GOOGLE, THE MOST VISITED SITE IN 2011

"It was the site with more unique visitors to the Internet in the U.S. this year, followed by Facebook and the search engine Yahoo!. In addition, the portal by Zuckeberg was the absolute leader in social networking, surpassing Twitter"

The Internet Giant received an average of 153.4 million visitors Americans alone each month from computers at home, according to measurement firm indicator of the global Nielsen.

For its part, Facebook racked up 137.6 million unique visitors per month and Yahoo!, 130.1 million.

The pages MSN, WindowsLive and Microsoft Bing were as follows, with 115.9 million unique Internet users, followed by YouTube, with 106.7 million.

Mark Zuckerberg's site, with over 800 million users worldwide, was the absolute leader in the category of social networks and blogs. Their 137.6 million unique users per month account for more than triple the 45, Blogger 7 million and nearly six times the 23.6 million microblogging site Twitter

COSON SIGNS BIG PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT WITH GOOGLE IN LAGOS

Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), the nation’s sole government approved copyright collective management organization for musical works and sound recordings on Wednesday, December 7, 2011 signed a major partnership agreement with internet giant, Google at the Civic Centre, Victoria island, Lagos.

At the event attended by many entertainment industry big wigs, COSON Chairman, Chief Tony Okoroji said that the agreement negotiated over several months was a major step in providing worldwide access to the music of Nigerian artistes and to ensure that the creators of music in Nigeria and the investors receive appropriate compensation for their labour.

He also announced that Google is an important partner in the West African Network (WAN) being coordinated by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) which seeks to link the database of all the key collective management organizations in West Africa including COSON and to provide for them a major global shop window.

While Chief Okoroji signed the agreement on behalf of COSON, Google Senior Director- Partnership, (Europe, Africa & Middle East), Mr. Patrick Walker who was in Nigeria for the event signed for Google which was also represented at the event by Country Manager, Ms. Juliet Ehimuan and Marketing Manager, Ms Affiom Bassey. Also present at the CIVIC Centre for the signing ceremony were COSON Acting General Manager, Ms Bernice Eriemeghe, Head of Datatech, Mr. Vincent Adawaisi and Board members, Mr. Obi Asika of Storm 360; Mr. Toju Ejueyitchie of Premier Records,, Hon. Johh Udegbunan of MORAN; Mr. Laolu Akins, the renowned music producer, Mr. Charles Imoloame of Nigerian Music Club, Mr. Joel Ajayi of MULOAN and fuji exponent, Alhaji S.A. Agboola. Also at the Civic Centre were the likes of showbiz impresario, Mr. Edi Lawani and Singer, Kenny Saint Brown. The occasion was also used to launch Youtube Nigeria.

Meanwhile, COSON has wound down its week long exhibition, at the Creative Industries Expo which was coordinated by the British Council at the Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos.

There was a beehive of activities at the COSON stand throughout the expo as many thronged the stand to attend the daily copyright clinic hosted by intellectual property lawyer, Mr. Justin Ige or to get information from the COSON team of Elizabeth Ike, Anwulika Ngene and Isa Haruna. Among the many digniteries at the COSON stand was the Hon. Minister of Culture, Tourism & National Orientation, Chief Edem Duke, who was received at the stand by COSON Chairman, Chief Tony Okoroji.

FACEBOOK ADMITS MISTAKES IN PROTECTING USERS' PRIVACY

Government regulators are sharing some alarming information about Facebook. They say that Facebook failed to keep privacy promises and deceived its customers. The unflattering portrait of Facebook's privacy practices emerged Tuesday in a Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The FTC put out a statement last night in which it said that the social networking website had promised that it will secure the information of its users by keeping it secretive but at the same time, it repeatedly allowed the personal information to be shared and made it public on various accounts. FTC noted that these actions were not fair, deceptive and breached federal law.

The Federal Trade Commission has also given the social networking website settlement requirements that require to follow steps that assure that it does not exposes and breaches the information of those using the social networking website, without giving them before-hand notice and keeping their consent in regard.

Some of the complaints against Facebook that has been raised by FTC include changing of the website by Facebook in 2009 that some changes were made to the profile of users which turned their previously altered things which were private as public. The users were not warned of the changes at all. FTC also noted, amongst a list of other privacy breaches done by Facebook, that the 3rd party applications use personal data/all data of users rather than the information it just needs and the users who play these 3rd party applications or use other kinds of such applications, were not aware of it.

The social networking website also had a program by the name of Verified Apps and it was claimed by Facebook that is certified the security rights of the participating applications, when it actually didn’t. The FTC pointed out many other things as well in its report against Facebook. Users haven’t been too happy with the change of settings done by Facebook every now and then, which leaves their privacy to be manipulated in some way or the other.