German Tribune

In what apparently is an evident attempt to assuage users' concerns about privacy and the way in which their personal information is used, social networking giant Friday unveiled a new set of proposed changes to its “Statements of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR),” which the company calls its ‘terms of service.’

A video uploaded to the YouTube video-sharing site on Monday has claimed that the next target for the Anonymous hacking group was the popular Facebook social networking site, which will be attacked on January 28.

Threatening to shutdown Facebook, the video, released in the name of the Anonymous hacking network, has claimed that the hacking outfit’s recent attacks on public sites are a clear indication that an “online war” has kicked off between Anonymous, the people, and the US government.

Following a precedence of sorts set by a number of Silicon Valley firms that have established a presence in Manhattan in recent years, the popular social network Facebook is also planning to open an engineering office in New York, for attracting technical talent.

According to the information shared by Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, the social networking company - which is reportedly preparing for a potential $10 billion initial public offering - will open its NYC engineering office early next year.

While net savvy’s are enjoying good time on Facebook, Germans would have to bear another jolt, as recent reports have confirmed that owing to issues surrounding user’s privacy, a meeting was held between the Schleswig-Holstein agency's chief, Thilo Weichert, and a representative from Facebook, Richard Allan, recently.

German authorities have been annoyed with the facebook's new facial-recognition feature.

Hamburg's data protection Official Johannes Casper has warned the facebook and has asked it to stop the facial recognition software on German users as it has violated the European privacy laws.

Casper stated, "Should Facebook maintain the function, it must ensure that only data from persons who have declared consent to the storage of their biometric facial profiles be stored in the database".

The Facebook’s new photo-tagging software has been censured, as its facial recognition feature results in revealing the unauthorized collection of data of every individual. German Data Protection Chief Johannes Caspar stated that Facebook might be inclined to pay a €300,000 (£262,000) fine for its facial-recognition feature, as his feature scans users' photographs to identify and tag their contacts.

UK Information Commissioner's Office has also been concerned over the new facial recognition software of Facebook that infringes the privacy and data protection laws of European Union.

Police authorities have said that parties that are promoted by social networking sites like Facebook generally pose serious threat to law and order of a particular region.

The statement was made after an incident occurred where 100 of Hamburg police officers had to look out after 1,600 people who gatecrashed birthday of a 16-year old. At that time, to control the situation some 100 arrests had to be made.