David Gelles

Social networking website Facebook has capped a year of phenomenal growth by overtaking Google's popularity among US Internet users, with industry data showing it has scored more visits on its home page than the search engine.

While many Internet users are fretting about preserving their online privacy in the age of social networking, a new breed of digital natives is actively stripping away the last vestiges of anonymity.

Facebook has become entangled in a dispute over advertising practices after some of its users claimed they received un­authorised charges to their credit cards while playing games on the social networking site.

Nokia, the world's biggest mobile-phone maker, on Thursday launched a legal challenge against alleged intellectual property abuse by Apple, opening a new front in its battle against a US rival that is transforming the industry.

Facebook on Tuesday said it would form a partnership with Nielsen, the market research company, in an effort further to legitimize itself as a mainstream advertising platform.

Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison said late on Monday night that Sun Microsystems was losing $100m a month while European regulators scrutinize Oracle's acquisition plan for the hardware supplier.

With social media on the rise, traditional Internet portals such as Yahoo and AOL, once the front doors to the online world, are being spurned in favor of social sites, where users are discovering a new, more personal filter to the infinite world of the Internet.

More than 80 per cent of the largest US advertisers are using Facebook to promote themselves, suggesting that corporate America has embraced the social networking site as a mainstream promotional platform.

Deutsche Telekom is threatening to block its customers from using the new Skype application on their Apple iPhones, an indication that telecom providers feel threatened by the rise of mobile VoIP, or voice over Internet protocol, software.