Instagram Users Jumping Ship Over Facebook Acquisition
TECHRADAR: Facebook's past policies cause privacy concerns

Social networking giant Facebook bought social photo-sharing giant Instagram yesterday for $1 billion.

And, although Facebook users' responses to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's announcement of the news seem mainly positive, some sites report that Instagram users are already ditching the service en masse.

In the announcement, Zuckerberg promised to focus on "building on Instagram's strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook."

But it seems many users are more concerned over Facebook's dubious privacy policies. They've tweeted messages like, "I hate Facebook and the lack of privacy now I have to remove my pics before I can't," referring to Facebook's well-known policy of making it notoriously difficult to delete your account (though that's no longer really the case).

Another Twitter user said, "You know what Instagram was missing? Ads and privacy invasions. All it took was [$]1 billion dollars to make that happen." » | Michael Rougeau | Tuesday, April 10, 2012

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Chinese Acquisitions: China Buys Up the World
THE ECONOMIST: And the world should stay open for business

Image: The Economist
IN THEORY, the ownership of a business in a capitalist economy is irrelevant. In practice, it is often controversial. From Japanese firms’ wave of purchases in America in the 1980s and Vodafone’s takeover of Germany’s Mannesmann in 2000 to the more recent antics of private-equity firms, acquisitions have often prompted bouts of national angst.

Such concerns are likely to intensify over the next few years, for China’s state-owned firms are on a shopping spree. Chinese buyers—mostly opaque, often run by the Communist Party and sometimes driven by politics as well as profit—have accounted for a tenth of cross-border deals by value this year, bidding for everything from American gas and Brazilian electricity grids to a Swedish car company, Volvo.

There is, understandably, rising opposition to this trend. The notion that capitalists should allow communists to buy their companies is, some argue, taking economic liberalism to an absurd extreme. But that is just what they should do, for the spread of Chinese capital should bring benefits to its recipients, and the world as a whole.

Why China is different

Not so long ago, government-controlled companies were regarded as half-formed creatures destined for full privatisation. But a combination of factors—huge savings in the emerging world, oil wealth and a loss of confidence in the free-market model—has led to a resurgence of state capitalism. About a fifth of global stockmarket value now sits in such firms, more than twice the level ten years ago.

The rich world has tolerated the rise of mercantilist economies before: think of South Korea’s state-led development or Singapore’s state-controlled firms, which are active acquirers abroad. Yet China is different. It is already the world’s second-biggest economy, and in time is likely to overtake America. Its firms are giants that until now have been inward-looking but are starting to use their vast resources abroad. >>> | Thursday, November 11, 2010

Tosh from ‘The Economist’! – © Mark