soon as something better comes around.

While big companies can afford to be unethical in the short term, it is bad long-term policy.

stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Barbera Streisand effect anybody?

Re:I got it! He DID violate the TOS!! (sort of)

[DEmmons]

i love how, given the context of the current situation between Google and Facebook, 'loosing' users is more accurate than a non-typo. although it wouldn't be practical to be loosed from FB just yet. maybe some day.

Be Honest

[Anonymous Coward]

How many people here are being paid by Google to hype Google+?

hmmm..

[SuperDre]

And I'm still wondering what the fuss is about Google+? What's better about Google+ compared to Facebook, cause I don't see it.. personally you really are just a moron if you are jumping on the Google+ bandwagon because it would be the new thing.. There must be real reasons to yet switch again between social networks, especially since there will never be one which will be THE ONE.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[perryizgr8]

so if a judge decides that you just need to pay a fine for a dui incident, you did not commit a criminal act? i thought illegal was something that made you a criminal.

Re: Facebook Bans Google+ Ads

[perryizgr8]

this is quite informative, but strangely at '0' right now.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[geekoid]

the stopped someone from running ads they had a deal with. They site a vague 'look at the terms' statement.

THAT"S why it's unethical..and possible illegal.

It really boils down to the contract.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[geekoid]

What is it with people and this overly simple view of the world? Are we really getting so simple minded?

It wasn't even an ad for Google+.

Of course, you want to jump right out there and make some statement to make up for your tiny penis size you didn't bother to take the time to read the article.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[geekoid]

and crime != jail. You can be guilty of a crime and not go to jail.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[bill_mcgonigle]

and jail != prison. Jail is where people are held awaiting trial or sentencing.

competition

[StripedCow]

It seems that currently there is only room for one big player on the social networking market.

That is strange. It would be like AT&T being the only telephone company. I just hope that somehow, if google takes over, facebook remains a big player, because lack of competition will just be a very bad thing for consumers, even if google runs the place.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[war4peace]

Yeah well we're not discussing whether they can or can't make the rules; we're discussing whether the rules could have been better. And furthermore, whether the way of enforcing the rules could have been better.
When someone bans your account and don't leave you any method to get your account back - then they are abusing their power and frankly I would negatively advertise them pretty much anywhere. Sure, probably nobody would care, but when enough dissatisfied people do it, who knows?

OTOH Google+ gives you a data liberation page.

[justsayin]

I am old to computers but new to social networking. Got an invite form a respected techie buddy to join Google+. So I did. Now I am free to share all the inane BS associated with my life just like any 13 year old school girl. It's kind of cool. We just swap cutsie pie crap from the net and a couple of techy articles.

One thing I will say, google+ does have pretty open privacy standards (for now) and a page called Data Liberation. You can pretty much down load anything you put out there on your + page. Then you are free to take your data where ever you want to go.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[Doctor_Jest]

Sounds like the makings of a buddy cop show, doesn't it? :)

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[tbannist]

Maybe they can do so legally. However, it's still terrible customer service and blatantly unethical. It's just one more reason I'm going to delete my Facebook account and move to Google+ at the first chance. It has everything I really want.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[Myopic]

Pfft. Yeah, but saying Facebook acts unethical isn't a news story. That hasn't been news since Zuck was in college.

Hope they fix the games friends problem on google+

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll switch If the games on Google+ doesn't force me to add gazillions of peoples I don't know as "friends" just to be able to play. Then those peoples have access to my pictures and all my personal Information. I'll be very happy if there is a provision if the ToS for that. It's relatively easy to do: just allow us to seperate gaming "friends" from our real-life friends.

You get what you pay for

[rcharbon]

People sure do love to bitch about a service they get for free.

Monopolistic?

[mark0978]

Facebook claims to be the 800 lb Gorilla in social networking. Doesn't this seem to be the response of a monopoly power? Can they actually ban ads for other social networks? If so, do they have to ban ALL ads for ALL other social networks?

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a sticky situation.

see Jane's pecs

[epine]

I'm late to the party, but this seems like a pre-adolescent game of "Hot or Not" where you prove you've got what it takes by stealing someone else's lunch money while carefully gauging the group reaction, then scanning it's periphery for insecure girls in disclosure mode. At least, that's how it was played back in the day when the human body still had secrets.

What's the point of power if you don't test the boundaries? Especially if you're stuck with a tree fort business model.

Re:Search a URL for quick links & anti-phishin

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that you sir, are a perfect typist and never ever make typographical errors [...] malicious phishing sites that you may inadvertently visit via your much praised "address bar"

I'm trying desperately to come up with a realistic scenario in which I'd mistype the letter "f". I'm not having much luck. (And the possibility of somehow being inadvertently sent to a phishing site, which I've never before visited, instead of Facebook, which is always at the very top of the Awesome Bar auto-complete suggestions... frankly, it boggles the mind.)

You must be a simply horrible typist, or really drunk. And in the latter case... I hope you have more, and you're willing to share.

Furthermore, if you use most browser's "address bar" to incorrectly enter a URL and wind up at a phishing site, it will bring you back to the same phishing site automatically when you enter the partial URL via auto-completion search.

Verily, may I introduce you to the dark magick of the History deletion... most useful for removing teh pron sites from your auto-completion results so your mom doesn't find them, but equally effective to get rid of a phishing site that you accidentally visited.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[DragonWriter]

so if a judge decides that you just need to pay a fine for a dui incident, you did not commit a criminal act?

No, DUI is a crime (at least, AFAIK, in all U.S. jurisdictions), independently of whether or not jail time is involved. All things that send you to jail* are crimes, but not all crimes send you to jail.

All things that are crimes are illegal, but not all things that are illegal are crimes (while a crime might have a fine, civil offenses which might result in damages or a civil monetary penalty that looks a lot like a fine are not criminal, despite being illegal.)

Things that send people to jail are a subset of crimes, and crimes are a subset of illegal acts; it is an error to equate the argument that "X should be illegal" with "X should result in people going to jail". The latter may imply the former, but the former does not imply the latter.

* actually, there are some exceptions such as being held as a material witness, etc., but they are tangential to the basic categorization of ways of breaking the law here.

** except that it doesn't, either, as explained in the immediately previous point.

Re:Nah, we're outraged. Send the ad police!

[DragonWriter]

and jail != prison. Jail is where people are held awaiting trial or sentencing.

Or where they go after sentencing for minor crimes with relatively short terms of incarceration in most U.S. jurisdictions (under 1 year is, as I recall, a fairly common rule.) Or where they go after sentencing for most crimes under California's plan to meet the federal court order to reduce the population in its overcrowded State prison system. There's not really a consist, bright line -- even among U.S. jurisdictions -- between what "jail" and "prison" are used for.