83 million Facebook accounts may be fakes

alkieanon's picture
Submitted by alkieanon on Fri, 08/03/2012 - 19:21

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83 million Facebook accounts may be fakes: Facebook's share price has fallen below $20 for the first time, as it was revealed around 8 percent of its accounts could be sketchy. The social-networking website is now worth almost half what it was when it floated on the Nasdaq in May. It has lost nearly $50 billion in value -- more than the total valuation of Hewlett Packard or coffee company Starbucks. The stock debuted at $38 and since then has headed south, hit by increased doubts about its high valuation, growth prospects, and worries over its ability to make money from its growing mobile audience. Facebook's latest figures suggest as many as 83 million users may come from dubious sources -- including duplicate accounts, pages for pets and those designed to send spam.

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/08/03/83-million-facebook-accounts-may-...

alkieanon's picture

alkieanon

Fri, 08/03/2012 - 19:24

The number of accounts grew to 955 million at the end of the second quarter, but some 8.7 percent may be dodgy, the company admitted in its quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. There are "inherent challenges" in measuring usage "despite our efforts to detect and suppress such behavior," the tech giant said. It said duplicate accounts -- when one user maintains more than one account -- may represent some 4.8 percent of active users. Another 2.4 percent may be for a business, group or "non-human entity such as a pet" and 1.5 percent are likely to be "undesirable" accounts that use the accounts for spam or other malicious activity.

JR Harris's picture

JR Harris

Sat, 08/04/2012 - 12:58

Well, do you know anyone that violates the Facebook Terms of Service (TOS) in the relentless pursuit of protecting the cult of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and stalking people going through nasty child custody battles in Pennsylvania?

4. Registration and Account Security

Here are some commitments you make to us relating to registering and maintaining the security of your account:

1. You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.
2. You will not create more than one personal account.
3. If we disable your account, you will not create another one without our permission.
4. You will not use your personal timeline for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).
5. You will not use Facebook if you are under 13.
6. You will not use Facebook if you are a convicted sex offender.
7. You will keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date.
8. You will not share your password (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account.
9. You will not transfer your account (including any Page or application you administer) to anyone without first getting our written permission.
10. If you select a username or similar identifier for your account or Page, we reserve the right to remove or reclaim it if we believe it is appropriate (such as when a trademark owner complains about a username that does not closely relate to a user's actual name).

Source: https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms

"Tradition 10 - Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy." Please follow orders from the Interchurch Center if you are an AA member and don't comment.