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The changes that social networking site, Facebook made to its terms and conditions has brought to light all the rights that people give up when they register to use such a website. Until the controversy over the terms and conditions of the social networking were made public, not many people were aware of the rights that that these sites assert over content that members share and upload.

The head of Digital Rights group, Simon Davies said that a very small percentage of users go to the privacy settings on their accounts and make changes to them. He also said that many fail to learn what exactly will happen to the content they post. According to Mr Davies, many sites have extreme policy controls which if tweaked, can reduce the distribution amount of an individual’s data and this can really make a difference.

A blogger, Amanda French who went through the policy pages of sites like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and others found interesting facts. Even though the wording differed, she found that sites like Google, Yahoo, Twitter and MySpace clearly withdrew from claiming ownership of data that was uploaded.

However, she also noted that the amended terms that Facebook used were arrogant and extraordinarily grabby. Because of this Facebook moved immediately to its former Terms and Conditions which a lawyer from Brussels, David Wood said showed the power of these sites when things go wrong.

The internet is a part of the world where there is minimal difference between real and fake. If you target one the other automatically gets affected. Such is the case of the current Facebook clamp down.

Facebook has started removing fake celebrity accounts fearing defamation of the website. Many fans of the celebrities open accounts on the names of the celebrities and end up quarrelling with other fake celebrities.

Often people impersonating the stars use the fake account to get in touch with the stars’ acquaintances in an attempt to find out their phone numbers and other personal details. The soap EastEnders has complained about the fake account holders in Facebook as an impersonated Kara Tointon revealed the soap’s secret plot to the masses.

After Kate Winslet won her Oscar, she became the star who has been impersonated the most, leaving behind other celebrities like Barack Obama, Britney Spears and Sarah Palin.

However, as a result of the web site clean up procedure, many celebrities have lost their original accounts. Lindsay Lohan and David Beckham complained about being affected by the Facebook clean up.

Yahoo! has been in trouble for the past on year and the global financial crisis has not helped the situation. With Google gaining ground steadily Yahoo! was rumoured to be in merger/takeover talks with Google and Microsoft.

However, nothing has taken place and the officials of Yahoo! say that they are still fighting the battle and may well survive. In the mean time Yahoo! has invented new software and is introducing tools which are expected to take online marketing to greater heights.

The new tools will let paid searchers view graphical ads which also include audio visual links. Previously only text links could be viewed using such searches. Google and all other competitors lack this type of device. Some more new inclusions are also expected next month on the website.

Naturally the management of Yahoo! expects to see a success as the experts have commented that many clients will readily use the service for publicising their products in a better way to stay ahead of their competitors in this hard time of global recession.

Conflicting views regarding the success of the new services have already started.

Getting free from adverts may not sound like a good way to raise a web business but it is one tactic that is being used by Yahoo! under their new CEO, Carol Bartz. This past week, in a two day staff pow-wow, it was decided by Yahoo! management to discontinue serving advertisements on their popular Yahoo! Mail in certain rising markets so as to enhance the experience for people with slow internet connections.

This decision, which was spread to the employees by Bartz in her periodic memo, was intended to stalk the loss of market share which Yahoo! Mail is experiencing in emerging market countries.

This move from Yahoo! seems to be one of the nips and tucks taken by the new CEO as she evaluates different aspects of the industry.

Jeffrey Lindsay, analyst with Sanford Bernstein, believes that it is extremely important for any web business to hold on to their existing users. Lindsay also added that it was incredibly heartening that Bartz is also thinking about overseas users. This shows that she is certainly considering the growth strategy of the company. Yahoo! Mail with roughly 280 million users across the world, as of December, is the second most well-liked free email service in the world.

For the past five months, internet giant Yahoo! has successfully managed to increase its market share in search advertising. This should make rivals Google and Microsoft lose some sleep since Yahoo! has slowly but surely been strengthening its hand.

This comeback by Yahoo! has only confirmed the view that Microsoft, the software giant, needs Yahoo! badly and showed that the dominance enjoyed right now by search king, Google, is not unassailable.

Since last year’s failed courtship with Microsoft, Yahoo! has been in free fall from the top. The stock of Yahoo! has fallen to its lowest in five years and its management has undergone a huge shake-up with chief executive, Jerry Yang, being replaced by Carol Bartz, a relative newcomer.

In fact, much of Yahoo!’s problems are because of the decline in its search advertising business. According to an internet research company, the total US search market share for Yahoo! fell from 30% in August 2006 to 19.6% last August. However, since then, the market share for Yahoo! has constantly been rising and hit 21% in January this year. Even better news for Yahoo! was that much of its gain from last month was at Google’s expense.

In addition, Yahoo! has become the first major search advertising company to add videos and images to its paid search listings.