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FEDS INVESTIGATING FACEBOOK BETTING
A sequel to the Second Life community sites saga
Computerworld reports that the latest trend – toward community websites like Facebook – is on the FBI’s radar for possible online betting violations.
Apparently March Madness office pools on social networks have caught the attention of the FBI. “There could be a violation if there’s a payout and if the operators take a cut,” an FBI spokesman said.
In a statement, Facebook said that it “does not condone the use of the site for any unlawful purposes, and users must agree as part of the terms of use not to conduct illegal activity.”
The company declined further commentCBSSports.com maneuvered earlier this year to make it easier for Facebook users to become involved in betting pools for the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament, which gets under way this week.
In early February, CBSSports.com unveiled an application that allows Facebook users to fill out brackets for the tournament and compare their picks with those of their friends on the site.The new CBSSports.com Tournament Brackets application provides Facebook users with access to tournament coverage from CBS Sports, CBSSports.com and NCAA.com, in addition to letting them fill out and manage brackets on Facebook. The site also includes links to the March Madness on Demand service for live streaming video coverage.
Promoting online gambling was “not our intent with the application,” LeslieAnne Wade, a senior vice president at CBS, said. “These are new issues that are going to require new thought processes and new answers. [CBS will] look at it.”
Sean Aune, a blogger, noted that while law enforcement agencies don’t generally target office pools, “bringing [pools] to a site such as Facebook is just a little too open and too easy to detect to ignore. It seems there are over 20 000 Facebook groups involved with some form of bracket betting, but not all are involved with cash gambling.”
But, Aune also noted, “with an estimated 48 percent of the population involved in some form of pool for March Madness, you can understand how even the authorities might have to endure some measure of illicit gambling on the Web – whether via social networks or otherwise.”
Online Gaming News provided under license by InfoPowa
I was reading a little while ago that terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda get more than 80% of their information from social networking sites like Facebook
The obvious weak link is the dreaded teenage daughter with 1000+ Facebook friends residing in the middle East telling her how pretty she looks and preying on her insecurity, apparently a number of these jokers are wannabe terrorists, or belong to terrorist groups
So how does this pose a threat, u might wonder
Well, there are several security leaks in Facebook, and the Applications in particular, people are manipulating the system and finding their way into your computer, but besides that, if u write on someone’s wall, any of your friends can see what u wrote and see the other person’s profile, even if they set their settings to restrict strangers from viewing their profile, which can be a problem if u have relatives in the military, or working in a position of power, and then there is the whole groups u belong to issue, and pictures posted in your profile
Aside from all that, it also gives strangers, or enemies, a closer look into your life, which they can exploit, they take note of your habits, weaknesses, and cleverly manipulate their way into your life forming a bond which would never have existed otherwise
for your own sake, stay away from such sites. …. …. Everything is saved in a database … think of it like big brother :cappy:
@nick777 157305 wrote:
I was reading a little while ago that terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda get more than 80% of their information from social networking sites like Facebook
My friend who is in the UK army has been told to take down his profile (as has all army people) because terrorists are not only using the info they post but are actually building lists of targets from officers on facebook!!! V scarey stuff!
