Facebook has already removed many applications that are causing undesired actions towards users who aren’t even using the application (in these cases a friend of the person may have the application installed and the effects of the application will spread to friends of that user).

The company has decided to take this action due to the high volume of complaints that they have received from users of the service. Developers who abuse the Facebook policy by creating malicious applications will be cut off from using major Facebook features, such as the Facebook News Feed.

Facebook has further added to this by making it harder for applications to publish news to a user’s individual feed. Basically, Facebook is trying to remove the use of passive feed additions to create a better experience for users of the service.

The approach that Facebook is taking on this issue is quite aggressive as the company is not willing to deal with individuals who are abusing the system. With all of that being said, expect the quality of applications to improve by a great margin within the next month as these policies come into play.

Investigators working for the Department of Economic Justice posed as teenagers to become registered members of Facebook.com. They reported that in a matter of days, sexual predators began sending them rather distasteful messages. Although they immediately filed their complaints using Facebook.com’s online system, their concerns were not addressed quickly. Facebook.com was thereafter accused of conducting false advertising since it claims to provide a safe and secure haven for young children interested to participate in online networking.

To make up for its past mistakes, Facebook.com will be posting appropriate warnings regarding the possible dangers the website may pose to young, unsupervised children. It will also try to respond promptly to complaints filed by its members in order to immediately correct the situation. As an additional measure, it will hire an independent, third party to take charge in tracking Facebook.com’s responses to the various complaints lodged with it.

The phenomenal growth of Facebook is attributed to the fact that it is no longer restricting the use to colleges in the United States. This allows other interested parties from other countries to access the site. In the United Kingdom alone, the number of unique users has increased from 448,000 to 6,506,000 during the period October 2006 to August 2007. This translates to roughly 991 million minutes spent by all Facebook users within the site in August.

The study revealed that 20% of the web population in the United Kingdom logs in on both Facebook and MySpace. On the average, a Facebook user spends at least 2 hours and 32 minutes browsing through the site in a month.

The strong presence of Facebook can be felt in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, its top 3 markets. There are rumors that Microsoft is currently engaged in talks to acquire 5% share in Facebook.

While some companies ban the access to facebook, there are some that choose to embrace this new online phenomenon. One of these companies is Flight Centre that sees facebook to be quite useful with customer’s consultations. The adoption of Flight Centre came as a surprise to many, including workplace efficient consultant Ms Kathryn Anda.

Ms. Anda believes that employees don’t log in to facebook for work purposes but merely for socializing.

A study by Surfcontrol, an internet filtering company, has found that facebook cost employers a $5 a year lost of productivity in Australia.

Richard Cullen, a spokesman of surfcontrol, said that people spends a lot of time on facebook because it’s highly addictive and instantaneous.

Facebook is a social tool and is used for social activity which is why most companies like Channel Seven, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ban it completely.

Most of the Facebook.com registered users are interested to explore possible relationships online even if it means disclosing their private information. The faith that these users have in this specific website to secure the private data entered therein is quite low, a little more than 5% among those surveyed. At least 85% are more than happy to share their uploaded photos with someone else while an impressive 91% are not afraid to post their personal email address.

Based on the answers to the survey questionnaires, another presumption can be deduced. At least 44% stated that they have met someone online, which implies that an individual is confident enough to take care of oneself without much reliance on the privacy features of Facebook.com.