Facebook has initiated a complete suspension of all LOLapps apps and games. This includes Critter Island, another clone of the numerous Sim games on Facebook.

All Facebook had to say about this, was: “We have disabled applications from LOLapps due to violations of our terms.”

Read more here.

It seems that Digg is going to try to be a mixture of Facebook and Twitter, putting a stronger emphasis on social features and setting aside the content, making it much less meaningful.

Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, wrote an open letter to Rose, saying that the new version of Digg is a bad idea:

…this new version of digg reeks of VC meddling. It’s cobbling together features from more popular sites and departing from the core of digg, which was to “give the power back to the people.”

…It’s a damned shame to see digg just re-implementing features from other websites.

2.5 years ago, I stopped using Digg as a regular user. It has become irrelevant and annoying – the stupid inner-politics, the Bury Brigade, the worshiping of Apple to the point of fanaticism and the angry mob mentality of the comments – all of these and more made Digg a place I didn’t want to be in any more. It was about the time when Mixx was getting some good attention, but that didn’t last, either.

Nowadays, I enjoy Reddit and Hacker News. Sure, they both have their problems and annoyances, but they are still FUN, and they manage to bring interesting stories to the front. Reddit and Hacker News are what Digg was supposed to be – great social news sites for the technology-inclined crowd, featuring interesting content. Digg is no longer that kind of site, and reforming it in the shape of Facebook and Twitter isn’t going to make it more appealing.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Facebook, MySpace and several other social-networking sites have been sending data to advertising companies that could be used to find consumers’ names and other personal details, despite promises they don’t share such information without consent.”.

That really says it all. These sites (as well as Digg, LiveJournal, Hi5 and Xanga) sent advertising companies personal information about users – without the users ever agreeing to it.

People commenting to these news sound less than surprise, as if expecting this to happen. It seems that many people have already given up their privacy and don’t really care what sort of personal information is floating out there. For those of you who still care, just know that when it comes to information – everything is for sale and all bets are off. It’s up to you to decide what will you do about it.

For those of you who wish to wreak some vengenace – here’s your chance. This cool app is called FarmVillain and it will publish funny stories to your feed, such as “You can now grow hemp on your farm, you know, for making rope”, “Master Butcher achieved! You have successfully slaughtered 1000 cows in a 24 hour interval on your farm” and “You found zombie Jesus on your farm” – which is rather disturbing, I must say.

Just click on the story you want to publish to your feed, and annoy the hell out of your dimwitted Farmville-addicted friends. Enjoy!

A massive spyware attack on Facebook was launched during the past weekend.

AVG Technologies researchers indicated that from midnight to 9 a.m. EST on Saturday, May 15, 2010, AVG software detected and blocked more than three hundred thousand rogue applications.

Social networks are viral by nature – when a user installs a Facebook app, there’s usually an update on their feed. Then their friends install it, etc. This viral behavior makes it very easy for rogue and dangerous apps to spread.

“This latest issue really underscores how powerful, while at the same time vulnerable, social networking applications are. This attack was actually stunning in terms of scale,” said Roger Thompson, AVG’s Chief Research Officer.

This specific attack, which offered a picture of a girl in a bikini to entice the victim to install an adware-supported viewer, was not viral according to AVG researchers, and was first seen in different forms last week.

Last week’s rogue push peaked at about 80,000 for the day, and had dwindled to just a couple of hundred per day by Friday, May 14, 2010. At that point AVG researchers were hopeful that the adware attack would cease; however, all indications point to the fact that they were just gearing up for a fresh start… and a powerful one at that.

Remember to keep your anti-virus software up-to-date, and don’t install suspicious apps on Facebook or on your computer.